On Thu, Nov 07, 2002 at 05:48:54PM -0800, Chris Carlen wrote:
> 1. Does anyone here use OpenOffice to produce figures to import into 
> Lyx, and if so how do you generate the .eps files?

I know nothing about OO, but any other .eps I have met so far
work very well with dvips. Most drawing/graphing etc. programs
can produce them.

> My interest at this point focusses on Tgif and Xfig.  Honestly
> I would much prefer to use OOo Draw, because I am used to it
> and I will still use OOo for other things in which the
> integration of the Draw program with the other modules is
> useful.  Xfig and Tgif seem a little bit crude, coming from the
> dark ages of UNIX GUI interfaces, so it seems.  But
> I understand as well that they are nonetheless very good
> drawing programs.

XFig is kind of strange, but when you get used to it, it is
actually not so bad.

> The question then is:
> 
> 2.  What program is used most often, and what might you
> recommend?

There are many options: I personally use Metapost, but it is
really only for people who like it (if XFig is crude to you, than
forget it). However, there are pretty nice separate drawing
programs too. Sketch (written in Python) and Kontour (from
KOffice) are pretty good (the former slighly more mature) and
they look and feel much more Corel-like.

> Finally, there is one trick I'd like to do that was quite easy
> in OOo, and that is to include equations in a figure.

If you export into PiCTeX+eps from xfig (particulars are pretty
well described in LyX documentation -- read it!), then you can
have true LaTeX formulas in your pictures. And you cannot get
much better than that.


Matej

-- 
Matej Cepl, [EMAIL PROTECTED], PGP ID# D96484AC
138 Highland Ave. #10, Somerville, Ma 02143, (617) 623-1488
 
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