
\section{Image Externalization}

\begingroup
\def\pgfplotsmanualcurlibrary{external}

\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}
\endgroup
