Re: which one: xfig, dia or inkscape
>>>>> abdelkader belahcene <abelahcene@gmail.com> writes:
> until now, I used xfig to draw my figures and graphs, but I am not
> satisfied, specially when I want to no latin caracters or formula
> (like in latex)
The PostScript graphics produced by XFig could often easily be
combined with LaTeX formulae thanks to the ‘psfrag’ package (as
in: \usepackage {psfrag}.) Unfortunately, it's fundamentally
incompatible with pdflatex(1).
Alternatively, the graphics could be turned into any of the
“editable” vector formats that could be referenced from within a
LaTeX document (such as PIC, MetaPost, etc.) and manually edited
to add all the necessary text and formulae.
> I tried inkscape it seems better ???
Inkscape is essentially the same, but it uses a standard format
(SVG) for its graphics, instead of inventing its own (what XFig
did, preasumably because there was no such a format at the time
XFig was developed.) Also, both the SVG format and Inkscape
itself, AIUI, have much better support for internationalization.
Unfortunately, doing formulae in Inkscape is nowhere as easy as
it's in LaTeX.
There's, however, the pMMLtoSVG package, which is supposed to
produce quality SVG rendering of formulae typeset in
Presentation MathML. Also, there're a few converters from
pseudo-TeX format to MathML (check, e. g., the ttm and latexml
Debian packages.) I don't know whether pMMLtoSVG is currently
in a usable state, though. (It's my opinion that the project
would benefit should a few more volunteers join in.)
> what about dia ??
Dia has support for what I prefer to call “parametric graphics”.
I. e., it could be extended by “plugins”, each providing a
particular “parametric” shape. E. g., there could be a plugin
that draws a star, which has the number of points as the
parameter. To the best of my knowledge, it's the sole advantage
of using Dia instead of either Inkscape or XFig.
> I want to a good choice. any idea thanks a lot
--
FSF associate member #7257
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