[Mac OS X TeX] Fonts, Illustrator and much frustration

Ross Moore ross at ics.mq.edu.au
Sat Jul 7 00:12:28 CEST 2001 


> >The best way is to *not* add the typeset mathematics in Illustrator.
> >Add it afterwards, using TeX (either Textures, pdfTeX or other TeX).
> >
> >Have a look at these examples that I've just finished working on today:
> >
> >   http://www-texdev.mpce.mq.edu.au/WARM/WARMhome/ILLUS902/testimage2.pdf
> >   http://www-texdev.mpce.mq.edu.au/WARM/WARMhome/ILLUS902/testimage3.pdf
> >   ...
> >   ...
> >   http://www-texdev.mpce.mq.edu.au/WARM/WARMhome/ILLUS902/testimage8.pdf
> 
> I have been unable to connect to that address, though I am very intrigued.

Hmm; I've had other reports of trouble, but it all looks fine from
on-campus at my end.

Please try again now.

If still not successful, then what IP address do you get with  nslookup ?
It should be  137.111.90.60  so try:   http://137.111.90.60/WARM/
and add the rest if that is successful.

Please check also:   www.mq.edu.au  www.ics.mq.edu.au  and  www.iciam.org 
to help determine the extent of the problem (if it persists).

 
> 
> >Each of these has 5 images, as follows:
> >
> >   The 1st is from an .eps file created in some version of Illustrator
> >   (some at 6.0, most at 8.0) and some display bad font substitutions.
> >
> >   The 2nd image is from the same .eps resaved as Illustrator v9.02,
> >   with the bad labels moved to an invisible layer and extra "marked objects"
> >   added using a special plug-in.
> >   It also has the labels reset using TeX, via Xy-pic + extensions.
> >
> >   The 3rd image shows the "marked-points" which allow this method to work.
> 
> What do you mean by this? Your solution sounds good, except that I 
> would like to have a nice way of positioning the typeset 
> text/mathematics to the figure other than by trial and error. In 

The "marked points" correspond to position coordinates of places within
the image that are of special interest. Typically these will be places
where you wish to attach a label.

Each "marked point" consists of:
  a.  coordinates   b. a simple name   c. arbitrary text string

This information is used by TeX macros to:
  1.  identify which point is being referenced, given just the name
  2.  move the current TeX location to the place with the correct
      coordinates, over the imported graphic
  3.  allow any typeset material to be placed at that point
       This could be the contents of the arbitrary string,
       or it could be anything else, with the arb-string just allowing
       the author to understand what is an appropriate label to place.

The Xy-pic macros allow very fine adjustment of the position of any typeset
material to be placed. The "marked-point" information gives a very good
first approximation. Further adjustment is by eye, according to aesthetics;
so the level of trial-and-error is just the same as when choosing the position
with a mouse in a point-and-click environment.

> addition, what is the preferred method for placing the text on the 
> area of the figure? Are these "marked-points" to which you are 
> referring a means of doing this?

The "marked-point" information, as described above, is read from an editable
text file. It can be composed in whatever way is convenient.

With the help of an Adobe engineer, we now have a plug-in to Illustrator
that is designed to create a hidden layer for special objects that indicate
where the user has chosen to mark points, and associate the information a. b. c.
as described above. It allows this information to be saved into a text file,
in the format that can be read by the TeX macros defined in  warmread.sty .

Note that the plug-in is not perfect yet, as it sometimes gives the wrong
%%BoundingBox with images that started life in earlier versions of Illustrator,
but this is easily fixed by copy/paste from the .eps file.
This was done with some of the examples above.


The TeX aspects of the method are documented at the web-site above (if you can get there).
There are many examples of the technique, with images generated by Mathematica
and the editable text file constructed using features available with the
Mathematica Front-End. There is documentation also in the TUGboat Proceedings issue,
for the 1999 Vancouver meeting.

 
> >
> >   The 4th image shows the same image labelled using different font styles,
> >   so as to be more suitable for an overhead slide.
> >
> >   The 5th image is a snapshop of just the graphic, with labels, 
> >suitable as a slide
> >   or to be included within other documents.
> >
> >
> >The  .tex  sources and .eps (and .pdf) files for all the images
> >are in the same directory.
> 
> I am unable to connect. Can you please e-mail me these files?

When I'm back in the office, I'll construct a Mac Stuffit archive
and send it to Wendy (the W in WaRM) to post at her site.
You'll be able to get it from there if the trans-Pacific connection
still fails.

> 
> >Note that this method of labelling graphics avoids all of the known
> >font problems with Illustrator and Acrobat Reader --- my pdfTeX is patched
> >to avoid the problem that caused font-substitutions when printing ---
> >and does *not* require special versions of the CM fonts for Illustrator.
> 
> How can we tell if our local versions of pdftex have been suitably 
> patched? If it has not been patched, how do we do so?

Tom Kacvinski  (sorry if I mis-spelt, Tom) provided the patches to the 
pdftex at tug.org  mailing list.
Check the archives at:   http://www.tug.org/mailman/listinfo/pdftex/



Hope this helps,

	Ross Moore


BTW, I'll be talking on these methods at TUG2001 in August,
and the week before at CalTech. Come along, if you can make it.  :-)


 
> Thank you,
> -- 
>     Gary L. Gray
>     Associate Professor
>     Engineering Science & Mechanics
>     Penn State University
>     (814) 863-1778
>     http://www.esm.psu.edu/Faculty/Gray/
> 
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