Inside PSTricks

Timothy Van Zandt

Department of Economics, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey USA tvz@Princeton.EDU

Denis Girou
Institut du D eveloppement et des Ressources en Informatique Scientique Centre National de la Recherche Scientique, Orsay, France Denis.Girou@idris.fr

Abstract The macro-commands of the PSTricks package oer impressive additional caA)T X users, by giving them direct access to much of the power pabilities to (L E of PostScript, including full support for color. The purpose of this article is to outline the implementation of a few of the features of PSTricks (version 0.94). Introduction When a PostScript output device and a dvi-to-ps driver are used to print or display TEX les, TEX and PostScript work together, as a preprocessor and a postprocessor, respectively. The role of PostScript may simply be to render TEXs dvi typesetting instructions. However, the full power of PostScript can be accessed through \specials and through features, such as font handling, built into the dvito-ps driver. One can divide the PostScript enhancements to TEX into roughly four categories: 1. The use of PostScript fonts. 2. The inclusion of PostScript graphics les. 3. The coloring of text and rules. 4. Everything else. Most TEX-PS users are familiar with the rst three categories. The PSTricks macro package, by Timothy Van Zandt, attempts to cover the fourth category.1 The PSTricks package started as an implementation of some special features in the Seminar document style/class, which is for making slides with A L TEX 2 . However, it has grown into much more. Below are some of its current features:
A 1. Graphics objects (analogous to L TEX picture commands such as \line and \frame), including lines, polygons, circles, ellipses, curves, springs and zigzags.
1 PSTricks is available by anonymous ftp Princeton.EDU:/pub/tvz and the CTAN archives.

2. Other drawing tools, such as a picture environment, various commands for positioning text, and macros for grids and axes. 3. Commands for rotating, scaling and tilting text, and 3-D projections. 4. Text framing and clipping commands. 5. Nodes and node connection and label commands, which are useful for trees, graphs, and commutative diagrams, among other applications. 6. Overlays, for making slides. 7. Commands for typesetting text along a path. 8. Commands for stroking and lling character outlines. 9. Plotting macros. For information on PSTricks from the users point of view, consult the PSTricks Users Guide (Van Zandt, 1994) and the article by Denis Girou (Girou, 1994) in Cahiers GUTenberg, the review of the French TEX users group. The latter article is useful even to those who do not read French, because it consists predominantly of examples. Several of these examples appear in this paper, courtesy of Cahiers GUTenberg . Who can use PSTricks? A goal of PSTricks is to be compatible with any TEX format and any dvi-to-ps driver. Compatibility with the various TEX formats is not dicult to achieve, because PSTricks does not deal with page layout, oats or sectioning commands. However, compatibility with all dvi-to-ps drivers is an unattainable goal because some drivers do

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Timothy Van Zandt and Denis Girou not provide the basic \special facilities required by PSTricks. The requirements are discussed in subsequent sections. All of PSTricks features work with the most popular driver, Rokickis dvips, and most features work with most other drivers. Two dvi-to-ps drivers that support the same \special facility may have dierent methods for invoking the facility. Therefore, PSTricks reads a conguration le that tells PSTricks how to use the drivers \specials. Header les A PostScript header (prologue) le is analogous to a TEX macro le. It comes towards the beginning of the PostScript output, and contains denitions of PostScript procedures that can be subsequently used in the document. It is always possible to add a header le to a PostScript le with a text editor, but this is very tedious. Most drivers support a \special or a command-line option for giving the name of a header le to be included in the PostScript output. For example, the \special
\special{header=pstricks.pro}

