From: "David LB Schwappach" <[email protected]>
Reply-To: [email protected]
To: <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: st: Graph output: wmf to gif?
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 13:41:22 +0200
Hello bw,
well, for me, you ignore two issues:
1. In case one has to prepare hundreds of graphs, copy/paste is not
really an efficient procedure
2. if one wants to prepare internet presentations, one has to save or
convert or whatever to an internet-capable image format, compatible with
as much browsers and generations.
Hope this helps to clarify
Best regards
David
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of b. water
Sent: Thursday, April 03, 2003 1:20 PM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: st: Graph output: wmf to gif?
dear statalisters,
sorry if my comments revealled my ignorance in this matter. my setup:
w98se,
office 97 and stata 7 & 8. i used stata graphs output a lot for final
output
in either word docs or ppt slides. i have always used copy graphs and
pasted
as metafiles into office97 without problems. the picture appeared as
they
appeared in stata windows. i do not use coloring options though, and all
my
stata graphic outputs are produced by stata default settings (whatever
colors it gave me). for word docs that we end up converting to pdf,
again
there is no problem there. although there is an option for ps printing
on my
printer, i never have to ever use it.
i am therefore just a little bit puzzled or maybe just plain ignorant of
a
wider potential issue/problem with stata graphics. so may i just ask why
is
there a need to convert to eps, gif, bmp, tiff etc. maybe it is unix or
mac
os issues, if so pls ignore my time wasting comments and queries.
cheers,
bw
>From: [email protected]
>Reply-To: [email protected]
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Re: st: Graph output: wmf to gif?
>Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 15:38:47 -0600
>
>"David LB Schwappach" <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> > my original query has inspired an interesting discussion on the
> > list. I agree with Lee Sieswerda and others, that eps is best for
> > paper publication of graphs, such as journal submissions. However,
> > as initial format for gif conversion for web publication, my
> > experiences are not as good as reported by Lee. Through my eyes, the
> > result are never as sharp and precise as wmf to gif converted graphs
> > (this may be an issue
>
>Actually, the opposite is true but you are correct about the sharpness.
>EPS
>is more precise than WMF and therein lies the problem. EPS uses points
as
>a
>unit of measurement (which is 1/72 of an inch) and you can have
fractional
>points. WMF and PICT use pixels as a unit of measurement with 72
pixels
>per
>inch (in the ideal resolution) and of course pixel sizes are integers.
>
>When you convert an EPS file to a bitmap, the EPS converter tries to
>maintain
>the size of the line relative to the size of the image. Because a
pixel is
>the smallest screen unit, it tries to fool the eye into thinking a line
is
>thin using antialasing and drawing it "lighter". A solid black one
pixel
>line
>next to a light gray one pixel line appears "thicker" even though
they're
>the
>same pixel thickness. The minimum line thickness in WMF is 1 pixel so
>smaller
>images appear "sharper".
>
>I do agree with David that his examples seem to show that WMF to GIF
>appears
>to give better results. However, the EPS image appears to be slightly
>smaller, the font used seems to be wider (and thinner in stroke) giving
>less
>room to the actual plot area. You typically don't get the benefit of
>antialiasing when using WMF (I pasted a graph into Photoshop and curves
and
>circles remained jagged). I'd also like to point out that the last bar
>actually shows up in the EPS graph whereas the WMF graph shows nothing.
>
>Anyway, I still contend that EPS to gif is the better way to go as the
>results
>at http://www.stata.com/stata8/graphics.html show but it requires the
image
>be
>large enough. Any graph that contains more than just horizontal and
>vertical
>lines as well as thick lines should look better. Take a close look at
>http://www.stata.com/stata8/g/twoarea.gif and
>http://www.stata.com/stata8/g/g_linee.gif.
>
>btw, you should be able to print a PDF file to a non-PostScript printer
>using
>Acrobat Reader as a kind of a cheapy RIP (Raster Image Processor). I
used
>to
>do that with that with a lot of our color PostScript files that I
needed to
>print on a color non-PostScript printer. You can avoid paying the
often
>expensive PostScript option on many printers doing this.
>
>-Chinh Nguyen
> [email protected]
>*
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