Drawing figures for LaTeX

[Stev]

Hi guys,

I'm using LaTeX and it happens that I need to draw some figures.
I've been unable to find a program that really suits me, so I would like to know which one(s) you use.

I'm actually using Ipe, and I find it's quite good but It seems a bit immature and it's missing a couple of handy features
like snapping an enpoint of an object, say a line, to another, so when you move the second the endpoint follows.
On the other side i like how you can snap things to almost everything (also angular snapping!) and the ability to insert latex code directly into the generated eps file.

I've also used tikz but I find unpratical to write code to generate a figure you could have done more easily and in less time with a graphical editor.

My first attempt was Dia but it's buggy and crash prone and embedding LaTeX expressions doesn't work well. A positive note is the large amount of symbols which I don't really need TBH.

This post doesn't come from a real need since I'm currently able to do what I need, also I know I could just code something I want into Ipe or write my own drawing program. I'm just looking to share opinions/suggestions

[thoughtfully]

You might find this thread from the Coding forum helpful.

[Proginoskes]

PiCTeX is an old package which works great for line drawings, as well as putting TeX fonts into the images. It also prevents the problem that PDF(La)TeX has with images. The software is free (search for it at CTAN), but the manual isn't. The .tex code is commented enough to get you started; you can also pick up a copy of Alan Hoenig's TeX Unbound for further examples.

(TU also has other graphics and font solutions.)

[SWGlassPit]

My program of choice is Xfig. It allows combinations of raster and vector graphics, and it allows LaTeX to render the text, so formulae can be used in figures.

[Proginoskes]

xfig is great if you have Unix/Linux. (It also has export to PiCTeX, if I recall correctly.) The OP might be a Windoze user, though.

P.S. Nice avatar ... Not! Gotcha, SWGlassPit!

[Ulc]

I find that Inkscape (the newer version of xfig) is a lot more intuitive for drawing figures, and that it really works well.

Wonderful program really!

[ycc1988]

I also use Inkscape. Making the "Render>LaTeX Formula" extension work in Windows was a bit of a hassle, but totally worth the effort. Specifically, I had to install Imagemagick and pstoedit and manually then copy the .dll files from the Imagemagick directory to the pstoedit one. Pretty easy once I actually managed to Google the damn instructions. I've also used xymatrix for simple drawings, however some academic journals will want you to submit all graphics as eps files, with all text+equations converted to paths.

[eternauta3k]

Inkscape + TexText

[EvanED]

I've used both Inkscape and PGF/Tikz. (I'm kind of surprised no one has mentioned that.) IMO, Tikz does a better job at most things but is... let's say not easy to use.

[MichiK]

I like Inkscape, too. However, it has some nasty bugs and flaws, e.g. on my Debian machine, it crashes repreoducible whenever I use the "Color markers to match stroke" extension, what kind of sucks since I need that quite frequently. Anyway, converting the shape of the marker into a path and change the color of that path worked for me...

In addition to that, it (or mayve something else in the toolchain behind it) messes up things when dealing with raster graphics whose pixels are a lot larger than what would correspond to 90 dpi. They look fine in Inkscape and they look fine on paper when you embed them as EPS/PDF in a document and print that, but they are completely screwed up by interpolation when you view the PDF on the screen... very strange.

Until now I didn't know that it even speaks LaTeX (since I never needed formulae within a figure...) but I definitely have to try that out some time...