One can also use the source le directly, in which case no header is used. This is convenient when developing the macros, because TEX and PostScript macros can be written together, in the same le, and it is not necessary to make stripped input and header les each time one is testing new code. The use of header les in PostScript documents reduces the size of the documents and makes the code more readable. However, the real benet of using header les with PSTricks is that it substantially improves TEXs performance. It reduces memory requirements because, for example, the denition of \tx@Atan takes up less memory and, more importantly, \tx@Atan takes up less string space each time it is used in a \special. It reduces run time because the writing of \special strings to dvi output is very slow. A le that makes intensive use of PSTricks can run 3 to 4 times slower without header les! Parameters and Lengths To give the user exible control over the macros, without having cumbersome optional arguments whose syntax is dicult to remember, PSTricks uses a key=value system for setting parameters.2 For example,
\pscoil[coilarm=0.5,linewidth=1mm, coilwidth=0.5]{|->}(5,-1)

tells dvips to include pstricks.pro. However, a few drivers, such as Textures (up through v1.6.2, but this may change) do not have this feature. Therefore, PSTricks can also be used without header les. From a single source le, one can generate a header le, an input le for use with headers, and an input le for use without headers. For example, the main PSTricks source le, pstricks.doc, contains the line:
\pst@def{Atan}<% /atan load stopped{pop pop 0}if>

When generating the header le pstricks.pro, the line

/Atan {/atan load stopped{pop pop 0}if}def

is written to pstricks.pro. When generating the input le pstricks.tex for use with pstricks.pro, the line
\def\tx@Atan{Atan }

is written to the input le. The input le for use without pstricks.pro contains instead the line
\def\tx@Atan{% /atan load stopped{pop pop 0}if }

Other macros can use \tx@Atan in the PostScript code, without having to know whether it expands to a name of a procedure (dened in a header le) or to the code for the procedure (when there is no header le).

The coilarm parameter in this example is the length of the segments at the ends of the coil. Note that coilarm was set to 0.5, without units. Whenever a length is given as a parameter value or argument of a PSTricks macro, the unit is optional. If omitted, the value of \psunit is used. In the previous example, the value of \psunit was 1cm. Therefore, coilarm=0.5cm would have given the same result. Omitting the unit saves key strokes and makes graphics scalable by resetting the value of \psunit. This is why the arguments to A L TEXs picture environment macros do not have A units. However, unlike L TEXs picture macros, with PSTricks the unit can be given explicitly when convenient, such as linewidth=1mm in the previous example. The implementation of this feature is simple. \pssetlength is analogous to \LaTeXs \setlength command, but the unit is optional:
PSTricks has recently adopted David Carlisles improved implementation of the parsing, contained in the keyval package.
2

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Inside PSTricks
\def\pssetlength#1#2{% \let\@psunit\psunit \afterassignment\pstunit@off #1=#2\@psunit} \def\pstunit@off{% \let\@psunit\ignorespaces\ignorespaces}

Arithmetic One of the limitations of TEX is its lack of fast, oating-point arithmetic. It is possible to write routines for calculating, for examples, sines and cosines using TEXs integer arithmetic, but these are notoriously slow. Therefore, PSTricks ooads such arithmetic to PostScript, whenever possible. Such ooading is not always possible because PostScript cannot send information to TEX. If TEX needs to know the result of some calculation, it must do the calculation itself. For example, suppose that one wants a macro that puts a triangle around a A TEX box, analogous to L TEXs \fbox command. The macro can measure the TEX box, and pass these dimensions to a PostScript procedure via a \special. PostScript can then use its trigonometric functions to calculate the coordinates of the vertices of the triangle, and then draw the triangle. However, it may be important for TEX to know the bounding box of the triangle that is drawn, so that the triangle does not overlap surrounding text. In this case, TEX must do (slowly) the trigonometric calculations itself. Pure graphics A large chunk of PSTricks consists of graphics macros, which you can think of as a fancy replaceA ment for L TEXs picture environment. The qualier pure means that the graphics do not interact with TEX. For example, a rectangle is pure, whereas a framed box is not. A pure graphics object scans arguments and puts together the PostScript code ps-code for the graphics. When the code is ready, the object concludes with:
\leavemode\hbox{\pstverb{ps-code }}

