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\documentstyle[12pt,aasms4,flushrt]{article} \def\emphasize#1{{\sl #1\/}} \begin{document} \title{Graphics inclusions in manuscripts} \author{C. D. Biemesderfer} \affil{NOAO, Tucson, AZ} There has been considerable development of text processing and typesetting tools over the past decade, and more and more scientists are using these complex programs to produce the material that they publish. Over the past several years, technology for creating finished-quality charts and graphics has started to come of age: versatile plotting and drawing programs are now widely available, high-resolution bit-mapped video displays are becoming commonplace, and laser printer hardware and software has matured. \begin{figure}[h] \plotone{sgi9289.eps} \caption{IRAF plot} \label{onebarrel} \end{figure} \begin{figure}[htb] \epsscale{0.5} \plotone{sgi9289.eps} \caption{IRAF plot, made narrower with epsscale \label{narrowbarrel}} \end{figure} It is natural for astronomers who are publishing scientific results to desire a mechanism for merging their graphical and textual data in a way that ensures a certain integrity in the page layout. Fortunately, the adoption of PostScript\footnote{PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.} as a de facto \emphasize{page description language} standard by a substantial fraction of the relevant sectors of the industry makes it simpler for programmers to set up the machinery. \section{Why PostScript is good} PostScript has a number of merits that make it a good choice as the language to use for graphics exchange. Most important is that it is a \emphasize{device-independent} means of describing printing on a page, and has been widely implemented across a variety of printers and display devices. It is fairly well-documented and tested, so different implementations work reliably and behave predictably. Furthermore, PostScript is composed of text using the ASCII character set. This makes is very easy to transport files on networks, and they are susceptible to manipulation by standard text processing tools, e.g., editors, pagers, etc. \subsection{Encapsulated PostScript} It is desirable for graphics inclusions to conform to certain codes of behavior, so that the graphics can be manipulated readily and reliably. PostScript can be generated at any of several levels of so-called \emphasize{structuring conventions}, which are a more or less inevitable consequence of PostScript's heritage as a programming language. When a PostScript program is to be interpreted as a simple page description, it is convenient if it obeys some rules of form. For the purposes of graphics inclusion, the most important property is that the PostScript be \emphasize{encapsulated}. What this means essentially is that the including application can determine the size and location on the page of the graphic \emphasize{without} having to interpret any PostScript code. The boundaries of such a ``capsule'' graphic are defined by a \verb"BoundingBox" comment that specifies the $x$ and $y$ coordinates of two opposing corners of the graphic. There are other ``do's and don'ts'' in the quest to produce encapsulated PostScript; however, it is generally sufficient for the including application to specify that imported PostScript graphics conform to the encapsulation standard. \section{Overview of the DVIPS commands} This is intended as a cursory look at the commands that can be used to work with graphics inclusions. It is by no means necessary for authors to know \emphasize{any} of this; markup language writers can easily shield the end-user from all of the details of the PostScript interface. A graphic that is delivered to an application in a capsule defined by a bounding box can be subjected to a limited number of operations: translation, truncation, scaling, and rotation. Translation, truncation (called \emphasize{clipping} in PostScript context), and scaling can be performed on each coordinate independently, hence we can identify seven primitive functions: \begin{center} \begin{tabular}{ll@{\hspace{2em}}ll} \tt hoffset & horizontal offset & \tt voffset & vertical offset \\ \tt hsize & horizontal clip size & \tt vsize & vertical clip size \\ \tt hscale & horizontal scale factor & \tt vscale & vertical scale factor \\ \tt angle & rotation angle \\ \end{tabular} \end{center} For most graphics inclusions, scaling is the most important function. It is rare to clip or rotate imported graphics, and moving the coordinate system origin