Re: st: Queries on graph 8

[Chinh Nguyen <cnguyen@stata.com>]

I thought the following email would be useful to all.

> Last night yet, I saved a graph as an .eps file using the pull-down 
> menus.  I then inserted it into Word (OS X, Service Release 1 
> version).  I had actually tried this before, but could never see the 
> graph in Word (it's clearly there but I can't see it in normal view or 
> in print preview).  This time, however, I went ahead & printed it 
> anyway.  What a gorgeous graph I got!  Even when I print from Stata 
> directly, the background shading doesn't show up as well.  Clearly, I 
> can be very happy with this .eps format but do you have any idea why I 
> can't see the inserted file in Word?  I realize that this is in all 
> likelihood a Word
Quite simply it's because Stata does not save file previews with its 
EPS files.  Most applications that accept EPS files do not try to 
render the EPS file to the screen but simply show a bounding box in its 
place if no file preview exists.  It's up to the application that saved 
it to create the file preview and embed it in the EPS file.  Regardless 
of whether a preview exists or not, EPS files are simply passed through 
to the PostScript printer so they'll always print fine.

We'll add creating previews to our to-do list but it basically involves 
writing a Windows/Macintosh/Unix bitmap to TIFF converter and saving a 
TIFF preview in the EPS file... no easy task.  Fortunately for 
Macintosh users, TIFF/GIF/JPEG/PNG exporting capabilities are built 
into QuickTime and every Mac with OS X has QuickTime so I'll take a 
quick look into it and see how much work is involved.

-Chinh Nguyen
 cnguyen@stata.com

*
*   For searches and help try:
*   http://www.stata.com/support/faqs/res/findit.html
*   http://www.stata.com/support/statalist/faq
*   http://www.ats.ucla.edu/stat/stata/