[pdftex] Commutative Diagrams in PDFLaTeX

[Ross Moore]

> Steve Grathwohl wrote:
> > 
> > 
> > My vote is for xypic.
> 
> That works fine if the used glyphs are available as Type 1 fonts. There

Fully hinted Type 1 fonts have been available freely from Y&Y since 1997.

    http://www.yandy.com/downloads.htm
    http://www.yandy.com/download/xy_fonts.zip


> There is no output driver for pdftex (last time I checked was some months

Yes, and no.

There is no driver to do direct drawing in PDF, as with the PostScript
backend. But there is a support-driver bundle:

    http://www-texdev.mpce.mq.edu.au/xypic/xypdf.tar.gz

that handles color-changes.

> ago). Curved arrows are implemented as Postscript specials (with dvips
> outupt) or are pieced together from a number of dots and lines. The
> latter is what you would have to use under pldflatex. You could also go

Yes. The dots + lines + arrowheads  works very well, with the hinted
Type1 fonts providing the building blocks.
Together with the available color support, this is enough for most purposes.


If anyone wishes to provide full object-oriented drawing capabilities
in PDF --- that is, a true PDF back-end for Xy-pic --- then I'd be glad
to help; I just don't have the time to do it all myself.

(The difficulties in this task stem from the lack, in PDF, of the
programmable structures available with PostScript.)



Hope this helps,

	Ross Moore



> via ps to pdf and input the graphics separately. But you would run into
> a problem is the bounding box around diagrams with curved arrows.
> 
> IMHO, Metapost is still the best option to include programmed graphics
> under pdftex.
> 
> Frank
> 
> -- 
> Dr Frank Boehme                      | Email: f.boehme at cs.ucc.ie
> National University of Ireland, Cork | phone: +353-21-4903163
> Dept of Computer Science             |   fax: +353-21-4903113
> Cork, Ireland                        |
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