[texhax] LaTeX

[Steve Schwartz]

On Mon, 2012-04-09 at 09:02 -0400, William Adams wrote:
> > (2) The best software to create encapsulated postscript (EPS)
> graphics
> > format?
> ...
> 
> For opensource programs there are a number of options:
> 
>  - Inkscape --- while oriented towards SVG this should be usable
> for .eps and CMYK
> 
>  - Cenon --- originally a CAD/CAM program, it's been opensourced: 

I would add Scribus to the list, which runs on most platforms. It's
aimed at high-quality page-layout, but it has enough graphics capability
for most needs, is easy to use, and generates very good vectorised
graphics (pdf or ps). You can point it to your tex fonts and then get
consistent font treatment across your text and graphics. Like other
posters, I use pdflatex and export pdfs from scribus - which I then do a
final crop using pdfcrop.

If you need graphics with variable shadings, fuzzy brushes and the like,
you'll end up in the bitmap graphics world, meaning Adobe photoshop (if
you have the money) or gimp (if you don't). Pdflatex works well with png
graphics - or jpegs if you need to compress and don't mind the loss in
quality.

Good luck.
Steve

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