Graphics, Figures & Tables ⇒ Different graphics formats -- which to choose?

[kelp]

Hi community,

can someone give me some guidance or point me in a direction where I can read about the differences between the graphics formats that can be included in a TeX file? Like, is one better than the others (in certain contexts)? If I produce a graphic that I wish to include in a TeX file should I always go for EPS? Or ...?

Thanks,
kelp

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi kelp,

have look here: Including images with optimal quality. There's an explanation of differences of formats and recommendations which one to use for which purpose.

Stefan

[Johannes_B]

If you have taken a phot or a screenshot, you have a raster format. Using jpg or png will be fine.

If you have control about the actual content of the graphic, i.e. a diagram or arrows, be sure to use a program that can save your stuff as a vector image, i.e. eps or pdf.

If the latter is the case, you can probably generate the same things with LaTeX alone.

[kelp]

Hi guys,

thanks for the input!

From this https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/LaTeX/Imp ... ge_formats I understand that for pdftex the best option is to use the pdf format, if possible, right?

–kelp

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Hi kelp,

if the images are already in png or jpg, you can keep it and include with pdfLaTeX, don't convert to pdf before including. That saves space. pdfLaTeX does already wrap it in pdf code, no need to do it before, so twice.

If you produce an image with a software such as Inkscape, yes, choose pdf as output format for later including with pdfLaTeX, as pdf is scalable.

Stefan

[kelp]

Hi Stefan,

thanks for your reply.

Sorry, I wasn't being clear enough. I was only talking about scaleable formats, and whether I should be using EPS or not. (PDF seems to be the way to go.)

–kelp

[Stefan Kottwitz]

Yes, that's correct! pdf is perfect for pdfLaTeX. eps would work with automatic conversion or using epstopdf. Recently I used epstopdf very often to convert Cisco networks symbols in eps format to pdf for using with TikZ.

Stefan

[kelp]

Ok. Thanks for the confirmation!