\
psfrag{Orig text}{Repl text}
, which
instructs the system to replace the original (“unique”) text with
the TeX-typeset replacement text. Optional arguments permit
adjustment of position, scale and rotation; full details may be found
in pfgguide in the distribution.
Since psfrag works in terms of (encapsulated) PostScript files,
it needs extra work for use with PDFLaTeX. Two techniques are
available, using pst-pdf package
in a mode designed to do this work; and using pdfrack.
The Pst-pdf package can support
this “extra work” usage. In fact, the pst-pdf support
package auto-pst-pdf offers a configuration setting
precisely for use with psfrag.
If you have the ‘right’ environment (see below), you could try the
pdfrack script bundle. The script aims to cut each figure
out of your source, using it to produce a small LaTeX file with
nothing but the figure inclusion commands. Each of these figure files
is then processed to PostScript, compiled using the \
psfrag
commands,
and the resulting output converted to PDF again.
Pdfrack is written to use the Unix Bourne shell (or
equivalent); thus your environment needs to be a Unix-based system, or
some equivalent such as cygwin under windows. (What is
more, pdfrack’s author is rather disparaging about his
package; the present author has never tried it.)
The psfragx package goes one step further than
psfrag: it provides a means whereby you can put the
psfrag commands into the preamble of your EPS file
itself. Psfrag has such a command itself, but deprecates
it; psfragx has cleaned up the facility, and provides a
script laprint for use with Matlab to produce
appropriately tagged output. (In principle, other graphics
applications could provide a similar facility, but apparently none does.)
Emacs users may find the embedded editor iTe a
useful tool for placing labels: it’s a (La)TeX-oriented graphical
editor written in Emacs Lisp. You create
iteblock
environments containing graphics and text, and
may then invoke iTe to arrange the elements relative to one
another.
Another useful approach is overpic, which overlays a
picture
environment on a graphic included by use of
\
includegraphics
. This treatment lends itself to ready placement
of texts and the like on top of a graphic. The package can draw a
grid for planning your “attack”; the distribution comes with simple
examples.
The lpic package is somewhat similar to overpic;
it defines an environment lpic
(which places your
graphic for you): within the environment you may use the command
\
lbl
to position LaTeX material at appropriate places over the
graphic.
Pinlabel is another package whose author thought in the same
sort of way as that of overpic; the documentation explains
in detail how to plan your ‘labelling attack’ — in this case by
loading your figure into a viewer and taking measurements from it.
(The package discusses direct use of
ghostscript as well as
customised viewers such as
gsview or
gv.)
Pstricks can of course do everything
that overpic, lpic or pinlabel
can, with all the flexibility of PostScript programming that it offers.
This capability is exemplified by the pst-layout package,
which seems to be a superset of both overpic and
lpic.
Similarly, pgf/TikZ has all the power needed, but no
explicit package has been released.
The pstricks web site has a page with several
examples of labelling
which will get you started; if pstricks is
an option for you, this route is worth a try.
The confident user may, of course, do the whole job in a picture
environment which itself includes the graphic. I would recommend
overpic or the pstricks approach, but such things
are plainly little more than a convenience over what is achievable
with the do-it-yourself approach.
This answer last edited: 2013-06-03
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