One advantage of the key=value system is that PSTricks has control over the internal storage of values. For example, PSTricks stores most dimensions as strings in ordinary command sequences, rather than in dimension registers. It uses only 13 of the scarce dimension registers, whereas, for example, PICTEX uses over 120. When PSTricks processes the parameter setting coilarm=0.5, it executes:
\pssetlength\pst@dimg{0.5} \edef\psk@coilarm{\pst@number\pst@dimg}

\pst@dimg is a register. \pst@number\pst@dimg expands to the value of \pst@dimg, in pt units, but without the pt. Hence, \psk@coilarm is ready to be inserted as PostScript code. Color To declare a new color, the user can type:
\newrgbcolor{royalblue}{0.25 0.41 0.88}

The color can then be used to color text and can be used to color PSTricks graphics. For example:
\psframebox[linewidth=2pt,framearc=.2, linecolor=royalblue,framesep=7pt]{% \LARGE\bf Its {\royalblue here} now!!}

Its here now!!

The \newrgbcolor command denes \royalblue to switch the text color, and it saves the color specication under the identier royalblue so that the PostScript code for setting the color can be retrieved by color graphics parameters. This support for color has been part of PSTricks since its inception. However, a problem that has arisen is that there are now many packages available for coloring text, and the user is likely to end up using some other color package in conjunction with PSTricks. But then the color names used for text cannot be used with PSTricks graphics parameters. It is therefore important that a dominant set of color macros emerge in the TEX community, and that the macros allow the PostScript code for the declared colors to be accessible, in a standard way, by packages such as PSTricks. Version 0.94 of PSTricks is distributed with an independent set of color macros that may be a prototype for such a standard color package.

\pstverb should be dened in the conguration le to insert the code in a \special that reproduces ps-code verbatim in the PostScript le, grouped by PostScripts save and restore. The graphics state should have PostScripts standard coordinate system (bp units), but with the origin at TEXs current point. For dvips, the denition of \pstverb is:
\def\pstverb#1{\special{" #1}}

This \special is the only output generated. Thus, within TEX, the object produces a box with zero height, depth and width. Within PostScript, the graphics object is grouped by save and restore, and hence has no eect on the surrounding output.

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Timothy Van Zandt and Denis Girou For example, here is a polygon:
\pspolygon[linewidth=2pt, linearc=.2,fillstyle=crosshatch] (1,0)(1,2)(4,0)(4,2)
2
7 8 9 10 11 12 13

gsave 45. rotate 0.8 SLW 0. setgray gsave 90 rotate 4.0 LineFill grestore 4.0 LineFill grestore gsave 2 SLW 0 setgray 0 setlinecap stroke end

0 1 2 3 4

\pspolygon rst invokes \pst@object, which collects (but does not processes) optional parameter changes, and subsequently invokes \pspolygon@i:
1 2 3 4 5

\def\pspolygon{\pst@object{pspolygon}} \def\pspolygon@i{% \begin@ClosedObj \def\pst@cp{}% \pst@getcoors[\pspolygon@ii}

\begin@ClosedObj (line 3) performs various operations that are common to the beginning of closed graphics objects (as opposed to open curves), such as processing the parameter changes and initializing the command \pst@code that is used for accumulating the PostScript code. \pst@getcoors (line 5) processes the coordinates one at a time (\pspolygon can have arbitrarily many coordinates), converting each one to a PostScript coordinate and adding it to the PostScript code in \pst@code. Then \pst@getcoors invokes \pspolygon@ii:
6 7 8 9

\def\pspolygon@ii{% \addto@pscode{\psline@iii \tx@Polygon}% \def\pst@linetype{1}% \end@ClosedObj}

