[Tugindia] pdfLatex, pdftricks and ps4pdf

[Ashis Kumar Mal]

On 25 Aug 2003, Radhakrishnan CV wrote:

> By the way, why don't you use pdfLaTeX to create pdf straight from
> your TeX sources?
> 
> xfig can export to pdf or metapost, both acceptable to pdfTeX.
>
> epstopdf.sty would help you to include eps figures in pdfTeX documents.


There seem to have n number of ways of reaching pdf. And even
more number of pages on the net releated to pdf conversion.I 
have few  doubts.

1. Are pdfTeX and pdfLateX equivalent ?

2. What about ps4pdf and its utility ?

3. a) Whats the most safe/easy of way making a (type-1) pdf from LaTeX ?
   b) If there are figures are in pstricks/xfig ?

A brief discussion on this issue will be very helpful to
many of us.

Thanks again for those nice tips/macros.  

With regards, 

Ashis Kumar Mal 
Kharagpur