| Publication-quality plots [message #39650] |
Wed, 02 June 2004 04:15  |
Kristian Kjær
Messages: 4
Registered: June 2004
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Junior Member |
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How do people get nice pictures in MS-word files?
To produce text with publication-quality plots in it, the best, surely,
is to write postscript files from IDL and insert them in LATEX.
However, various constraints mean that often I have to write the text in
MS-word.
Then it works to insert eps-files and print on a postscript printer, but
on the screen you see at best a preview of the graphic.
I've usually done as follows:
Write ps-file, read ps-file into CorelDraw, copy drawing to windows
clipboard, in MS-word paste-special. Then I get four options.
I choose 'picture'. ('CorelDrawObject' may work too, but 'Picture (enh.
metafile)' is bad, and 'Dev indep. Bitmap' er horrible.)
The result seems to be a vector graphic (scaleable in MS-word) that is
_almost_ as good as the original ps-file.
With !P.font =1 (for truetype) I note the ps-file does not contain real
truetype letters. It has the letters rendered (not too well, in fact) as
vector strokes.
Also, the whole procedure is too slow.
Now instead I tried writing a windows metafile.
However with !P.font =1 (for truetype) the letters are much worse than
in postscript, with !P.font =1 (for ps-fonts) the letters don't rotate,
and even good on !P.font =-1 (for Hershey) doesn't work well.
Thanks for any insight.
- Kristian
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| Re: Publication-quality plots [message #39695 is a reply to message #39650] |
Sun, 06 June 2004 02:28  |
R.Bauer
Messages: 1424
Registered: November 1998
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Senior Member |
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Dear Kristian
It's late to answer a lot of things already said.
I will give my comments too.
I have used several platforms for all of this work. At the moment I would
suggest for a scientist to use as base system a linux box. And on this box
you could install CrossOverOffice with your normal Microsoft Office
Installation. The only difference is the application you choose starts on
linux. If you have some applications which can't work with CrossOverOffice
from http://www.codeweavers.com/site/products/ you should try vmware.
The benefit of such a system is enormous.
How to get an idl plot to word on a linux box?
First make the PS Plot in idl.
You could set the boundingbox right and include a preview by
> ps2epsi idl.ps
you could embedd this epsi file into word. We prefer to do it as png image.
Convert it to png with 150 dpi density
> pstoimg -type png -aaliastext -flip r90 -density 150 idl.epsi
This is done in seconds.:-)
=-=-=-=-=
The situation now is you don't have a linux box.
In this case you should look around if you could get an user account on a
linux box. You could access a windows share from linux over the smb
protocol.
Login to the linux box set up the share over smb to your directory on the
windows box where the ps file is. Call ps2epsi and pstoimg on the files and
use the results in Word. That's all.
It will take a bit of time to follow the instruction of someone how to get
an account and how to import the share. That's the normal way of learning
things. If you know this it takes seconds to convert the files and it could
be automated.
Reimar
Kristian Kjï¿œr wrote:
> How do people get nice pictures in MS-word files?
>
> To produce text with publication-quality plots in it, the best, surely,
> is to write postscript files from IDL and insert them in LATEX.
>
> However, various constraints mean that often I have to write the text in
> MS-word.
> Then it works to insert eps-files and print on a postscript printer, but
> on the screen you see at best a preview of the graphic.
>
> I've usually done as follows:
> Write ps-file, read ps-file into CorelDraw, copy drawing to windows
> clipboard, in MS-word paste-special. Then I get four options.
> I choose 'picture'. ('CorelDrawObject' may work too, but 'Picture (enh.
> metafile)' is bad, and 'Dev indep. Bitmap' er horrible.)
> The result seems to be a vector graphic (scaleable in MS-word) that is
> _almost_ as good as the original ps-file.
> With !P.font =1 (for truetype) I note the ps-file does not contain real
> truetype letters. It has the letters rendered (not too well, in fact) as
> vector strokes.
> Also, the whole procedure is too slow.
>
> Now instead I tried writing a windows metafile.
> However with !P.font =1 (for truetype) the letters are much worse than
> in postscript, with !P.font =1 (for ps-fonts) the letters don't rotate,
> and even good on !P.font =-1 (for Hershey) doesn't work well.
>
> Thanks for any insight.
>
> - Kristian
--
Forschungszentrum Juelich
email: R.Bauer@fz-juelich.de
http://www.fz-juelich.de/icg/icg-i/
============================================================ ======
a IDL library at ForschungsZentrum Juelich
http://www.fz-juelich.de/icg/icg-i/idl_icglib/idl_lib_intro. html
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