[Tugindia] Harnessing MetaPost, EMP and TeXnicCenter

Duvvuri Venu Gopal venugopal_duvvuri at rediffmail.com
Mon Apr 18 07:07:51 CEST 2005


Harnessing MetaPost, EMP and TeXnicCenter

An easier way of including MetaPost figures in LaTeX documents is described below.

MetaPost is a powerful programme created by John Hobby by modifying the MetaFont programme of  Donald E. Knuth for creating beautiful looking diagrams, figures, graphs etc. for inclusion in TeX documents. Like TeX, the code for MetaPost is created in an editor and saved with the file extension .mp and the MetaPost (mp or mpost) is run on this file to create the figure. 

MPEdit is an IDE for easily creating and viewing the MetaPost figures. It can be downloaded from the CTAN archives. 

The problem with both these methods is one has to separately place the figure at the desired place using the “epsf” or “graphicx” package. The metapost file and LaTeX files are separate entities and there is need that one has to update both these files.

Using the “emp” package (Encapsulated MetaPost) created by Thorsten Ohl (1997) one can place the MetaPost code in LaTeX document itself. All the MetaPost code is shipped out to a mp file and after running the MetaPost on the mp file so created, another LaTeX run is required and the MetaPost figure so created embeds in the document at the appropriate place. (For full details read the emp manual).

In TeXnicCenter, distributed with the MikTeX , one can configure it to process and postprocess the tex documents. The details for configuring it to run MetaPost on the file created by the “emp” package is given below.

In TeXnicCenter click on ‘Build’ menu.

In the last there is a menu item ‘Define output profiles’. Click on it.

Click on ‘Add’ and create a profile – “LaTeX => MP => DVI”

Select the “(La)TeX” tab. Select the  “Run (La)TeX in this profile”.
In “Path to LaTeX Compiler” give the path where LaTeX is residing
i.e., C:\texmf\miktex\bin\latex.exe.
In command line arguments type the following
“--src –interaction=nonstopmode “%Wm” ”

Click on postprocessor tab and add the following :

Create – 
1) “MetaPost” in the “Postprocessors to run after LaTeX
”
	in the “Executable” area type : C:\texmf\miktex\bin\mp.exe
	in the “Arguments” area type : “%Bm.mp
2) “LaTeX to DVI” in the “Postprocessors to run after LaTeX 
”
	in the “Executable” area type : C:\texmf\miktex\bin\latex.exe
	and in the “Arguments” area type : --src -interaction=nonstopmode "%Wm"

Now the TeXnicCenter is ready to postprocess and include the MetaPost figures in the document.

I welcome your comments.

D. Venu Gopal
TeX User No. 4091



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