[OS X TeX] diagonal arrows in figures

[Ross Moore]

On 20/04/2005, at 12:03 PM, V.Yu.Shavrukov wrote:
>
> I use the pgf package for this (included with gwTeX).  It's a 
> lower-level solution than XYpic (if anything, at least
> as cumbersome as picture), but with picture or XYpic I tend to get 
> jagged diagonal lines (perhaps I'm doing something
> wrong - I've heard you get better results from XYpic in dvips than in 
> pdftex, but I would like to stay with pdftex).

There are 2 ways to get better diagrams when using XYpic with pdftex .

A.
One way is to load the  xypdftex  driver-support file:

      \usepackage[pdftex,all,....]{xy}


You should get a line in the .log console window:

(/usr/local/teTeX/share/texmf-local/tex/generic/xypic/xypdftex.tex
  Xy-pic option: pdf-TeX driver v.3.8 loaded)


This requires certain support files to be available, which you can
get from:
     http://www-texdev.ics.mq.edu.au/xypic/xypdf.tgz

which archive has the file:  xypdftex.tex
and several others with similar names:  xypdf???.tex .
All should go into the same location as   xypic.sty
though elsewhere in a texmf/ tree should also work.

Maybe  gwTeX  already installs this for you.


B.
The 2nd way is to make use of nice PostScript drawing
commands that Xy-pic can use. Load it this way:

       \usepackage[ps,dvips,all,....]{xy}

with the 'ps' and 'dvips' options being the critical ones.

Now you are in a situation similar to using PStricks with pdfTeX.

There are packages  pdftricks,  ps4pdf  etc.
which implement the 3-step strategy of running TeX+Ghostscript
to first make the diagrams in PostScript, then convert to PDF,
for finally importing PDF images into the main document.



This latter is the best way to go, for output of the highest
quality, with access to proper PostScript lines, curves,
ovals, scaling, rotations, etc.



Hope this helps,

	Ross



>
> hth,
> Volodya Shavrukov
>
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Ross Moore                                         ross at maths.mq.edu.au
Mathematics Department                             office: E7A-419
Macquarie University                               tel: +61 +2 9850 8955
Sydney, Australia                                  fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
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Mac-TeX Website: http://www.esm.psu.edu/mac-tex/
           & FAQ: http://latex.yauh.de/faq/
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