Line 7 adds the PostScript code that takes the coordinates from the stack and constructs the path of the polygon. \pst@linetype (line 8) is used by the dashed and dotted linestyles to determine how to adjust the dash or dot spacing to t evenly along the path (the method is dierent for open curves and open curves with arrows). Then \end@ClosedObj (line 9) performs various operations common to the ending of closed graphics objects, such as adding the PostScript code for lling and stroking the path and invoking \pstverb. Here is the resulting PostScript code for this example:
1 2 3 4 5 6

Line 1 is added by \begin@ClosedObj. STP scales the coordinate system from PostScripts bp units to pt units, which are easier for TEX to work with (e.g., \the\pslinewidth might expand to 5.4pt, and the pt can be stripped). Lines 2 and 3 are the coordinates, which are added by \pst@getcoors. Line 4 sets the radius for the rounded corners and line 5 denes Lineto, a procedure used by Polygon, so that it makes rounded corners. If the linearc parameter had been 0pt instead, then, instead of lines 4 and 5, \psline@iii would have added /Lineto{lineto}def. Lines 7 to 11 are added by the fillstyle, and line 12 is added by the linestyle, both of which are invoked by \end@ClosedObj. The code for the graphics objects is highly modular. For example, nearly all graphics objects invoke the ll style to add the PostScript code for lling the object. To dene a new ll style foo for use with all such objects, one simply has to dene \psfs@foo to add the PostScript code for lling a path. The graphics objects can be used anywhere, and can be part of composite macros such as for framing text. However, they are most commonly used by the end-user to draw a picture by combining several such objects with a common origin. For this purpose, PSTricks provide the pspicture enA vironment, which is very similar to L TEXs picture environment. In particular, it is up to the user to specify the size of the picture. This is an unfortunate inconvenience, but one that is insurmountable. The PSTricks graphics objects include curves and other complex objects of which TEX could not calculate the bounding box, at least not without doubling the size of PSTricks and slowing it to a crawl. This is the main way in which TEXs lack of graphics and oating point capabilities hinders PSTricks. Nodes Drawing a line between two TEX objects requires knowledge of the relative position of the two objects on the page, which can be dicult to calculate. For example, suppose one wants to draw a line connecting his to dog in the following sentence:

tx@Dict begin STP newpath 2 SLW 0 setgray [ 113.81097 56.90549 113.81097 0.0 28.45274 56.90549 28.45274 0.0 /r 5.69046 def /Lineto{Arcto}def false Polygon

The dog has eaten his bone.

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Inside PSTricks One could calculate the relative position of these two words, as long as their is not stretchable glue in the sentence, but the procedure would not be applicable to connecting other objects on a page. With PostScript as a postprocessor, there is a straightforward solution. By comparing the transformation matrices and current points in eect at two points in the PostScript output, one can determine their relative positions. This is the basic idea that lies behind PSTricks node and node connection macros, and is one that PSTricks adapted from Emma Peases tree-dvips.sty. Here is how PSTricks connects the words:
\large The \rnode{A}{dog} has eaten \rnode{B}{his} bone. \ncbar[angle=-90,nodesep=3pt,arm=.3]{->}{B}{A}

The dog has eaten his bone.

\rnode{A}{dog} rst measures the size of dog. Then it attaches to dog some PostScript code that creates a dictionary, TheNodeA, with the following variables and procedures: NodeMtrx The current transformation matrix. X The x-coordinate of the center. Y The y-coordinate of the center. NodePos See below. Here is the code that appears in the PostScript output for this example:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

tx@Dict begin gsave STV CP T 8.33331 2.33331 18.27759 9.1388 3.0 tx@NodeDict begin /TheNodeA 16 NewNode InitRnode end end grestore end

This codes gets inserted with \pstVerb, which should be dened in the conguration le to include ps-code verbatim in the PostScript output, not grouped by (g)save and (g)restore. PostScripts current point should be at TEXs current point, but the coordinate system can be arbitrary. For dvips, the denition of \pstVerb is:
\def\pstVerb#1{\special{ps: #1}}

