xtexcad(1) TeX Manual xtexcad(1)NAMExtexcad - drawing utility that produces LaTeX \picture environments
SYNOPSISxtexcad [-toolkitoption...] [-option...] [file]
DESCRIPTION
The xtexcad utility is for drawing graphics which is intended to be
included into a LaTeX document. For this purpose the graphics is saved
as a LaTeX \picture environment.
In order to produce correct input to LaTeX, the slopes of lines and the
diameters of circles are restricted to those that LaTeX supports.
THE FILE MENU
The following commands are available under the File menu:
New Erase the current graphics completely and start a new drawing.
Load Load graphics from a file. This pops up a file selector and
lets you choose a file. See FILE FORMAT on how the input file
must be structured. A file which was saved by xtexcad can be
read in again.
Save Save the graphics under the current file name, which is dis‐
played in the title bar of the main window. If the graphics has
not been saved in a file yet, the function is the same as Save
As. An already existing file is backed-up by renaming it. The
suffix .old is appended to the name of the backup file. The
suffix can be changed with the resource backupSuffix.
Save As Save the current graphics under a new file name. This pops up a
file selector which lets you choose a file or specify a new
file name. From now on, Save will save the graphics to the new
file name.
Quit Exit from xtexcad.
THE EDIT MENU
The following commands are available under the Edit menu:
Copy This creates a copy of the currently selected item.
Delete This deletes the currently selected item.
Edit Text
If the currently selected item is a text, a framed box text or
a dashed box text, this pops up a dialog in which the text can
be edited.
Refresh This refreshes the drawing area.
DRAWING GRAPHICS and the DRAW MENU
The Draw menu allows to select the drawing mode. The currently selected
mode is indicated by a check mark.
The first entry, Pick, switches to the pick mode. This allows that
already drawn items can be selected and modified. To select an item
move the pointer over it and press the left mouse button. Currently, an
item can be selected when the pointer is over its rectangular bounding
box. Press the left mouse button repeatedly to cycle through the possi‐
ble items for the current pointer position. (NOTE: To select a text you
must carefully point at the anchor point of the text.)
When an item is selected, it can be modified by placing the pointer
over the grips. To move the item, press the middle mouse button and
drag the item to the desired new location. To change the size or direc‐
tion of an object, press the left mouse button and drag the grip to the
desired new location.
When drawing a Line or Vector, press the left mouse button to place the
starting point of the line or vector. Then press the left mouse button
again to place the end point. This is now the starting point of a new
line. To finish the line, press the middle or right mouse button.
For a Bezier first place the starting point, then the end point, then
the curvature of the curve using the left mouse button. Then start with
the next bezier.
For the Framed Box Text and the Dashed Box Text place two opposite cor‐
ners of the box. Then a popup appears where the text can be typed in
and the alignment of the text within the box and the shadow style of
the box can be selected. After pressing Ok or Cancel, draw the next
box.
For a Text simply choose the location. Then a popup appears where the
text can be entered and the alignment can be specified.
For a Circle Outline and a Filled Circle first specify the center, then
the size.
For a Filled Rectangle and a Rounded Rectangle specify two opposite
corners.
THE OPTIONS POPUP
Pressing the Options button pops up a window containing several toggle
buttons. With these, some features can be switched on and off (these
features can also be controlled with X Resources):
Enable Grid
displays a grid when pressed. The distance between the grid
points can be specified in the text entry below in units of
\unitlength. The initial value of this text field can be con‐
trolled with the resource initGridDistance. Whether the grid
is initially on is controlled by the resource initGrid.
Snap to Grid
When this option is enabled and the option Enable Grid is also
selected, only restricted positions in the drawing area can be
selected (only the grid points). See also the resource init‐
Grid.
Unlimited Slopes and Unlimited Diameters
When these options are switched on, unlimited slopes for lines
and vectors and unlimited diameters for discs and circles are
allowed. Note, that output files produced with these options
enabled will not be accepted by plain LaTeX. Normally, circles,
discs, lines and vectors are precisely restricted to those
available with usual LaTeX fonts. See also the resources ini‐
tUnlimitedSlopes and initUnlimitedCircles.
Ruler switches on a ruler along the top and left edges of the drawing
area with labels in multiples of \unitlength. See also the
resource initRuler.
Cross Hair
switches on a cross hair which follows the pointer. See also
the resource initCross.
Minimum Length
When this option is enabled, xtexcad obeys that a minimum
length is required for slanted lines and vectors. The corre‐
sponding resource is initUnlimitedLengths.
THE SHIFT POPUP
When the Shift button is pressed, a window pops up with which the draw‐
ing can be shifted in the drawing area. There are 4 buttons with arrows
for the 4 directions and a small button between them which centers the
drawing. The amount how far to shift the drawing can be specified in
the text entry field below the arrow buttons. The inital value in this
field can be controlled by the resource initOffset where the value is
understood in units of \unitlength.
THE ZOOM POPUP
When the Zoom button is pressed, a window pops up where the current
zoom factor (as a percent value) can be specified. The factor is lim‐
ited to the range 25 through 400. The inital zoom value can be con‐
trolled by the resource initZoomFactor. The button shows the current
zoom factor. (The center button of the Shift popup is useful to place
the drawing in the middle of the drawing area again.)
OPTIONS and X RESOURCES
This program uses the X Toolkit and Athena widgets. The class name for
the application is XTeXcad. It understands all of the core resource
names and classes and all of the standard X Toolkit command line
options. The following standard X Toolkit command line arguments are
commonly used with xtexcad:
-fn font
This option specifies the font to be used for displaying text
in buttons and menu entries as well as the text in the drawing
area. The font used in the drawing area can selectivly be cho‐
sen with the application resource .font (class .Font).
