From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Message-ID: To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] pic generators? From: "Skip Tavakkolian" In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Date: Wed, 5 Feb 2003 09:05:49 -0800 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 4f224462-eacb-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 > I'm going to show my age here, but what are > the standard set of programs used to generate, > say, pic format images for insertion into > papers? I'm trying to create some figures > for a document and I'm not quite certain > where to look. Pic is a powerful language, but it is easy to learn and use. As others have mentioned, it is always easier to do pic by hand. These guidelines help me: * know what it is you want to draw. Do it by hand first so you have a pretty good idea how you want to lay it out. * if there is a natural flow order, use it. * define things in []; Label the objects (e.g. A: box). * use relative coordinates (e.g. .n, .e, .w, .s) and lengths (e.g. 1/2 of the way between) in reference to labeled objects; it helps when you move things around. There are lots of examples. Richard Stevens did a tutorial paper that you can find with google. Also I think the macros from one of his books (I think UNIX Network Programming) could be found.