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Printing and Exporting graphics images from Mathematica 6 to PDF?

  • To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
  • Subject: [mg91235] Printing and Exporting graphics images from Mathematica 6 to PDF?
  • From: AES <siegman at stanford.edu>
  • Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:54:37 -0400 (EDT)
  • Organization: Stanford University
  • References: <g6uch9$pda$1@smc.vnet.net> <g71248$o8k$1@smc.vnet.net> <g7k067$i46$1@smc.vnet.net>

The following quote appears in a recent post to this group:

> > File > Print Selection > Save As PDF causes the graphic to be
> > rasterized.  This is why it displays so much quicker in the viewer
> > application.  You can get the same behavior from File > Save Selection
> > As > PDF by clicking on the Options button in the Save As dialog and
> > setting Graphics Containing Smooth Shading > Use Bitmap
> > Representation.
> >
> > Unfortunately, this results in a larger file size because of a
> > limitation of Mathematica 6 where it does not compress exported
> > bitmaps.  This limitation has been removed for a future release.
> >
> > -Rob
> > Wolfram Research

As best I can tell these statements are not correct, or at least do not 
apply directly, for Mathematica 6 on Macs.  Is this statement limited to other 
non-Mac platforms? 

And some related questions:

1)  Following the most straightforward Print Selection to PDF procedures 
on a Mac seems to produce a vector graphics file in which all the text 
has been converted into outline form, which means it can no longer be 
readily edited in Illustrator.  

Is there a way to prevent this behavior, and keep all the text as 
characters in embedded fonts, so that one can edit the text, make font 
changes, change font sizes, and the like?

2)  Following the alternative chain of steps involved in Save Selection 
to PDF (again, on a Mac) leads one to a menu of options that includes 
choosing between "Highest Quality Vector Representation" and "Most 
Compatible Vector Representation".  What do these terms mean?  

[Or is this a Mac OS X question rather than an Matheamtica question?  It's not 
clear to me whether the dialog box that presents these options is a Mac 
OS dialog box or an Mathematica 6 dialog box . . . ]

3)  More broadly, if one's overall objective is to routinely transfer 
Mathematica 6-generated graphics from Mathematica 6 notebooks into vector graphics PDF files 
on a Mac HD, such that the resulting PDF files will be: 

   *  Of primary concern, "most fully and readily editable" in 
      some other graphic application such as Illustrator, and

   *  Of secondary importance, not excessively large in file size,

what is the _best_ way to do this in Mathematica 6, on a Mac?


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