Barry Kauler wrote:
>
> Thanks for the responses about why a small bit-map becomes
> such a huge EPS.
> One thing that should be high on the wish-list is to be able to
> insert bit-map images directly into Lyx, and have Lyx encapsulate
> them on-the-fly when previewing and printing. Probably cache
> the conversions for efficiency.
> same for vector images in other formats.
> When I'm working on a document, I often revisit an image and
> modify it. It would be nice to avoid the manual conversion cycle.
>
> Another important reason is that I like to backup my work to
> floppy disk, but it is awkward if my images have become 10 - 20
> times bigger. Would have to zip them.
It's the same problem we had with screenshots: user manuals, system
manuals, etc, mostly over 100 pages (yes, we kicked Word and do them now
with LyX/LaTeX and some self-written tools). The resulting PS files were
so big that we almost canceled the whole thing. I haven't found any tool
which creates LZW compressed PS/EPS files, but found a way to make them ~
5 x smaller using the netpbm programs to create rle encoded eps files (so
one 170 pages PS manual gets from e.g. ~ 120MB to 52MB, it still is the
upper pain limit) (btw. I use PNG instead of GIF: smaller/better/license
free):
coloured eps:
giftopnm in.gif | pnmtops -scale 1 -dpi 600 -noturn -rle > out.eps
greyscale eps:
giftopnm in.gif | ppmtopgm | pnmtops -noturn -rle > out.eps
You cold authomate these steps with a shell script. The 'scale' and 'dpi'
parameters aren't really necessary, but give me the best result. The
greyscale eps files are the smallest.
rle encoded eps files can also be created with xv, but xv is shareware and
pnmtops compresses better. The printing of rle encoded eps graphics is
also a bit slower, because the decompression routine, written in PS, is
inside the eps file.
Hope it helps.
Victor
PS
>From PS files we create with ps2pdf (uses ghostscript) PDF files, which
then again are ~ 4-5 x bigger than PS. I still haven't found a solution
for this yet (using one own PS font seems to make this so extreme), but
maybe someone among you readers of this knows it...
--
DISCLAIMER: The views expressed in this message are my own and do not
necessarily represent the official views of my employer.
