Hi Chris, On Fri, 8 Nov 2002 12:48, Chris Carlen wrote: > 1. Does anyone here use OpenOffice to produce figures to import into > Lyx, and if so how do you generate the .eps files?
The postscript output from star and openoffice is full of rubbish. Most postcript printers can't cope with it, and print error messages instead of your document. You could try exporting to a different format (maybe an image format), and then convert to eps (using ImageMagic "convert" or the Gimp). > > My interest at this point focusses on Tgif and Xfig. Honestly I would > much prefer to use OOo Draw, because I am used to it and I will still > use OOo for other things in which the integration of the Draw program > with the other modules is useful. Xfig and Tgif seem a little bit > crude, coming from the dark ages of UNIX GUI interfaces, so it seems. > But I understand as well that they are nonetheless very good drawing > programs. > > The question then is: > > 2. What program is used most often, and what might you recommend? > Xfig is very good. I think the GUI is very functional and looks great, provided you put the line *customization: -color in your ~/.Xresources file (See xfig FAQ). The only thing I don't like about the GUI is that it is so fussy about where the pointer is. You cant type stuff in a box unless the pointer is in it. But this is a minor inconvenience. The more you use xfig the more you'll realise how easy it is to create complicated diagrams, with the kind of precision that is lacking from all office drawing programs, including commercial ones. > Finally, there is one trick I'd like to do that was quite easy in OOo, > and that is to include equations in a figure. I suppose with something > like xfig I will have to hand format text objects into the arrangement I > want to do this. The equations I need in a figure are usually simple > fractions with a couple variables in the num. and denoms. One weakness of xfig is the way text is handled, i.e., no font changes within a text box, one line of text per text box, only wysiwyg for certain font sizes and zoom settings. However, xfig does let you insert latex code in your drawing, which will be processed by latex when you export to eps, so equations in your figures will look just like they do in your document. See the xfig user manual, section Exporting --> LaTeX and Xfig --> TYPE C - PostScript/LaTeX format. To whet your appetite, here are some drawings I made with xfig: (Only plain xfig text boxes in these, i.e., no latex) http://www.spme.monash.edu.au/~stevenh/Public/xfig-stuff/ Steve -- Steven Homolya School of Physics and Materials Engineering Monash University VIC 3800 Australia Tel: INT +61 3 9905 3694 Fax: INT +61 3 9905 3637
