Frequently Asked Questions

Q:

Can I insert image files into Diagram! documents via the text file format so I don't have to open the file and do a copy paste?

A:

Yes, you can insert image files into Diagram! documents via the text file format.

To do this, you need to first place the image in the document wrapper by copying it in, or creating a symlink. Then, if your image is named "kedoin.tiff", you would just add something like this to the document:

symbol 1

imageFile "kedoin.tiff"

end

Here's the example doc we were working on. The file "kedoin.tiff" exists in the .diagram2 file and is a symlink to the one in my home directory:

That said, you may have have some problems with this solution. First, there's the problem of symlinking the files into the doc wrapper. Second, there's the problem of placement. Even if the you can get the images into the document, they will still need to be placed by hand. (Unless careful measurements are taken about where the image should be placed. If the measurements exist, a "location x-pos y-pos" statement could be added to the symbol description above).

Something that seems like it would be cool is a dvi->eps filter service. With something like that a TeX user could drag their dvi files into Diagram! and they would image as EPS. It would make life much simpler IMHO.

Unfortunately, I don't know how to convert TeX to EPS, but for someone who does, a filter service like this should be trivial.



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