Re: Loading plots into Framemaker
- To: mathgroup at yoda.ncsa.uiuc.edu
- Subject: Re: Loading plots into Framemaker
- From: CAMERON at midd.cc.middlebury.edu
- Date: Tue, 19 Feb 91 01:03 EST
"steve at titan" asked how to load graphics from Mma into
FrameMaker, and I kept mum, because I don't use FrameMaker
and know it only by reputation. But Karl Arrington followed
up by saying that the FrameMaker documentation says FM can
import Encapsulated PostScript illustrations, and lamented
that Mma doesn't produce EPS as its output.
The PostScript that the Mma kernel produces not only isn't
EPS, it isn't even really PostScript -- that is, it isn't
raw PostScript that you could give directly to a standard
PostScript interpreter. It's structured as a bunch of calls
to operators like "Mdot" and "Mshowa", which are built into
the PostScript interpreters that WRI provides but which must
be defined as PostScript procedures if you want a standard
PostScript interpreter (like the one in a LaserWriter, or
the one on the NeXT computer) to be able to understand them.
There is a shell script called "psfix" that is distributed
with all versions of Mma (except the Macintosh version) that
reads a graphics file as the Mma kernel writes it (the output
of the Display[] function) and writes out a file that has the
definitions of the special Mma PostScript operators included
at the front. This file is in Encapsulated PostScript format.
So a "naked" Mma graphic is unusable in FrameMaker (or any
other program) for more reasons than you perhaps realized,
but a "psfixed" Mma graphic should be readable in any application
that can read Encapsulated PostScript files (including,
presumably, FrameMaker).
"psfix" takes command-line arguments that allow you to specify
what you want the height and width of the graphic to be,
how much margin to leave around the edges, and other things.
The *original* version of "psfix" (from before Mma version 1.2)
did *not* produce Encapsulated PostScript, but I believe that
all 1.2 versions of Mma ship with an EPS-making psfix. If
you have a psfix that doesn't make EPS, ask WRI tech support
to email you the newer version. (Be sure that they send you
the 1.2 psfix, and not the 2.0 psfix which is currently under
development and which is quite different. I can't certify
that using the 2.0 psfix on graphics from a 1.2 kernel would
work at all.)
For Mac users, don't worry about not having "psfix" as a separate
program -- it's built into the front end, and you can use it
by dragging a graphic in a Notebook to the size you want it
to be, then choosing the "save as EPSF" option from some panel
(excuse me, "dialog box") that I don't remember the name of --
read your manual. NeXT users can do it both ways: from the
front end, or from the command line.
"psfix" is documented in the User's Guide that comes with
each version of Mma. If you didn't know that there WAS
a User's Guide for your version of Mma, go see the system
administrator or whoever it was that installed Mma on your
system.
--Cameron Smith
ex-employee of WRI, and author of several
versions of the Mma User's Guide for different versions of Mma 1.2
Mathematica maven and free-lance consultant
cameron at midd.cc.middlebury.edu