[texhax] Q: graphicx, pdflatex ; size scale, position re-adjust?

[Robin Fairbairns]

> > i would guess the problem is in the latex produced in your export command.
> > it sounds as if its \includegraphics command is limiting the width of
> > the image to half the width, as in
> > 
> >   \includegraphics[width=0.5\textwidth]{pdf-file-name}
> 
> I've looked at the TeX snippet that xfig exports and the 
> \includegraphics does not use any optional arguments, just the name of
> the PDF file. So, whatever scaling is being done is happening somewhere
> else, perhaps in the PDF figure itself. I'm vaguely familiar with
> PostScript, but not PDF, so it's hard for me to tell if scaling is being
> done there.

i profess myself stumped, then.

> > why export this way?  why not just as pdf, and then write your own
> > \includegraphics command?
> 
> The idea was to draw a figure and to place LaTeX rendered text on the
> figure. Among my sources of inspiration is
> 
> http://www.nersc.no/~knutal/xfig_fondling.html
> 
> Xfig does a nice job with standard PostScript fonts, but occasionally
> it's desirable to put something like a partial differential equation or
> boundary condition expression on the figure, and in a particular place,
> too. Equations are where TeX excels and plain PostScript font strings
> disappoint.

have you looked at http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=labelfig

> > the simple commands are probably workable, but terribly unsatisfactory,
> > since they involve you in visual placing.
> 
> I'm accustomed to repeated previews using acroread or ghostview;
> sometimes the "nonlinear" nature of TeX formatting means it is hard to
> converge to the best looking result, though.

well, quite.  far better to know what you're doing before you start.
hence the suggestions in the faq answer.

> >   far better to place things on
> > the "slide" on a designed basis, perhaps using a picture-like
> > environment.
> > 
> > what slide class are you using?
> 
> Seminar by Timothy van Zandt, including seminar.bug from Denis Girou.
> I understand it was developed ten years ago before pdflatex and online
> presentations were common; I wasn't sure what the current consensus was
> on the best LaTeX presentation tools - TeXPower and PPower4 seemed a
> little bit on the bleeding edge still.

i used to use seminar, then had a long hiatus when i didn't need to
produce any presentations.  needing to start up again, i chose beamer.

beamer's about as bleeding edge as you can get, but i find it very
good.  take a look at the manual: it inspired my confidence, and i
wasn't disappointed.

> >   doesn't it provide placement
> > facilities?  (the one i use, beamer, does most of the placement
> > remarkably well, automatically.)
> 
> It's unfortunate in some ways, but being able to predict formatting of
> presentations is more important than for printed documents or even for
> web pages. 
> 
> In some ways I wish I could use xfig as the enveloping environment, but
> create arbitrarily placed minipages and parboxes for text and then
> export multi-slide presentations to PDF.

people do that sort of thing.  not what i'ld do from choice.