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<head>
<title>UK TeX FAQ -- question label drawing</title>
</head><body>
<h3>Drawing with TeX</h3>
<p/>There are many packages to do pictures in (La)TeX itself (rather than
importing graphics created externally), ranging from simple use of
LaTeX <code>picture</code> environment, through enhancements like
<i>eepic</i>, to
sophisticated (but slow) drawing with PicTeX. Depending on your type
of drawing, and setup, here are a few systems you may consider:
<ul>
<li> PicTeX is a venerable, and very powerful, system, that draws
by placing dots on the page to give the effect of a line or curve. While
this has the potential of great power, it is (of course) much slower
than any of the other established packages. What’s more, there
are problems with its <a href="FAQ-docpictex.html">documentation</a>.
<li> <i>epic</i> was designed to make use of the LaTeX
<code>picture</code> environment somewhat less agonising;
<i>eepic</i> extends it, and is capable of using <i>tpic</i>
<code>\</code><code>special</code> commands to improve printing performance. (If the
<code>\</code><code>special</code>s aren’t available, the <i>eepicemu</i> will do the
business, far less efficiently.
<li> <i>pict2e</i>; this was advertised in
<a href="FAQ-books.html">the LaTeX manual</a>, but didn’t appear for nearly
ten years after publication of the book! It removes all the petty
restrictions that surround the use of the <code>picture</code>
environment. It therefore suffers <em>only</em> from the rather
eccentric drawing language of the environment, and is a far more
useful tool than the original environment has ever been. (Note that
<i>pict2e</i> supersedes David Carlisle’s stop-gap
<i>pspicture</i>.)
<li> <i>PSTricks</i>; this gives you access to all the power of
PostScript from TeX itself, by sophisticated use of
<a href="FAQ-specials.html"><code>\</code><code>special</code> commands</a>. Since PostScript is itself a
pretty powerful programming language, many astounding things can in
principle be achieved using <i>PSTricks</i> (a wide range of
contributed packages, ranging from world mapping to lens design
diagrams, is available).
<i>Pstricks</i>’ <code>\</code><code>special</code>s are
by default specific to <i>dvips</i>, but VTeX (both in its
commercial and in its free versions) understands them. PDFTeX
users may use <i>pst-pdf</i>, which (like
<i>epstopdf</i> — see
<a href="FAQ-pdftexgraphics.html">PDFLaTeX graphics</a>) generates
PDF files using an auxiliary program, from <i>PSTricks</i>
commands (<i>pst-pdf</i> also requires a recent installation of
the <i>preview</i> package).
<p/> There is a <i>PSTricks</i> mailing list
(<a href="mailto:pstricks@tug.org"><i>pstricks@tug.org</i></a>) which you may
<a href="http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/pstricks">join</a>, or you may
just browse the
<a href="http://tug.org/pipermail/pstricks/">list archives</a>.
<li> <i>pgf</i>: while <i>pstricks</i> is very powerful and
convenient, using it with PDFLaTeX is an awful fidget: if you
simply want the graphical capabilities, <i>pgf</i>, together with
its rather pleasing “user-oriented” interface <i>tikz</i>, may be a good
bet for you. While PDF has (in essence) the same graphical
capabilities as PostScript, it isn’t programmable; <i>pgf</i> provides
common LaTeX commands that will utilise the graphical
capabilities of both PostScript and PDF equally.
<li> MetaPost; you liked Metafont, but never got to grips with font files?
Try <a href="FAQ-MP.html">MetaPost</a> —
all the power of Metafont, but it generates PostScript figures; MetaPost
is nowadays part of most serious (La)TeX distributions. Knuth
uses it for all his work...
<li> <i>Mfpic</i>; you liked Metafont, but can’t understand the
language? The package makes up Metafont or MetaPost code for you
within using familiar-looking TeX macros. Not <em>quite</em> the
full power of MetaPost, but a friendlier interface; of course, with
MetaPost output, the results can be used equally well in either
LaTeX or PDFLaTeX.
<li> You liked PicTeX but don’t have enough memory or time? Look
at Eitan Gurari’s <i>dratex</i>, which is as powerful as most
other TeX drawing packages, but is an entirely new
implementation, which is not as hard on memory, is much more
readable (and is fully documented).
</ul>
<dl>
<dt><tt><i>dratex.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/dratex.zip">graphics/dratex</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/dratex/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>epic.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/epic.zip">macros/latex/contrib/epic</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/epic/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>eepic.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/eepic.zip">macros/latex/contrib/eepic</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/eepic/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>eepicemu.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/eepic.zip">macros/latex/contrib/eepic</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/eepic/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>mfpic</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/mfpic.zip">graphics/mfpic</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/mfpic/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>preview.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/preview.zip">macros/latex/contrib/preview</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/preview/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>pspicture.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pspicture.zip">macros/latex/contrib/pspicture</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pspicture/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>pst-pdf.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pst-pdf.zip">macros/latex/contrib/pst-pdf</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pst-pdf/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>pgf.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/pgf.zip">graphics/pgf</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/pgf/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>pict2e.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pict2e.zip">macros/latex/contrib/pict2e</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/macros/latex/contrib/pict2e/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>pictex.sty</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/pictex.zip">graphics/pictex</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/pictex/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>pstricks</i></tt><dd><a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/pstricks.zip">graphics/pstricks</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/pstricks/">browse the directory</a>)
<dt><tt><i>tikz.sty</i></tt><dd>Distributed with <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/pgf.zip">graphics/pgf</a> (or <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/www.tex.ac.uk tex-archive/graphics/pgf/">browse the directory</a>)
</dl>
<p/><p>This question on the Web: <a href="http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=drawing">http://www.tex.ac.uk/cgi-bin/texfaq2html?label=drawing</a>
</body>
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