[Response from colleague:]Problems that I have identified thus far (very preliminary and
poorly structured explorations) in the beta version of the product
that I am testing include (a) unable to recognize graphs constructed
in landscape mode but portrait seems "OK", (b) unable to recognize
pdf graphs constructed using the par(mfrows=) command where there are
multiple plots within the same graph, and (c) unable to recognize the
original size of the pdf graphs.
Considering how much time we all probably spend LaTeX'ing and
fooling around with getting graphics to look right, I'll greatly
appreciate seeing some improvements in this area. I use just pdflatex
on Linux anymore but some of my pet peeves and puzzlement and wishes
probably would apply to PCTeX. Here's an example of how I generally
put graphics in:
\clearpage
\begin{figure}[p]
\caption{Simulated realization of $T$=30 years of salmon data: states
(solid lines), and observations (dashed lines).}
\label{fig:simstates}
\setlength{\unitlength}{1.0 in}
\begin{picture}(7.0,7.0)
\put(0.1,-0.1)
{\includegraphics[width=6.0 in,height=7.0 in]{simstates.pdf}}
\end{picture}
\end{figure}
and the packages I use:
\usepackage{epsf,graphics,graphicx}
I'm creating pdf files from S-Plus like you using pdf.graph() and
in R using pdf(). I also include .jpg files a lot for presentations.
Here are some things, not in any order of priority:
(1) A general LaTeX complaint- I don't like having
to put \caption first and then \label second. My preference would
be that I could put them in any order.
(2) It would be "nice" if pdflatex would automatically convert postscript
files to pdf. As it is now if I have a postscript file (usually sent
to me by a co-author) I run ps2pdf, a Unix pgm, first, to create a pdf
copy and then include that in my LaTeX file. Not a real big problem, however.
(3) As alluded to above, I'd want to be able to include .jpg. One minor
annoyance is that pdflatex doesn't like .jpeg; I just need to rename the
file to .jpg and it works, however.
(4) Referring to your point (a) - I've had similar baffling problems
with figures being rotated from portrait to landscape, or the converse,
but I don't recall why it happened, nor what I did to fix it.
(5) Referring to your point (b), that's one I've never run into
with pdflatex. As long as I can read a produced graph using Adobe
Acrobat, pdflatex has been able to read it.
(6) Referring to your point (c), that is one I would strongly
support--I've spent a fair amount of time calculating the original
figure's aspect ratio (number of horizontal to number of vertical pixels,
say) and then ensuring that my width and height dimensioning in
\includegraphics is the same. In other words, just having LaTeX use
the original dimensioning by default would be very nice.
There is a related issue when creating LaTeX documents that will either
be used to produce a hardcopy or to produce a slide show. I use the
\ifthenelse command a lot as follows, where \talk=0 means a hardcopy:
\bc \begin{figure}[h]
\caption{Logistic model: $X_t$ vs time and $X_{t+1}$ vs $X_t$.}
\label{fig:Logistic}
\setlength{\unitlength}{1.0 in}
\ifthenelse{\talk = 0}{
\begin{picture}(8.3,8.3)
{\includegraphics[width=7.3 in,height=8.3 in]
{/home/ken/Classes/MT5752/Handouts/Pix/logistic.pdf}}
\end{picture}
}{
\begin{picture}(2.5,2.5)
{\includegraphics[width=2.5 in,height=2.5 in]
{/home/ken/Classes/MT5752/Handouts/Pix/logistic.pdf}}
\end{picture}
}
\end{figure}
\ec
Note how the dimensioning is changed.
I'm sure there's more but this is what immediately comes to mind.