[OS X TeX] Including igures .ps

[Bruno Voisin]

Le jeudi, 29 aoû 2002, à 10:05 Europe/Paris, Eva Pruneda a écrit :

> I work with Textures 2.1.
>
> I have a problem including .ps figures with
>  \includegraphics. I can see the figure only when I print the 
> document, not
> in my screen. Is a problem with the .ps or .eps files?, which is the 
> correct
> waty to obtain this files?
>
> There is a .ps file in the textures documentation which has not 
> problems,
> but I don't know what is the differences between this and my files.

The PostScript code in a .ps or .eps figure is only used for printing 
the figure (actually it is a program telling the printer what to draw 
and where). You can see this code, for example, by opening the .ps file 
in a text editor like TextEdit, BBEdit or Alpha.

Now, .ps and .eps files created by Mac OS 9-compliant applications 
include a PICT resource containing a version of the figure used for 
screen preview. It is distinct from the PostScript code, and written in 
a different language called QuickDraw.

In summary, the .ps figure in Textures' documentation contains two 
parts:

- In the data fork (or part) of the file, the PostScript code used for 
printing the figure. This code is just plain ASCII text.

- In the (hidden) resource fork (or part) of the file, the QuickDraw 
code used for displaying the picture. This code is binary; its 
existence is revealed, for example, by opening the file in ResEdit.

.ps files created by Unix programs generally include only the 
PostScript code itself (resources are a Mac-specific concept). There 
are two utilities (at least) on Mac for adding a preview resource to a 
.ps file:

- PS2EPS+ at <http://www.lerup.com/ps2eps.shtml>.

- MacGhostViewX at <http://www.kiffe.com/cmactex.html>.

Both use internally the Unix program GhostScript to create the preview. 
PS2EPS+ is based on an old version of GhostScript, so it might have 
problem with recent .ps files.

That being said, on OS X you don't really need to do this: TeXShop, for 
example, converts .ps files to .pdf files which are displayed directly 
by OS X.

One more thing: what I said above about the two parts of Mac OS 
9-compliant .ps files is an oversimplification:

- There are files containing a PS preview in the data fork itself, in 
addition to the PS code used for printing.

- There are files in which the PS code used for printing is actually 
contained and hidden in the PICT resource fork, in addition to the 
QuickDraw preview code. These are the files called by Mathematica "PICT 
with embedded PostScript" and by KaleidaGraph "PostScript PICT".

What a mess!

Bruno Voisin
  

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