[Mac OS X TeX] labelling graphics using TeXShop/Illustrator

[Paulo Abreu]

Gary L. Gray wrote:
>I don't know what psfrag is, but if it only allows simply strings in 
>Courier, then we want MUCH more than that. You see we want to put 
>mathematics in the labels using the TeX fonts themselves. We could 
>easily put Courier labels on the graphics with Illustrator -- the 
>problem arises when we want to include TeX fonts. Our procedure seems 
>to fix this problem.

The link to psfrag is:
http://www.ctan.org/tex-archive/help/Catalogue/entries/psfrag.html

I didn't explain more about psfrag because I didn't know if you knew
already waht it was or not.

psfrag is a (La)TeX macro package. You place some text in the eps file,
and psfrag replaces it with TeX. psfrag uses TeX to parse the eps file
and to substitute the strings. That's why I mentioned the Courier font.
These text tags must be in some font where no kern info comes, otherwise
the string is not found in by TeX. I guess any fixed with font does the
trick.

Any TeX replacement is allowed, and you can control the placement and
the rotation of the replacement.

>How portable is it? That is, if I send the figure to a publisher, I 
>assume that the fonts will not be in the figure itself. Portability 
>is rather important for us since we need to be able to exchange 
>figures in manuscripts with a number of people.

This is an important issue. The 'original' eps will will not have the
correct typeset material. Besides, you can not use pdftex, because
psfrag doesn't work with pdf files. I think VTeX does work, but I'm not sure.
You usually need the dvi-ps-pdf process.
However, these are not really limitations, because they are easy to
overcome: if you create a ps file from a TeX+psfrag file, this ps file
will have the correct typeset material. You can easely create a eps or
pdf from it and send it. It still seems less effort then your method,
even more when the original eps needs several editings.

I hope this is enough for you to go and check it. It might not be
exactly what you need, but it sure is a good alternative.

Paulo


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