[OS X TeX] {picture}

[Christopher Allen]

I'm not laughing, I'm hoping to save you some of the trouble I went 
through discovering tons of stuff on my own.

There is disagreement on the list as to whether it is kind to suggest 
pstricks to someone new. I'm of the side that finds its consistency 
nice. It's very similar to the picture environment, but allows for more 
growth. \pdftricks should work, too. There is a lot of power in them. 
The repeat placements I've shown can be done from within the picture 
environment, too, but I can't remember the syntax off the top of my 
head. I can't remember how many points to a centimeter; I'll just use 
1cm instead of 36pt to keep things looking the same; \pstricks uses cm 
by default. You could do:

\usepackage{pstricks}
\usepackage{multips}

\begin{pspicture}(1,1)
\multips(0,0)(1.2,0){5}{\psframe(1,1)}
\multips(0,0)(1.2,0){5}{\psline[linethickness=2pt](1,0)(1,1)}
\psline(-.2,-1.4)(3.6,-1.4)
\end{pspicture}

The \multips commands both place a figure at (0,0), then repeatedly to 
the right by 1.2 cm until 5 have been drawn. (I believe you made 5 
boxes.) \psframe builds a box with the specified lower left and upper 
right corners (the default lower left is (0,0), as used above). \psline 
is similar to \line.

I would recommend setting picture and pspicture sizes to encompass your 
figures entirely. That way LaTeX will control the flow of material 
around the drawings instead of through them.

As for the operators:

\rput(x,y){\HUGE{$\times$}}

where x and y are the coordinates. You could replace "\times" with "+" 
or "-" or any other symbol you'd like.

I hope that helps and maybe gives you some new ideas.

Christopher

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