\section{Image Externalization}
\begin{pgfplotslibrary}{external}
	The |external| library offers a convenient method to export every single |tikzpicture| into a separate~|.pdf| (or~|.eps|). Later runs of \LaTeX\ will simply include these graphics, thereby reducing typesetting time considerably.
	
	This library is documented in more detail in Section~\ref{sec:pgfplots:export} ``Export to {\pdf/\eps}''.


	The |external| library has been written by Christian Feuers\"anger (author of \PGFPlots). It has been contributed to \Tikz\ as general purpose library, so the reference documentation along with all tweaks can be found in~\cite[Section ``Externalization Library'']{tikz}. The command |\usepgfplotslibrary{external}| is actually just a wrapper which loads |\usetikzlibrary{external}| or, if this library does not yet exist because the installed \pgfname\ has at most version $2.00$, it will load a copy which is shipped with \PGFPlots.
\end{pgfplotslibrary}
