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Re: Printing Mathematica in MSWord

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg23204] Re: Printing Mathematica in MSWord
  • From: "Atul Sharma" <atulksharma at yahoo.com>
  • Date: Mon, 24 Apr 2000 01:12:10 -0400 (EDT)
  • References: <8dnvjd$hu0@smc.vnet.net>
  • Sender: owner-wri-mathgroup at wolfram.com

I apologize for recycling an earlier post, but this question has appeared
several times recently. Having had a very frustrating time myself, I
appreciated the suggestions from this forum, which I summarize below. If
these all
seem too complicated, you may find that installing MathReader (free from
WRI) on your school
computer will allow you to print Mathematica notebooks directly. I am
assuming you require publication quality formulae, so that the built in
Export as GIF image function isn't sufficient.

Exporting formulae:

1) EPS format: If you have access to a postscript printer at school, you can
simply save the equations in encapsulated postscript (eps) format  (Save
Selection As: EPS) and insert them into your Word document
(Insert:Picture:From File). EPS figures are not saved with a preview
(although you can export them with a TIFF preview in Mathematica 4.0,
Export[.."EPSTIF"], or add a preview using Ghostscript/Ghostview).
Consequently, you won't be able to visualize the formulae in your word
document, but they will be identified by placeholders, and they will print
to a postscript printer.You will need to likely embed the Math Fonts in the
eps  document, and a package from MathSource allows you to do this
(emmathfnt by  Paul Hinton).

If you don't have access to a postscript printer at school, you can use
Ghostscript/Ghostview at home (available free from
http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/aladdin/get550.html ) to translate the
postscript file to pdf format. The pdf document can then be printed with
Acrobat Reader. Even bitmap fonts (which are rendered poorly on the screen
by Acrobat Reader) will print fine on a standard printer. Simply take your
Word document with the eps formulae and print it to a file using any
postscript printer driver that comes with Windows (HP ILaserjet 4/4M or
Apple Laserwriter NT II drivers work fine). Open with GS/GV and convert to
pdf format by printing to a file after selecting the pdfwrite printer.

2) GIFs: An even easier solution is to export formulae as bitmap or gif
mages (or save selection as bitmap, and then convert to gif if you wish
using MS PhotoEditor or equivalent). These can be inserted into your Word
document as pictures. A bug in the procedure leads to a rather curious
truncation of the resulting images, and a recent thread saw two palettes
which modify Export to allow you to produce gif images without the annoying
ine breaks.  Either allows you to export the formulae for a web page or
on-line viewing in a
word processor document.

Unfortunately, the gifs are screen resolution only, which is fine for
on-screen viewing but not optimal for printouts. I've had little success
improving on this from within Mathematica. I had more luck with converting
EPS format (resolution independent) to higher resolution GIFs using other
software, such as ImageMagik (also freely available). There are several
different ways to do this, all roundabout but effective. I found that I
could most easily convert the eps formulae to ppm using the ppmraw printer
driver in GS/GV. ImageMagik will convert this to GIFs or BMPs or JPGs, as
you wish, with at least 300 dpi resolution. These print nicely.

Having said this, my preferred solution  is to use Adobe Acrobat Distiller
to create both postscript and pdf versions of the document, which can be
viewed and printed by anyone with Acrobat reader. The math fonts will need
to be embedded. Paul Hinton's package in MathSource (emmathfnt ) will allow
you to do so in ps documents. Distiller can also be set up to embed the math
fonts (type 1 postscript) into .ps and .pdf formats. I only recently
discovered the Acrobat distiller option, and I really find it very
convenient, though admittedly not free. Since Acrobat Reader is ubiquitous,
this (in my mind) is the best option to ensure that graphics, fonts, and
typesetting appear exactly as intended. The quality of the printout is also
very nice, even without a postscript printer The educational/student
discount for Acrobat 4.0 is under $100 Cnd (about 29 cents US, but that's
another story), which personally was worth it to avoid the rather indirect
solutions outlined above.

Hope that helps.

A. Sharma
--
--------------------------------------------------
Atul Sharma MD, FRCP(C)
Pediatric Nephrologist,
McGill University/Montreal Children's Hospital

email: atulksharma at yahoo.com


"Gary Reich" <ramkicker at hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:8dnvjd$hu0 at smc.vnet.net...
> I am currently writing my senior project and use Mathematica 3.0 to
> write equations and such for it.  Due to the length of my project I
> need to print out my project in the computer lab in my school, but none
> of the computers there have mathematica on them.  When I try to print
> my project, the equations are very distorted.  What can I do to print
> the equations with out flaws in the lab?
>
> Sincerely,
> Gary Reich
>
>
> Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
> Before you buy.
>



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