[PLUG] xfd: printing the displayed font table

Rich Shepard rshepard at appl-ecosys.com
Wed Jan 28 06:46:02 UTC 2004


On Tue, 27 Jan 2004, Chris Jantzen wrote:

> May I kibitz and ask:

  Sure, Chris.

> a) Why are you doing book illustrations for what don't sound like "user
> manual" things at screen resolution and DPI?  Your printer does at least
> 300dpi, if not 600dpi. And you'll be publishing a book at at least
> 1200dpi. I suspect a non-fullscreen 72dpi illustration will look like
> garbage.

  Tgif has verious modes for exporting both graphics and text. I set the
output so when I "print" the figure the output is .eps with embedded LaTeX
for the text.

> b) Why aren't you using LaTeX? It would avoid having to look up odd
> keystrokes and tends to do a much better job of laying out formulas
> anyways. I could give you several PDF files of homework I've done for my
> math degree if you'd like to see samples.

  The book is being written in LyX, the gui front end to LaTeX that saves a
huge learning curve. Of course, I have significant amounts of pure LaTeX
(which LyX disparagingly calls ERT for Evil Red Text because it displays in
red on the screen) in the text and many mathematical equations, both inline
and in display mode. The figures are embedded in figure floats and, when I
export to pdflatex are beautifly typeset (as is the rest of the text).

> You surely have valid reasons, so I know that open discussion would
> benefit the list. :-)

  Originally, I tried using xfig but had a terrible time getting curves
(such as simulated plot output of bell curves) to look good. In my search
for a solution I discovered at least 7 different 2D vector drawing packages
for linux. Among these are tgif, ipe, dia, sketch, grace, xfig and a couple
of more I cannot remember. Each has its adherents and long-time users.

  I asked about xfig on the lyx-users mail list and my experience with
getting nice looking curves easily was confirmed. So, that was eliminated. I
could not get sketch or dia installed; some dependencies related to gnome or
kde, IIRC. IPE looked good for a while but I ran into a hurdle and couldn't
find the answer in a couple of days. Tgif is quite a simple, but powerful
package. The key to getting up to speed is to know that the button hints
don'e appear on a pop-up window, but are displayed at the left end of the
status line on the bottom of the window. And, most properties can be
controlled by clicking on the appropriate icon; they cycle through the
available options.

  Tfig's author is really great about answering questions. The documentation
consists almost exclusively of a 65-page man page (yuck!) and the FAQs on
the Web site. It took a while for me to really understand how to get the
desired Greek letters and math symbols. But, when I did I wrote it up as a
3-step process and Bill put my explanation below his on the Web page.

  Drawing curves as I want them took some trial-and-error, but I'm almost
competent in quickly getting what I want. I use polyline mode to place the
nodes in approximately the proper locations. Then I change the line type to
interpolated spline to smooth the curve and adjust the shape.

  I need to get my book, "Quantifying Environmental Impact Assessments Using
Fuzzy Logic" to my publisher, Springer-Verlag, by mid-April so as long as it
works, I don't care which tool I use. Springer-Verlag has their own set of
LaTeX macros for their monographs (my book will probably be in their
"Environmental Management Series" of monographs) and they accept
camera-ready copy using LaTeX. I'm certainly learning a lot of LaTeX and LyX
from this project!

  An editor at another publisher told a friend of mine that it is highly
unusual for Springer-Verlag to ask to publish a book by a first-time book
author. They are the premier science publisher (others focus on text books)
so I'm quite honored. Sample chapters are available for any who are
interested; I've not yet had time to add them to my Web site.

HTH,

Rich

-- 
Dr. Richard B. Shepard, President
Applied Ecosystem Services, Inc. (TM)
<http://www.appl-ecosys.com>




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