# [Tugindia] Re: Drawing and latex symbols. Re-posting

Biplab Raychaudhuri biplabr at rediffmail.com
Wed Sep 22 10:00:51 CEST 2004

Dear Sir
I am sending a fresh file after my message bounce off. I did not know the limitation of size and kept all the earlier postings intact. It was my first posting.

Main letter

One may choose any software for drawing and producing .eps file.  Commercial ones ( in windows) are good (though they have limitations too!).
Then, TO PUT LATEX SYMBOLS its excellent to use psfrag package. Details with all its idiosyncracies are found in the manual epslatex.ps. A typical use is like the following. Assume that you put the word "math" in the figure fig.eps where you want to put your math symbols.

......................
\usepackage{psfig} %in the preamble
\begin{document}
......
%Now enter the figure
\begin{figure}[htp]
\psfrag{math}{$E=mc^2$}% You may use several \psfrag commands.
\includegraphics{fig.eps}
\end{figure}
............................

Experience shows that it is better to keep one letter word in the original figure (for multiletter words, such as "math", open the eps file in any text editor and check (using search fecility) for that word. Some times words are split and then you cannot have psfrag working. (Adobe Illustrator 9.0 has that problem, CorelDraw 10 does not. Xfig generally gives not disturbance.

Also, always use monospaced fonts like courier or courier new. It helps sorting out this problem.

Remember .dvi file won't show the figure. It only shows the replacement in the margin. You have to make postscript file. As far as I know it does not work with pdflatex. Does it?
Xfig can save a document in .pictex file. This is also very good but the dvi file is very large.
I am using psfrag successfully.
I am a new member and posting message for the first time. Please inform if I have made any mistake in posting message.
Biplab Raychaudhuri