[texhax] Achieving the optimum quality of rendering

[William F Hammond]

Clarification.

>> For pdf output I think it's a bit more complicated than that.
>> 
>> It depends on what is the original format for the image.  You
>> want both the image used for pdf output and the image used for
>> dvi output to be as close as possible to the original image.

Of course, if the original image is pdf, then that should be used
for pdf output with pdflatex.  I did not say otherwise (but see
below for what I did say that might have been misconstrued).

>> For example, if the original is eps, then "epstopdf" (found on
>> CTAN or in many TeX distributions) will make good pdf for use
>> with \includegraphics toward pdf output.
>> 
>> But if the original image is png or jpeg, then
>> \includegraphics will use that with pdflatex (so long as no
>> pdf file with the same stem name is present).  
>
> That's why I said:
>
>>> there's no reason not to just make good quality
>>> .pdf files for inclusion into your pages

I think you had mentioned using a proprietary product for
converting eps to pdf.  In my opinion epstopdf -- which is
free -- does a great job.

If the original image is png, there's no need nor gain in
converting it to pdf for use with pdf output from pdflatex
because pdflatex does an excellent job handling png.

> A .pdf will be included and won't have its quality
> diminished by inclusion into a .pdf generated directly by
> pdflatex.

> It's more efficient, it's more direct, it's simpler and
> it's elegant (in the sense of scientific correctness).

I did not suggest otherwise.  However, I did mention that if
the original image is png, it won't be used by pdflatex if
there is a pdf file present with the same stem name (and if,
as the OP mentioned, the \includegraphics argument is the
stemname).  There are boundary-case scenarios where this
could happen.  Consider, for example, the case where a user
has "mychart.png" and wants to prepare a LaTeX wrapper with
some explanations.  If the user prepares "mychart.tex" as
the wrapper and "mychart.pdf" exists from an earlier run of
pdflatex, then things go wrong.

                              -- Bill

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