importing figures into MSOffice (was: Copy to clipboard for Linux)

[James R. V. Z. <jr...@co...>]

Bob Fletcher <rob...@kn...> wrote:

>   On Fri, 2006-07-14 at 11:52 -0700, Ethan Merritt wrote:
>   > On Friday 14 July 2006 10:56 am, Bob Fletcher wrote:
>   > >
>   snip
>   > Taking a step to the side ...
>   > As I understand it, what you want to do is import the plot into
>   > an OpenOffice doc.  I would suggest to you that even if you get
>   > the X11 cut/paste working, this is a poor solution to the task
>   > at hand.  You would be better off binding a hotkey to a command
>   > sequence like:
>   > 
>   > "set term push; set term png; set output /tmp/plot.png; \
>   >  replot; set term pop"
>
>   OK, thanks Ethan. I still haven't been able to get the hot key binding
>   to work properly, but I can enter the commands on the command line and
>   create the .png (or .emf) file. As you said, I can then drag this new
>   file into the OO document.

I import a *lot* of gnuplot figures into MSOffice documents.  For
each figure, I create a gnuplot script that creates whatever file I
will later want to import, then plots to a window:

   set label "az" at graph 1,1.015 right font "times,6"
   set term cgm
   set output "az.cgm"
   splot 'az.dat' title 'beamsize' with lines, \
     sin(u),cos(u),0 ti 'horizon', \
     sin(u/4), 0, cos(u/4) ti 'elscan'
   set output
   
   set term emf; set output "az.emf"; replot; set output
   
   set term `if [ "$DISPLAY" = "" ]; then echo linux; else echo x11; fi;`
   replot


The window display is last so it's interactive.  

I only use vector formats for importing (usually cgm, sometimes emf,
never png) because they're smaller, they scale, and they look better.

I save the gnuplot script so I can tweak the input data and easily
re-create the figure.  Usually I automate this with a Makefile with
lots of sections like this:

  az.cgm az.ps: az.dem az.dat
  	gnuplot $<

The only part that isn't automated is updating the figures in the
MSOffice document.  Maybe I should be "linking" instead of "embedding"
the figures.  I assume OpenOffice has something of that sort too.

                  - Jim Van Zandt