\pstVerb is used instead of \pstverb because the latter groups the code in save and restore,

which would remove the node dictionary from PostScripts memory. However, PSTricks still wants to work in pt units, and so STV scales the coordinate system. Line 4 contains the height, depth and width of the dog. The next line (9.1388 3.0) gives the x and y displacement from where the code is inserted (on the left side of dog, at the baseline) to the center of dog. Actually, by center we mean where node connections should point to. This is the center by default, but can be some other position. For example, there is a variant \Rnode that sets this point to be a xed distance above the baseline, so that a horizontal line connecting two nodes that are aligned by their baselines will actually be horizontal, even if the heights or depths of the two nodes are not equal. NewNode, in line 7, performs various operations common to all nodes, such as creating a dictionary and saving the current transformation matrix. Then InitRnode takes the dimensions (lines 4 and 5) o the stack and denes X, Y and NodePos. A node connection that wants to draw a line between a node named A and a node named B can go anywhere after the nodes, as long as it ends up in the dvi le after the nodes, and on the same page. The node connection queries the node dictionaries for the information needed to draw the line. In the example above, \ncbar needs to know the coordinate of the point that lies on the boundary of his, at a 90 angle from the center of node. After setting Sin and Cos to the sine and cosine of 90 and setting NodeSep to 0, the procedure NodePos in the TheNodeA dictionary returns the coordinates of this point, relative to the center of the node. The connection macro can then convert this to coordinates in the coordinate system in eect when the node connection is drawn, by retrieving and using NodeMtrx, X and Y from TheNodeA. A node connection macro, after drawing the connection, should also save a procedure for nding the position and slope of a point on the line, so that labels can be attached to node connections. This task is similar to that of a node; it should save the coordinates of the node connection and the current transformation matrix and a procedure for extracting from this information a position on the node connection. Example 1 makes extensive use of labels. There are many ways to position nodes, depending on the application. To create a diagram with arrows from one object to another, one can position the objects in a pspicture environment. For applications with more structure, one may want

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Timothy Van Zandt and Denis Girou a more automated way to position nodes. PSTricks does not come with any high-level macros explicitly for commutative diagrams, but it does have a psmatrix environment for aligning nodes in an array, and this can be used for commutative diagrams. Example 1 shows psmatrix beings used for a graph. PSTricks also contains very sophisticated tree macros. Overlays To make overlays with SliTEX, for example, you have to use invisible fonts, and TEX has to typeset the slide once for each overlay. This makes it impossible to make overlays if a slide uses fonts other than the few for which invisible versions are available, or if the slide contains non-text material. PSTricks uses a simple idea for creating overlays. Its operation is illustrated in Example 2. A box from which a main slide and overlays are to be created is saved, using the overlaybox environment. The \psoverlay{2} command in this box simply inserts the code
(2) BeginOL

\psmatrix [mnode=circle,colsep=.85cm,rowsep=1cm] % States: [mnode=R]{\mbox{Start}} & & [doubleline=true,name=0]$q_0$ \\ & & [name=1]$q_1$ \\ & [name=2]$q_2$ & & [name=3]$q_3$ \\[0pt] [name=4]$q_4$ & & [name=5]$q_5$ & & [name=6]$q_6$ \endpsmatrix % Transitions: \psset{nodesep=3pt,arrows=->,arcangle=15, labelsep=2pt,shortput=nab} \footnotesize \ncline[linestyle=dotted]{1,1}{0} \nccircle{0}{.4cm}_{0} \ncline{0}{1}_{1} \ncline{1}{2}^{0} \ncline{1}{3}_{1} \ncarc{2}{4}^{0} \ncarc{4}{2}^{1} \ncline{2}{5}^{1} \ncline{3}{6}^{0} \ncarc{<-}{0}{3}^{1} \nccurve[angleA=140,angleB=210]{4}{0}^{0} \nccurve[angleA=10,angleB=180]{5}{3}^{0} \ncarc{5}{4}^{1} \ncarc{6}{5}^{0} \nccircle[angleA=270]{6}{.4cm}_{1}
0

and similar code at the end of the current TEX group to revert to the main overlay. BeginOL compares the string on the top of the stack to the PostScript variable TheOL. If it does not match, the output is made invisible. Otherwise, it is made visible. To print out overlay 2,
\putoverlaybox{2}

simply has to insert Start q0

1

/TheOL (2) def

q1
0 0 1

q2
1 0 1 0

q3
0

q4
1

q5
0

q6

Example 1: An example of nodes and node connections and labels, used with the psmatrix environment. (Courtesy of Mark Livingston.)

