How to extract Tikz images from a PDF

Question

I have a paper in PDF, created using Latex and Tikz. Now I need to produce individual files for the images, one file per image.

Since I have the source, I could manually copy and paste (let me see..) twenty-nine separate pieces of code, add some scaffolding, and then produce the files with Latex. But perhaps there is a simpler way?

I tried pdfimages but it produced nothing.

Any ideas anybody?

Answer 1

As you have the source, it is very easy to produce individual files for each tikzpicture by using the externalize library.

The following example needs to be compiled with -shell-escape enabled and will produce not only the document itself, but also document-figure0.pdf and document-figure1.pdf.

As an additional advantage, this will speed up the compilation of your document, because the tikzpictures will only be redone if they were changed.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\tikzexternalize

\begin{document}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \fill[red] (0,0) circle (1);
\end{tikzpicture}

\begin{tikzpicture}
    \fill[blue] (0,0) rectangle (1,1);
\end{tikzpicture}

\end{document}