[OS X TeX] [OT] Manuscript Revision Management etc.

[Ross Moore]

Hello Jung-Tsung,

On 21/09/2005, at 12:35 PM, Jung-Tsung Shen wrote:

> Ross,
>
> Thanks very much for the very informative reply in depth. I benefit a
> lot. I have two further questions:
>
> (1) I vaguely remember that I ever read somewhere sometime (on this
> mailing list? or Gary's website?) that someone advocated all figures
> should be stored in PDF, and converts to eps format only needed. Can
> you comment on this viewpoint? I am afraid this is a one-way, once I
> start using PDF for all figures, and it turns out to be a wrong idea,
> it would be too late.

In general I would *not* agree with this.

I'd advocate keeping also the original version, as used in the
editing software that created the figure.
This can easily have more information that isn't displayed in the
PDF that was saved --- e.g. hidden layers.

You may want to recover this information, or make other changes,
or reuse the figure for a different purpose.
For example, a figure that you use within a journal article need
not be the same as one that you use in a slide presentation:
  different colours, font sizes/weights, line-thicknesses, etc.

Making the variant may not be so easy when you start from
a derived PDF, rather than the original .eps or .ill or whatever.

>
> For me, it simply means that I embed those PDF figures, and use
> pdflatex, as in TeXShop's beginner's guide instruction. I also know
> that I can convert PDF to eps by `pdftops -eps' command. I don't know
> the real difference among all these things (just instructed ...)

Disk space is quite cheap.
I tend not to discard derived files; it's false economy anyway,
as you'll probably have to rerun LaTeX several times if you've
not kept the .aux, .bbl, .ind, etc.


>
> [To Marteen, and other CVS people]
>
> (2) I agree that it makes sense to only check in .tex and figure file
> (PDF or eps). I wrote a small AppleScript to delete those .bak .aux
> .dvi ... automatically. Is there a simpler and more efficient way to
> do this, rather than invoke AS or even manually remove those unwanted
> files?

I'd dispute the "unwanted" bit.
Having them around can be a great time-saver.

If you get rid of them, then make sure that you have kept a Makefile,
or some other record of the sequence of operations
  (e.g., LaTeX, BibTeX, LaTeX, makeindex, BibTeX again, LaTeX, LaTeX)
required to produce the document correctly.
There may be cross-dependencies in the index/bibliography entries.

It may be even more complicated with packages requiring PostScript
specials, hence use of  ps4pdf  or  pdftricks  or  metapost.
Think also about a label within a PostScript figure, where the
label depends on something else within the document, such as a
page- or section-number, or the location of another figure.


> This combines with Question (1) above, when I start using PDF
> for all figures, I have to refine my AppleScript so it only removes
> the derivative PDF, not the figure PDF files ...

Ask yourself what you are really saving, by spending time
on programming this kind of task. Is it really worth it ?
If not, just keep everything.


>
> Thanks a lot.

Hope this helps,

     Ross Moore


>
> JT
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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  2109                            fax: +61 +2 9850 8114
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