From: <dan...@ie...> - 2005-02-15 02:10:14
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> On Mon, 14 Feb 2005, Petr Mikulik wrote: > >> > > set terminal epslatex standalone color \ >> > > header "\\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}\n\\usepackage{mathpmnt}" \ >> > > 'default' 12 >> > >> > Yuck. Guaranteed to scare away novice users, like me. >> >> LaTeX users are power users, and the above syntax does exactly what it >> is >> supposed to do -- add raw LaTeX commands to the document. Thus it shou= ld >> be >> like that. >> >> > commands on the order of >> > set termoption packages (mathpmnt, times, ...) >> >> That's confusing. > > I am glad that I am not the only one who thinks like that. I think so too, but I also think that Ethan's recent point is a valid one= . The nature of the beast (LaTeX) is to deal with packages, etc. somewhere= . But my intuition is to do that in a separate file. Often I generate figures in Xfig and plots in Gnuplot that have added blocks of text. These can get wordy with commands like \begin{minipage}{1.5in}, and so on. But rather than type the whole thing into Xfig (ever try typing in Xfig's edit window? ay, ay, ay) or Gnuplot I will instead put something like \txta and \txtb, then define those inside the LaTeX file. Certainly nobody is forced to use the standalone option. But consider th= e difference. Either I 1) Create an auxiliary LaTeX file that I copy from an existing file that I've created in the past. The information in this file indicates the packages to use, etc. I change a few things like the name of the include= d file. 2) Create a Gnuplot input file from some existing one I've created in the past which has the standalone string already in it, because I certainly a= m not going to type in that information anew every time. 3) Run some thirdparty program, e.g., say someone had the wherewithall to write an Octave script for printing such standalone LaTeX figures. That program could use the standalone option. My estimate is that 1 and 2 are pretty much the same mechinations.=20 However, 3 might put me in the pro-standalone camp. If I wrote a program with a pipe to gnuplot, I certainly would like to send all information through that pipe rather than create some temporary file. Dan |