# [texhax] Retrieve graphics measurments

Marsh Feldman MarshFeldman at cox.net
Thu Jul 22 02:57:51 CEST 2010

Thanks. This works like a charm!

On 7/20/2010 5:07 PM, Lars Madsen wrote:
> Marshall Feldman wrote:
>> On Fri Jul 9 23:15:29 CEST 2010, Martin Schröder martin at oneiros.de
>> wrote:
>>
>>> 2010/7/9 Marshall Feldman<marsh at uri.edu
>>> <http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/texhax>>:
>>> />  I am a very new LaTeX user. I've searched all over and cannot
>>> find this
>> />/>  information. My question is, how does one retrieve the
>> dimensions of an
>> />/>  inserted graphic?
>> /
>>> \settowidth et.al.
>>
>>> Best
>>>    Martin
>>
>> Sorry, but I should have been more explicit. I'm trying to develop a
>> class for letterhead stationary that will allow the user to specify
>> one of several graphics to appear in the header. So to get the page
>> layout right, it's important to measure the height of the graphic
>> accurately, depending on which graphic is specified.
>>
>> Suppose I have an encapsulated PostScript (eps) file containing the
>> following two lines:
>>
>>    %%BoundingBox: 0 0 543 388
>>    %%HiResBoundingBox: 0 0 542.7368 387.7378
>>
>>  From this information, the aspect ratio (h/w) is 388/543 = 0.7145.
>>
>> Now I read this figure into my LaTeX document using the graphicx
>> package and the following LaTeX code:
>>
>>    \newsavebox{\mybox}
>>    \sbox{\mybox}
>>              {\makebox[2.0in][l]
>>              {\includegraphics[width = 2.0in]{myfig}}}
>>
>> With the 2.0in width, the height of the box and included graphic
>> should be 2 x 0.7145 = 1.43in. But how does one find this out within
>> LaTeX?
>>
>> What I'd like to do is:
>>
>>    \newlength{\myboxheight}
>>    \setlength{\myboxheight}{\height{mybox}}
>>
>> or even
>>
>>    \setlength{\myboxheight}{\height{myfig}}
>>
>> But there doesn't seem to be any way to do this. Every example I can
>> find on the web calls for the user figuring out the height manually.
>> Suppose, for example, we wanted the class to allow the user to
>> specify not only which graphic to use but also its scale by
>> specifying its width. Now there would be absolutely no way to know
>> the height until the user specifies it.
>>
>> Surely there must be a way to do this.
>>
>> Thanks.
>>
>>     Marsh Feldman
>>
>
> \ht\mybox = height above baseline
> \dp\mybox = depth below baseline
> \wd\mybox = width
>
> very handy to know
>
> \usepackage{calc}
>
> \setlength\myboxheight{\ht\mybox+\dp\mybox}
>
> /daleif