Announcing the release of TransFig version 3.2.3 January 14, 2000
TransFig is a set of tools for creating TeX documents with graphics
which are portable, in the sense that they can be printed in a wide
variety of environments.
TransFig 3.2.3 is available from:
ftp://www-epb.lbl.gov/xfig
http://www.xfig.org/xfigdist
ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/applications/drawing_tools
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/X11/contrib/applications/drawing_tools
from any CTAN machine, e.g. ftp://ftp.tex.ac.uk/pub/archive/graphics.
See http://math.nmu.edu/Web/TeXArchives/ctansite.html for a long list
of CTAN sites.
Be sure to set binary mode when transferring.
You also need a JPEG library, which can be found in ftp://ftp.x.org/contrib/libraries.
The transfig directory contains the source for the transfig command
which generates a Makefile which translates Fig code to various graphics
description languages using the fig2dev program. In previous releases,
this command was implemented as a shell script.
The fig2dev directory contains a general program for translating from
Fig code to other graphics desciption languages. The dev subdirectory
contains a library of output drivers used by fig2dev.
Drivers currently exist for the following graphics langauges:
AutoCad slide, BOX, (E)EPIC macros, LaTeX picture environment, PIC, PiCTeX, PNG,
PostScript, Encapsulated Postscript, GIF, IBM-GL, JPEG, PCX, MF (METAFONT),
TeXtyl, TIFF, TPIC, XBM (X11 Bitmap), XPM (X11 Pixmap), and TK (tcl/tk).
Fig2dev can be configured with a subset of these drivers.
I have taken over the maintenance of TransFig from Micah Beck so please send any
bug notices, fixes, contributions etc to me at xfig-bugs@www-epb.lbl.gov.
- Brian V. Smith
- Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory
*****************************************************************************
Following is a description of the CHANGES for 3.2.3
[N.B. There was no transfig/fig2dev 3.2 patchlevel 2]
NEW FEATURES
o Adapted the transfig manual from LaTeX 2.09 to LaTeX 2e and uses
Times/Helvetica/Courier instead of Computer Modern fonts.
From Roland Rosenfeld (roland@spinnaker.de)
o If DBM file for RGB databse does not exist, read "rgb.txt" instead.
o If a file such as /usr/local/lib/fig2dev/A3.ps exists, insert it
when generating PostScript output to select paper tray, for example.
o Messages from bitmap output (GIF, JPEG, etc) are captured and printed
if there is any error during the export
o New PDF driver (uses ps2pdf from the ghostscript distribution)
o New CGM driver (Computer Graphics Metafile) from Philippe Bekaert
(Philippe.Bekaert@cs.kuleuven.ac.be)
o More page sizes (Japanese JIS B0-B10 and ISO A0-A9)
o Autocad Slide format called "sld" now instead of "acad"
(e.g. fig2dev -L sld ...)
o -L eps is required for Encapsulated PostScript now, instead of fig2dev
just using the -P (add showpage) option to distinguish EPS from PS
o The compile-time symbol EPSF in fig2dev/Imakefile has been changed:
comment out the DDLATEX2E_GRAPHICS = ... line if you don't want to use
the standard graphics package distributed w/ LaTeX2e
Uncomment the DDEPSFIG = ... line if you want to use the deprecated
epsfig macros distributed w/ LaTeX2e (DDLATEX2E_GRAPHICS must also be
defined)
o The default is now to compile for DVIPS
o Arc-boxes available for LaTeX now
from C. Scott Ananian <cananian@lesser-magoo.lcs.mit.edu>
o New import picture formats supported - TIFF and PPM
BUGS FIXED
o clipping and background filling incorrect for some Postscript/EPS
output
o pstex driver now uses EPS driver for figure part instead of PostScript
for proper bounding box and orientation (this is what caused rotation
of the figure relative to the LaTeX text part when the Fig file spec-
ified Landscape)
o TransFig now takes -L eps for Encapsulated PostScript language
o Imported EPS file bounding box wasn't read correctly
o readjpg.c and readjpg.o included in fig2dev/dev/Imakefile even without
JPEG support
o calloc() declaration wrong for some systems (fig2dev/read.c)
o Bug in importing EPS files - strange aspect ratios resulted
o Used "True" and "False" instead of "TRUE" and "FALSE" in several
driver files. Have converted all TRUE to True and FALSE to False
o Some applications don't set clipping path when they import EPSF file,
and not only the background of the figure but whole paper may be
painted with the -g (background) option.
o BitmapSuccess and BitmapFileInvalid were not defined in
fig2dev/dev/genxbm.c
o Digital's compiler doesn't like "{ }" as initializer (genps.c)
o Declarations of malloc() and calloc() removed from alloc.h, as they
are declared in <stdlib.h>
o Arrowheads didn't quite extend far enough
o Extra parenthesis in shell script when exporting to SLD, XBM, and XPM
o splines were interpolated slightly differently than in xfig
o Add description about "-j" option to help message (when I18N is enabled)
o if imported PCX image file couldn't be opened, fig2dev tried to close
the file, which is a bad thing
o %%EndProlog has been removed since it was not needed and there was
never a %%BeginProlog
o needed pi.h for gentk.c (tk driver)
o bzero macro defined globally now (wasn't defined in readpcx.c) for
those systems which don't have it (it is defined to use memset)
o didn't include "pi.h" in dev/gentk.c for machines that don't have M_PI
o Moved JPEGLIBDIR and JPEGINCDIR definition closer to the top in the
fig2dev/Imakefile
o Output to GIF, JPEG, etc. (bitmap formats) didn't work properly if the
destination was stdout
o "make install" changed because some systems' install program can only
take one file at a time
o Added a "newpath" command after the initial clip command for PostScript
output just in case an object is drawn without a preceding newpath
o M_2PI was redefined without first being #undef'd
o the "-" character in Fig files should really be a hyphen, not a dash as
it was encoded for PostScript output. This is fixed thanks to info
from Robert Maier.
o Splines didn't come out exactly as they did in xfig.
o In transfig, character used instead of int when checking for EOF on
file. From Geoff Keating (geoffk@ozemail.com.au)
o %%EndDocument only written for imported EPS files (not XPM, etc)
From Dick Wesseling (ftu@fi.UU.nl)
o Added "if defined(FreeBSDArchitecture)" to include -lcompat library
o Changed fig2dev.h to always include <sys/param.h>
o Bounding box variables were uninitialized
o Cleaned up error reporting of line numbers in Fig file
o Text bounding calculations ignored the "include" directive for center-
and right-justified text, which is used to flag whether text should be
included in the bounding area. This would affect the LaTeX, PicTex,
PSTeX, TexTyl, and IBMGL drivers.
From Anton Wilder <a.j.wilder@swansea.ac.uk>
o Clipping for arrowheads so that thick lines wouldn't "protrude" through
the arrow tip modified so that it works properly with ghostscript 5.50.
o Allocation error in reading some pcx files