[OS X TeX] .ps graphics, pdflatex, and priority

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 16.09.2012 um 21:17 schrieb Charles Shooshan:

> 1. Is this a good solution (any downside to having the epstopdf.cfg file locally)?

No other user will have access to it. A system-wide installation would be here: /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local/tex/latex/latexconfig/epstopdf.cfg. That's what I use. Installing it in the texmf-local tree requires elevated privileges, i.e., using sudo, and also a final step:

	sudo mktexlsr /usr/local/texlive/texmf-local

> 
> 2. Is my decision to make .ps the lowest priority consistent with good practices? [I figure that I should use a file I already converted to .png or .pdf rather than an original .ps file provided by someone else. I will likely never create graphics files in the .ps format.]

Putting the PostScript file format last is a good decision since this format is not concluded or self-contained. It has an API that allows to open files or to use the operating system, so it's a possibly dangerous file format. EPS, the Encapsulated PostScript file format is a better choice because it's restricted to using safe PS commands.

--
Greetings

  Pete

I hope to die before I *have* to use Microsoft Word.
			- Donald E. Knuth, 2001-10-02 in Tübingen