[OS X TeX] Inclusion of TIFF files

[Bruno Voisin]

I am preparing the final publisher-ready copy of a paper, using a  
supplied journal LaTeX style file.  Nothing fancy here: only CM/AMS  
fonts, and figures in EPS format which is the journal preferred  
vectorial format for figures. Hence, I was going the TeX + dvips +  
GhostScript route.

However, some of the EPS figures are huge (~ 50 MB each -- no thanks  
Mathematica!), resulting: for TeX, in a final PDF file for the paper  
of about 80 MB; for Adobe Illustrator CS 2, which I use for  
adjustments to the figures, in slowness and inefficiency on my  
valiant PowerBook G4. Hence, I have been considering making smaller  
bitmap versions of the offending figures.

The preferred bitmap format for the journal is TIFF:

> The preferred format for figure files is .eps or .tiff at  
> resolution 1200 dpi for lines, 600 dpi for greyscale and 300 dpi  
> for colour (which preferably should also be in CMYK - cyan magenta  
> yellow black - format). However, most standard image formats such  
> as pct, ppm, png, psd, Word, ppt, CorelDraw, ChemDraw, AutoCAD can  
> also be used, but not customized output of software not designed  
> for publishing purposes such as Matlab, nor PDF.

Indeed, I have prepared TIFF versions of the figures (~ 2.5 MB each).

However, how to include them in TeX on Mac OS X? AFAIK pdfTeX dropped  
TIFF support a few years ago, and dvips does not support TIFF either.  
Alpha OS X Textures only supports EPS, PDF and PICT for now. AFAIK,  
only XeTeX supports TIFF on OS X. Hence, I have been using XeTeX and  
it does indeed work like a breeze, with no other change to the LaTeX  
input file than:

%!TEX TS-program = xelatex
\usepackage{xunicode}
\DeclareGraphicsExtensions{.tif,.pdf}

In this way, the final PDF file for the paper switched from 80 MB to  
10 MB.

Is there another solution? Do people here know about another way of  
including TIFF files in TeX documents on the Mac? Have I missed  
something obvious?

Please do not answer along the lines of "use ImageMagick to convert  
TIFF to another bitmap format"; or "educate your publisher so that  
they accept PDF and JPEG file formats". The publisher must have their  
reasons for acting as they do, I don't want to interfere here, that  
would just be a waste of everybody's time. The idea is, rather: given  
a specific set of constraints (TeX on OS X, LaTeX journal style file,  
EPS format for vectorial drawings and TIFF format for bitmap  
drawings), how to optimize the resulting output and the time spent to  
get it?

Bruno Voisin
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