[pdftex] Re: Best bitmap image format?

[gnwiii at gmail.com]

On 3/1/06, Olivier Lefevre <lefevrol at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > Why can't you use pdfcrop.pl or pdftrimwhile.pl to get rid of extra
> > whitespace and then use \includegraphics or similar to scale the pdf's
> > in your document?
>
> If they distort the image at capture time that won't help.

Assuming the stored image has the actual pixel values from the screen,
you should be able to undo the distortion with a \resizebox.

> > What about looking a way to get a proper (e.g., vector graphics) metafile?
>
> What is the point of casting something (a screen shot) that is
> intrinsically a bitmap into vector format?

Unless you are actually working with image data in the application,
the Windows graphics system gets instructions to draw objects.  If you
can capture those instructions in a metafile and convert to pdf, then
the pdf rasterizer should give a close approximation (with any error
in the direction of better) to what Windows would do at the viewing
configuration (resolution and pixel depth).  Unless the viewer is
tightly controlled to match the conditions of the screen dump this
will be closer to what a user would experience.   This can make a big
difference if the original application (e.g., cinerella) wants to live
on a huge display and you have people reading a document with screen
dumps on a smaller display.   It won't matter that much if the screens
are uncluttered and the viewing equipment not too different from the
screen used to make the images.

--
George N. White III <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>
Head of St. Margarets Bay, Nova Scotia