Images in Latex

Articles > Latex

1. SVG in Latex

Bitmaps in Latex

For my reports and papers, I use ImageMagick on Linux (well, Cygwin) to convert all my bitmap images to EPS files:

mogrify -format eps *.png

Make sure that none of the images have spaces in them! Tex doesn't seem to like it, though I'm sure a \ would fix that. And then I can include them in pretty much any compilation route like so:

\begin{figure}[hbt]
\centering
\includegraphics[width=80mm]{images/web-ide.eps}
\caption{NetBeans Visual Web Pack 5.5.1}
\label{fig:netbeans-ide}
\end{figure}

Visio Images in Latex

It took me forever but I finally worked out how to get vectorized images from Visio into Latex.

1. First, you need to install a PDF printer such as CutePDF.
2. Remove transparency in your Visio file.
3. Print out your image to the PDF printer. Make sure that it fits on one A4 page and is oriented correctly.
4. Use pdf2ps to convert the PDF image to a PS file.
5. You can then include this PS file directly into Latex.

I've noted that the on-screen quality of these PS images is fairly shocking, which is disappointing. It appears there is some uncontrollable magic happening in the PDF or PS processes; one solution is to increase the DPI.

1. At 600 dpi (the default), fonts at 12pt remained as vectors, but 10pt was being rasterized.
2. At 1200 dpi, fonts at 12pt and 10pt remained as vectors, but 10pt italic was being rasterized.
3. At 4000 dpi (the highest setting), all fonts remained as vectors, except for some smaller or thinner fonts.
4. If you have opacity in your images it appears they will always be rendered poorly by Visio.

(Another option may be adding the "-r2400" parameter to your pdf2ps command line.)

Low Quality Images

If you are using pdfopt or ps2pdf, and you are getting low-quality images, try adding this parameter to your ps2pdf command line:

ps2pdf -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer input.ps output.pdf

This will make the final PDF at 300 dpi for all images. More reference: http://www.ghostscript.com/doc/current/Ps2pdf.htm
(Though, in my setup, doing this didn't actually generate the PDF file in the end.)