Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ EPS and JPG in thesis

[snowfrog]

Hi,

I'm writing my thesis which includes a lot of pictures (originally in a jpeg format) and a lot of graphs (originally in eps format). My understanding of LaTeX is that there is no way I can compile a *tex file that includes both jpeg and eps, is that right?

Assuming that is right, I have to convert one or the other. I have tried the Imagemagick

Code: Select all

convert -quality 100 picture1.jpg picture2.eps

and also "save as" in Gimp.

My experience with converting though is that there is quality loss from the original picture / graph. I'm guessing I must be the umpteen person having this problem (although I couldn't see any previous post specifically related to this) so I would be interested to know what other LaTeX users needing both format (or high quality colour photos and graphs) have done in the past?

[php1ic]

I've found for eps->jpeg, using ghostscript does better than gimp.

Code: Select all

gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -r300 -sOutputFile=file.jpg -sDEVICE=jpeg -c "<< /PageSize [x y]  >> setpagedevice" -f file.eps

x and y are the coordinates of the upper right hand corner, assuming the lower left is at 0 0

-r300 is the resolution of the output file, I think in dpi.



This website is also good

http://www.tlhiv.org/rast2vec/

[snowfrog]

Thanks for the advice php1ic.

I have tried the command line you suggested

Code: Select all

gs -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -r300 -sOutputFile=W_C_1_202.jpg -sDEVICE=jpeg -c "<< /PageSize [5 8]  >> setpagedevice" -f W_C_1_202.eps

and got the error message

Code: Select all

Error: /undefinedfilename in (W_C_1_202.eps)
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:1154/1684(ro)(G)--   --dict:0/20(G)--   --dict:70/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: 2
GPL Ghostscript 8.70: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

I tried a variant of your code

Code: Select all

gs -sDEVICE=jpeg -dJPEGQ=100 -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -r300 -sOutputFile=W_C_1_202.jpg W_C_1_202.eps

that I found on a website and got the same error message

Do you have any idea where I'm going wrong?

[php1ic]

Looks like it can't find the eps file. It may seem like an obvious point, but are you sure it's in the same directory as you when you run the command?

P.S. The values of x and y need to be in points, 5 and 8 seem very small.

[localghost]

It is very much better to convert the EPS files to PDF and then compile with pdflatex. This would keep the vector format of the images. Search the forum for »epstopdf« and you will find many appropriate solutions for this issue. If you really need to compile with latex, there is a very efficient way to convert JPG to EPS with ImageMagick.

Code: Select all

convert filename.jpg eps3:filename.eps

This converts the image to a Level 3 Postscript file.


Best regards
Thorsten

[snowfrog]

It is very much better to convert the EPS files to PDF and then compile with pdflatex.

I think that could be the way forward for me! I had been using pdflatex and converting eps to jpeg before but the quality of the graphs really deteriorated with the conversion. I think converting to pdf looks far nicer.

Thanks to both of you for the helpful tips!