from the current point is often troublesome in a text formatter. Furthermore, there is usually no reason to alter the aspect ratio of the graphic, so including encapsulated PostScript is often as simple as specifying a scale factor or a dimension and reading the file. \begin{figure}[h] \plottwo{sgi9279.eps}{sgi9259.eps} \caption{Dual IRAF plots} \label{twobarrel} \end{figure} \section{Implications for the AAS\TeX\ package} We are concerned with the import of two-dimensional graphics and grey-scale images into scientific manuscripts and other technical documentation. At this point in time, it should be adequate to require that all graphics for import be in the form of encapsulated PostScript, and to declare that figures will be imported in their entirety and with the same aspect ratio as in the original. It is then trivial to build some simple macros based on the \verb"epsf" substyle that is supplied with the DVIPS program by its author, Tom Rokicki. The \verb"epsf" macros we need to worry about are \verb"\epsscale", \verb"\epsfxsize" and \verb"\epsfbox", which perform the two functions we determined in the preceding section to be critical. For purposes of having prototype macros, I wrote two simple macros: \hangindent=3pc \hangafter=1 \noindent \verb"\plotone{FILE}" reads the PostScript in FILE and adjusts the scale such that the $x$-coordinate width of the graphic matches \verb"\epsscale" times the \verb"\textwidth" of the manuscript. Figure~\ref{onebarrel} on page~\pageref{onebarrel} is an example. \hangindent=3pc \hangafter=1 \noindent \verb"\plottwo{FILE1}{FILE2}" reads the PostScript from two files and scales each to fit across half the \verb"\textwidth" (actually, slightly less than half so the graphics don't collide). Figure~\ref{twobarrel} on page~\pageref{twobarrel} shows a pair of dueling inclusions. The arguments to the \verb"\plotone" and \verb"\plottwo" commands should not include additional scaling and rotation information. These commands are part of the AAS\TeX\ markup conventions, but it is entirely reasonable for authors to use the markup syntax of DVIPS for handling encapsulated PostScript graphics. If direct access to the graphic is desired, it is necessary to use the interface syntax defined by Rokicki. \begin{figure}[h] \vbox to2.6in{\rule{0pt}{2.6in}} \special{psfile=sgi9259.eps angle=180 hoffset=424 voffset=232 vscale=60 hscale=60} \caption{Inverted IRAF plot} \end{figure} One has to be careful, though, when using this approach, since the automatic link between the formatter (\LaTeX) and the PostScript is abandoned. One can get great effects, or totally funky ones \ldots \begin{figure}[h] \vbox to3in{\rule{0pt}{3in}} \special{psfile=sgi9259.eps voffset=-218 hoffset=60 vscale=75 hscale=55 angle=30} \caption{Mangled IRAF plot} \end{figure} \section{When the easy way fails} If the \verb"\plotone" or \verb"\plottwo" command puts your figure in as unexpected location, the BoundingBox in the figure is probably wrong, meaning that it doesn't tell DVIPS where the figure really sits on the page. The best thing to do is to fix the BoundingBox. It's pretty easy. If you can print your figure, hold the page in portrait orientation as it came from the printer. Now draw the smallest rectangle, with edges parallel to the edges of the paper, that circumscribes all of the printed marks on the page. This is the BoundingBox. Measure the $x$ and $y$ coordinates of the lower left and upper right corners of the rectangle, in that order, in units of $\frac{1}{72}$ of an inch with the origin at the lower left corner of the paper. For example, if the box you drew was one inch from three edges of the paper and two inches from the bottom, the four numbers would be ``72 144 540 720.'' Now edit the file containing the PostScript figure. Towards the top of the file, you should see a line containing \verb"%%BoundingBox:" followed by a space (important!) and four numbers. Replace the numbers that appear in the file with the numbers you measured, save the result, and reformat your document (run \LaTeX\ again). Your editor will appreciate your taking these steps. Some applications may create encapsulated PostScript files that create other problems. PostScript files created by FrameMaker are known to cause problems. C shell scripts called \verb"fixfm4" and \verb"fixfm5" can be downloaded from \verb"", from the directory \verb"pub/FrameMaker/Filters". These scripts will repair the PostScript files generated by FrameMaker versions 4 and 5, respectively. \end{document}