[OS X TeX] OT newbie: ps psd into teX document

[Ross Moore]

> this an OT, i think newbie story and request, i apologize in advance if 
> i'm outta line posting, but i am trying to learn:
> 
> today the systems guys here were trying to figure out a .psd graphics 
> problem -into a teX'd document, or to be teX'd.
> 
> the assist. admin. is groveling about this school .psd logo image having 
> a "bounding box" that is causing it to print a quarter of the, 
> apparently to huge, image as a "eps?" file -i guess he made an eps of 
> it. anyway...
> 
> he was saying something about there being too much bounding box or 
> something -i couldn't really catch it as he wasn't addressing me -BUT... 
> sitting there at my Mac OSX with TeXShop and all this nice stuff 
> installed (eps2pdf) etc., i thought -well of this list and various 
> things i've read about here!

This all sounds very familiar indeed.

If he designed the logo in Illustrator, then saving directly as PDF
would give a bounding-box that is the whole page.
Other drawing programs do the same kind of thing.
(Some even include a filled white rectangle, having the size of
the page --- getting rid of that requires some knowledge of how
PostScript works.)
 
> so i quickly downloaded eps2pdf and the logo and converted it to a pdf, 
> then i heard him talking about some advice he'd gotten but hadn't 
> figured out yet -IncludeGraphics, etc.... now i'm thinking oh oh!.. 
> silently. :-)

eps2pdf ( have you mis-spelled ?  epstopdf  or  ps2pdf )
uses Ghostscript --- a free program for interpreting PostScript
code, and saving the result into different image formats.
It generally does a good job of getting the BoundingBox right.

 
> so i open TeXShop and easily find the IncludeGraphics section and i read 
> that it works with pdf... so i'm thinking so far so good... not much 
> ensues:
> 
> ending is:  now i'm up to where he is and i offer... with the logo 
> opened in Acrobat on my screen... "is this how you want it?" (logo image 
> appears to be to the borders) he says, "how'd you do that?" i say, "i 
> converted it to pdf.
> He says, "i don't think i can use a pdf." i'm thinking... i bet he can, 
> though i've read here that going to pdf should be at final stage(?) 
> -maybe that's what he wants.

You can also give him another .eps, with correct bounding-box.
 ps2epsi  is the script for this.


> oh, and i heard him, earlier, saying something about a bitmap... i'm 
> thinking... hmm... "...embedded bitmap in teX doc?"... where have i 
> heard about possible problems there.

bitmaps can be good, but only when viewed at the resolution for
which they were designed. A vector format is much better as the
master version; especially for a logo, which will be needed at
many different sizes and resolutions.
 
> anyway, he says, "send me the pdf."

He probably has software that will enable this to be saved back
as a correct .eps , else he can use it directly with pdfTeX .

> if anyone would care to *try* to decipher this and shed any light, 
> provided any of it makes sense and there is enough info here, please 
> mail me?

It sounds pretty typical really.
You did good.  :-)

 
> (He was on a Sun trying to print the file -looked like a letter head 
> with logo [the culprit image] at the upper left corner.)

teTeX works fine on a Sun --- indeed, on any Unix box.
If he has it already --- probably does, since you mentioned TeX initially ---
then maybe he hasn't discovered pdftex and pdflatex yet.
He can't use the TeXShop interface, but he's certainly got  vim 
and  emacs/auctex  available. 



Hope this helps,

	Ross Moore

> 
> thanks.
> 
> Ted
> 
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
> To UNSUBSCRIBE, send email to <info at email.esm.psu.edu> with
> "unsubscribe macosx-tex" (no quotes) in the body.
> For additional HELP, send email to <info at email.esm.psu.edu> with
> "help" (no quotes) in the body.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------


-----------------------------------------------------------------
To UNSUBSCRIBE, send email to <info at email.esm.psu.edu> with
"unsubscribe macosx-tex" (no quotes) in the body.
For additional HELP, send email to <info at email.esm.psu.edu> with
"help" (no quotes) in the body.
-----------------------------------------------------------------