-fg color, -bg color
This specifies the foreground and background colors of all of
xtexcads windows. The foreground color of the drawing area can
selectivly be chosen with the application resource .foreground
(class .Foreground).
-geometry geometry
This option specifies the prefered size and position of the
application window.
-display host:display
This option specifies the X server to contact.
In addition, the following application specific resources can be used
to customize xtexcad:
.initOffset, class .InitOffset
specifies the initial value by which the image is shifted by
the buttons in the Shift popup. Default is 10.0.
.initZoomFactor, class .InitZoomFactor
specifies the inital zoom factor. This value is restricted to
the range 25 to 400). Default is 100.
.initGridDistance, class .InitGridDistance
specifies the initial distance of the grid points. Default is
10.0.
.rulerFont, class .Font
This resource specifies the font which will be used to draw the
units on the ruler if it is displayed.
.defaultUnitLength, class .DefaultUnitLength
This specifies the default TeX dimension for the \unitlength of
the saved picture. The value must be a floating point number,
followed by one of the two-letter units of dimension as under‐
stood by TeX (regardless of the case): pt, cm, mm, pc, in, bp,
dd, cc, sp, em (font-relative unit, roughly 10pt). It is
highly recommended to chose sensible multiples of pt as default
(for example 10pt, 2pt, or 0.5em) because all units are inter‐
nally translated to pt and 1pt corresponds approximately to 1
screen pixel at zoom 100 (see also the BUGS section). Default
is 1.0pt.
.backupSuffix, class .BackupSuffix
This string is appended to the name of backup files. Default is
.old.
*filter, class *Filter
This resource gives the initial value for the file filter in
the file selector widget used by the Load, Save and Save As
commands. Default is *.
.initSnapGrid, class .InitSnapGrid
This resource specifies whether only selected points on the
grid can be chosen. Default is off.
.initRuler, class .InitRuler
This resource specifies whether the ruler is initially drawn.
Default is off.
.initGrid, class .InitRuler
This resource specifies whether the grid is initially drawn.
Default is off.
.initCross, class .InitRuler
This resource specifies whether the cross is initially drawn.
Default is off.
.initUnlimitedSlopes, class .InitUnlimited
This resource specifies whether lines and vectors with arbi‐
trary slopes can be drawn. Default is false.
.initUnlimitedCircles, class .InitUnlimited
This resource specifies whether circles with arbitrary diame‐
ters can be drawn. Default is false.
.initUnlimitedLengths, class .InitUnlimited
This resource specifies whether very short lines and vectors
can be drawn. Default is false.
FILE FORMATxtexcad can read not only files saved by itself but also by other
means, for example hand written files. For a file to be understood by
xtexcad it must contain the following: Optionally, a \unitlength=TeX
dimension command, a \begin{picture} phrase (without white space after
\begin) with or without the optional argument, zero or more \put,
\qbezier, or \bezier commands, and an \end{picture} phrase (without
white space after \end). Everything before \begin{picture} (except
\unitlength) and after \end{picture} is ignored. The \qbezier command
can come with or without the optional argument. Its value, however, is
ignored and will not be written to the file any more when the file is
saved.
A file created by xtexcad always assigns a value to \unitlength. The
whole file is inside a group (curly braces) so that this assignment is
local. For a newly created file, the value of \unitlength will be
taken from the resource defaultUnitLength whose default is 1.0pt. If a
file is loaded in, which assigns a value to \unitlength, this value
will be preserved. This means that if you find that the picture is too
large or too small for the LaTeX document, you can manually scale it by
editing the \unitlength in the resulting file. If you later edit the
file with xtexcad, it will not destroy this change, and the picture
will appear scaled accordingly in the drawing area of xtexcad, since
1pt corresponds to 1 screen pixel (at zoom 100).
SEE ALSO
Leslie Lamport: LaTeX: A Document Preparation System, Goossens et al.:
The LaTeX companion.
BUGS
Modifying objects lacks some features like cross hair. It is also very
unfriendly with servers that do not support backingstore. The grips
should be transparent.
The shadow style is currently ignored.
Some aspects (the shadow-part of the text placement popup) may not work
when linked with X11R4 libraries because the Toggle widget changed its
behavior from R4 to R5.
The optional argument of the \qbezier command is ignored and does not
get saved to the file when a picture is loaded and saved later.
Redrawing after modifying an item is worse than bad.
Internally, all units are translated to TeX points (pt), and 1 screen
pixel (at zoom 100) is taken to be approximately 1pt. However, this may
result in rounding and positioning errors if \unitlength is not a
proper multiple of 1pt.
Sometimes, especially when drawing very short lines, it is possible to
produce unsupported LaTeX-slopes of lines and vectors. Working with a
large zoom factor helps. Also, for some \unitlengths the minimum line
length computed is too short.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright 1991 by Klaus Zitzmann, 1993-1996 by Johannes Sixt. The file
selection widget is copyrighted by J.K.Wight <J.K.Wight@newcas‐
tle.ac.uk> which itself uses code written by Byron Rakitzis
<byron@netapp.com> (the regexp package).
AUTHORS
Klaus Zitzmann <zitzmann@infko.uni-koblenz.de> wrote TeXcad 1.2.
Johannes Sixt <Johannes.Sixt@telecom.at> rewrote much of that version
and produced this version of XTeXcad. Most of the changes from 2.3 to
2.4 are due to Notker Amann <amann@isr.uni-stuttgart.de>.
Contributed Software 2000-October-01 xtexcad(1)