before a copy of the box. Because we can insert PostScript procedures in the box that can be redened before each copy of the box, TEX only has to typeset the box once, which saves processing time and saves us from having to come up with a way to read the TEX input for the box several times. There are several ways to make output invisible with PostScript, none of which is entirely satisfactory. PSTricks default method is to translate everything far away (e.g., over by the coee pot) so that, except in very unusual circumstances, all the visible output ends up o the page. This is easy to undo, by translating back. The only problem with translation is that the node connections and labels, which use absolute coordinates, end up on the same overlay as the nodes that are connected. Therefore, users can select an alternate method for making material invisible: setting a small clipping path o the page. The problem with this method is that it can only be

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Inside PSTricks nd out the x and y positions of the beginning of the character. The x position is increased by half the width of the character to get the position of the middle of the character. This is the distance along the path that the middle of the character should fall. It is straightforward, albeit tedious, to nd the coordinates and slope of any point on a path. We translate the coordinate system to this point on the path, and then rotate the coordinate system so that the path is locally horizontal. Then we set the current point to where the beginning of the character should be, which means to the left by half the character width and up or down by the relative position of the base of the character in the box. Then we are ready to show the character. This method works with Rokickis dvips. For other drivers, one of two problems arises: 1. show is loaded or bound in procedures dened by the driver for displaying text. This means that the procedures do not invoke the command name show, which can be redened by PSTricks, but instead invoke the primitive operation show, which cannot be altered. The workaround for this is to remove the appropriate loads and binds from the drivers header le. 2. The driver uses PostScript Level 2s large family of primitives for showing text. The only workaround is to redene all these operators, which has not been attempted. The usual dvi drivers do not use Level 2 constructs. However, NeXTTEXs TEXView, which is a dvi driver based on the NeXTs Display PostScript windowing environment, does use Level 2 operators. The workaround for NeXT users is to use dvips to generate a PostScript le and then preview it with Preview. Stroking and lling character paths It is also possible to stroke and ll character paths, as illustrated in Color Example 4. The methodology is the same as typesetting text along a path, but it is easier because show just has to be changed to charpath. Nevertheless, the two problems that can trip up PSTricks \pstextpath macro can also trip up \pscharpath. Furthermore, \pscharpath only works with PostScript outline fonts, since bitmap fonts cannot be converted to character paths. Charts PSTricks has many primitives for a wide variety of applications, but sophisticated graphics can involve

\large \begin{overlaybox} $\frac{n-2}{n-3} + \psframebox{\psoverlay{2} \frac{n-1}{n}} = \frac{2(n-2)(n-1)}{n(n-3)}$ \end{overlaybox} \psset{boxsep=6pt,framearc=.15, linewidth=1.5pt} \psframebox{\putoverlaybox{main}} \psframebox{\putoverlaybox{2}}

n2 + n3 n1 n

2(n 2)(n 1) n(n 3)

Example 2: Overlays.

