Re: Lua/Tikz terminal behavior

[Philipp K. J. <ja...@ie...>]

On Sat, 08 Nov 2014 15:20:14 -0800
sfeam <sf...@us...> wrote:

> On Saturday, 08 November 2014 07:12:43 AM Philipp K. Janert wrote:
> > 
> > Thanks all for your comments.
> > I am still looking for the advantages over,
> > say, the epslatex terminal.
> 
> Specifically in comparison to epslatex
> 1) epslatex produces *.eps, not *.pdf, so not as nice if you use
> pdflatex 2) eoslatex does not support transparency or alpha channel
> images.
> 
> A more equal comparison would be to 'set term cairolatex pdf'
> 

Yes, of course. (I am soooo 2008.)

For what it's worth, here are some differences
between the TikZ and cairolatex:

1) TikZ creates only ONE file, whereas cairolatex
  needs two (one for the actual graph, one for the
  labels).
2) The .tex files created by TikZ may be large,
  because they must contain all the data (or, for
  function plots, the fct evaluated at all points).
  (Apparently, these large tex files can cause memory
  problems for Latex, but I have not pushed it to that
  point.)
3) If you are good at Tex AND TikZ, then editing
  the generated file is a real option (whereas the 
  files created by cairolatex do not seem intended
  for manual editing).

Finally, TikZ of course draws all lines (and points,
and ...) itself, whereas cairolatex lets gnuplot 
draw the graphic elements. In principle, this gives
you access to TikZ's greater/different capabilities,
compared to gnuplot (if you know TikZ).

Best,

		Ph.