Include begin{document}, end{document} in LaTeX tables code generated in Stata

Question

While using estpost/esttab/esttab in Stata to generate LaTeX tables, latex initialization syntax such as documentclass{}, begin{document}, and end{document} are never included. This means that every LaTeX code generated needs for these to be added.

I have many many tables to create. Is it possible to include these through Stata itself?

Answer 1

There are two potential solutions, the first is to include these using the prehead and postfoot options, which allow you to do this directly, but make table formatting a bit more difficult. Or there is the option to simply use include{asdf.tex} in another file.

Solution 1 example:

sysuse auto, clear

reg price mpg

esttab using "temp.tex", ///
    prehead("\documentclass{article}\def\sym#1{\ifmmode^{#1}\else\(^{#1}\)\fi}\begin{document}\begin{tabular}{l*{1}{c}}") ///
    postfoot("\end{tabular}\end{document}") ///
    replace

This will make a basic table, but doing things like including a title become more difficult with this option.

Second solution, in a tex file, you can include any number of tables thusly:

\documentclass{article}
\begin{document}
\input{any_tex_file.tex}
\input{any_tex_file2.tex}
\end{document}

and in this way you can include all of your tables.

Hope this helps

Answer 2

A better solution could be including this command into your stata esttab output commands

booktabs page(column)