undone with initclip, which can mess up other macros that set the clipping path. PSTricks does not use PostScripts nulldevice operator, because this cannot be undone except by using grestore. It would thus be impossible to have nested overlays. The PSTricks overlay macros are used to implement overlays in the Seminar package. Typesetting text along a path One facility that TEX users have long desired but have been unable to obtain is to typeset text along a path. This is a task that also stretches the limits of PostScript \specials, but PSTricks contains an implementation that works for several dvi-to-ps drivers. It is illustrated in Color Example 4. The main diculty is that the text that goes along the path should be typeset by TEX, not by PSTricks, and then converted to PostScript output by the dvi driver. For PSTricks to get this text along the path, it has to redene the operators that the dvi driver uses to print the text. This requires knowledge of the PostScript code the dvi driver uses to print text. In the best case, the dvi driver simply uses PostScripts show operator, unloaded and unbound. PSTricks simply has to redene show so that it takes each character in the string and prints it along the path. The redened show checks the current point and compares it with the current point at the beginning of the box that is being typeset to

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Timothy Van Zandt and Denis Girou tedious programming. In such cases, a preprocessor can be constructed to automatically generate the PSTricks commands. The preprocessor can generate standardized representations using only a minimum amount of information, but the user does not lose exibility because the PSTricks code can subsequently be tweaked as desired. For instance, we can think of preprocessors for automatic coloration of maps, generation of graphs or trees, etc. For his own needs, Denis Girou has written (in Shell and AWK) a preprocessor (pstchart.sh) for automatic generation of pie charts, which he extended to generate other forms of business graphics (line and bar graphs, 2D or 3D, stacked and unstacked). Example 3 shows a data le, the unix command line for generating the PSTricks code from the data le, and the output. Color Example 3 shows the output from another example, generated with the unix command line:
pstchart.sh vbar dimx=9 3d boxit center\ figure print-percentages < file2.data

Data le:
3094 1438 365 267 248 236 122 57 33 18 9 | | | | | | | | | | | LUU SOL LMD LEG PPM MEF ASF DRT AMB TPR RRS

Command line:
pstchart.sh vbar dimx=7 3d nb-values=8 \ print-percentages print-values \ grayscale=white-black data-change-colors \ title="VP users files" center <users.data

Output:

VP users files
4000
3094 52.6%

Conclusion There is much talk about the future of TEX and about the need to create a replacement for TEX because TEX is, by design, just a typesetting program for positioning characters and rules. We believe that when todays TEX is supplemented by PostScript, through the use of \specials and good dvi-to-ps drivers, many of the special eects that users clamor for can be achieved today. PSTricks provides an example of this. When PSTricks is combined with the Seminar A L TEX 2 document class for making slides, plus PostScript fonts and macros for including graphics les, one has a complete presentation software package, that is quite far from the usual use of TEX for typesetting technical papers. However, there are still some limitations that can only be solved by changes to TEX. The most obvious one is TEXs lack of fast, oating-point arithmetic. Although TEX can pass information to PostScript through \specials, it is not possible for PostScript to pass information to TEX. This slows down many calculations and makes it impossible to calculate the bounding box of some graphics.

3200

2400
1438

1600

24.4%

800

365 6.2%

267 4.5%

248 4.2%

236 4%

122 2.1%

117 2%

LUU

SOL

LMD

LEG

PPM

MEF

ASF

Others

Example 3: Using the preprocessor pstchart to generate PSTricks graphs.

References Girou, Denis. Pr esentation de PSTricks, Cahiers GUTenberg, No. 16, pp. 2170, F evrier 1994. Van Zandt, Timothy. PSTricks: Documented Code. 1994 Van Zandt, Timothy. PSTricks: PostScript Macros for Generic TEX Users Guide. 1994.

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Label Scrollbar Primitive List Text

Core Xt Class
ArrowButton Core Composite Constraint

Manager

Set of Motif widgets classes

Example 5: Tree representation.

List Motif Class

TUGboat, Volume 15 (1994), No. 3 Proceedings of the 1994 Annual Meeting

OverrideShell Shell WMShell

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Example 4: Typesetting text on a path, lling character outlines, and using a TEX box as a ll pattern.

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Example 6: Coloration of maps.

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TUGboat, Volume 15 (1994), No. 3 Proceedings of the 1994 Annual Meeting