Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ eps to pdf again! for a beginner

[jakethepeguk1]

Hello everyone,

I am fairly new to LaTeX, and have been enjoying using it a lot. However, no amount of searching through forums, internet surfing, or hitting my head against the desk can help me get the epstopdf package to work. Its really annoying me.

I am using Texlive 2009 and TexWorks as my editor, and have include the graphicx and epstopdf packages in my preamble. Im using pdfLaTeX which is why i need to use the epstopdf package, but everytime i try and compile it i get an error. I understand that there is a lot of documentation out there to get these things to work, but for this thing, i just cant seem to make it work at all.

Is anyone out there able to help at all? Im pretty clueless so things like 'The feature \write18 must be enabled" (which i have seen alot) doesnt mean a lot and i dont know how to enable \write18 (any defined instructions would be really helpful). Also i understand doing this is a little dangerous leaving my computer open to various attacks if im not careful.

Thanks

Jake

[frabjous]

It might help to know what platform/OS you're on, and what version of TeXworks you're using.

The following works for me with Version 0.3 (r.545) of TeXworks on Ubuntu 9.10 64-bit.

In TeXworks, go into Edit > Preferences, then the Typesetting tab. Where it says "Processing Tools", select pdfLaTeX (or whatever you use). Then the click "Edit" button on the right. Then where it says "Arguments", click the blue "+" button. Then replace where it says

New Argument

with

--enable-write18

press Enter. Now click the Green Up arrow twice (or however many times) to put that first in the list of arguments. Click OK.

You should now be write18-enabled.

If it doesn't work, please actually post the error messages you get here.

Another option would be to convert the .eps figure into a .pdf and include that instead. (Then you wouldn't need to use the write18 feature.)

To do that, open a terminal/command line on your system and navigate to the folder containing the .eps file. (How you'd do that would depend on what operating system you're using.) The type in

ps2pdf filename

and it'll create a pdf file, and you can use that, rather than the eps file with \includegraphics.

[jakethepeguk1]

Wow,

It worked straight away. I have spent weeks trying to get this to work. Thank you so much.

I understand using the \write18 argument is a little dangerous. Why is this? What type of problems could it create? Is there a safer way (i saw somewhere there may be an option to only turn on \write18 for epstopdf and nothing else)
http://www.texdev.net/2009/10/06/what-d ... te18-mean/

Thanks so much again.

Jake

PS. Im using windows vista and Texworks v0.2.3(r.466)