Re: Graphics export for high quality documents
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg96900] Re: Graphics export for high quality documents
- From: "Sjoerd C. de Vries" <sjoerd.c.devries at gmail.com>
- Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 08:04:00 -0500 (EST)
- References: <go31jd$fbi$1@smc.vnet.net>
In the past, I have been using exports to EPS with an embedded preview so that you have something to look at in Word. On screen it may or may not look fantastic, depending on the selected preview details, but it prints fine (at least on a postscript printer). Mathematica embeds fonts by default in EPS (at least, the documentation has this claim). Cheers -- Sjoerd On Feb 25, 11:04 am, "Nathan Myhrvold" <nath... at intven.com> wrote: > Graphics export for high quality documents > > I am working on a book project where I have a number of graphics, and > some tables that I want to create using Mathematica. There are a numbe= r > of problems that I have found with this. I am using Mathematica 7.0 o= n > Windows 64 bit, in case that matters. > > It is hard to get high quality output into Microsoft Word. If I expor= t > graphics as WMF or EMF the text frequently look funny - there is a > character layout issue. I think this has to do with how Mathematica > deals with spacing and scaling. Setting ImageSize helps, and using the > right font names helps, but there still are problems. > > Another problem is that PDF files of a Word document that includes > Mathematica graphics imported as EMF often has problems with > mathematical symbols. > > Exporting PDF directly from Mathematica is in general higher quality > than WMF, EMF output. However, it has the problem that you can't impor= t > it into Microsoft Word - at least not directly. There might some way t= o > process it so you can. > > Also, there seem to be some persistent problems with PDFs- the > mathematical symbol fonts do not seem to work reliably for me. Part o= f > the problem is a bug/feature in Mathematica that it does not embed fonts > in the PDF. The work around is to run a PDF distiller program over th= e > output to embed the fonts which helps. > > PDFs from Mathematica can be edited with Adobe Illustrator, which helps > touch them up if there is something I can't achieve in Mathematica > directly. Again, there are problems with math fonts - even on the sam= e > computer if I edit a graph that has Traditional Form output, the math > symbols won't appear in Illustrator. > > For use in the book we want to import the pictures into Adobe InDesign. > I am not an InDesign user, but when I have tried to import PDFs from > Mathematica using the Place command, what I get looks like a scaled, low > res bitmap. The book publishing / design / layout people that I have > spoken with so far all want me to export raw data so the graphs can be > made with other software - they have no experience with Mathematica. > Yet many people seem to do books with Mathematica so this must be a > solved problem. > > Tables are another issue - with the Grid[] you can make some pretty > complicated tables. But they are hard to export to other programs tha= t > will treat them like tables instead of like pictures. EMF and PDF > work, but with the same problems as Graphics output. It has occurred t= o > me that HTML or XML output might help for tables. > > Finally, I know that a lot of people use 3rd party add-ons when they > make publication quality graphs with Mathematica. The Presentations > package by David Park is one such - which I already have, but I have > only used for a few things and don't claim to know all it can do. > There are/were several packages on MathSource for doing custom tick > marks and other things - they probably are still there but they have > reorganized MathSource to a state where I can't find them anymore, even > with search. Are there any other add-ons that are useful for publication > quality graphics? Or stand alone programs I can use to post-proces= s > things exported from Mathematica? > > Surely somebody out there must have experience with this! > > Here are my specific questions: > > 1. What is the best strategy for Export[] for graphics for use= in > Microsoft Word? Export to EMF? Something else? > > 2. What is the best strategy for Export[] to import into InDes= ign > or other desktop publishing programs? Export to PDF, followed by > running though batch PDF distiller is my best hope at the moment. > > 3. What are the most useful Mathematica add-ons, or stand alon= e > programs for making publication quality charts and graphics? > > Nathan > > This message and any attachments, may contain confidential and/or > legally privileged information. If you are not the intended recipient > of the message by the original sender, please destroy it. Message and > attachments copyright (c) 2008, all rights reserved. Any unauthorized > dissemination, distribution or copying is strictly forbidden