This is pretty much the reason I keep a windows machine around.  :(  Until
they release an Adobe Illustrator (up to date version at any rate) or a
Freehand, then I'll have to stick with this situation.



At 09:13 PM 11/19/1999 -0700, you wrote:
>I am having a HELL of a time with what should be really simple
>graphics work.
>
>I have a text file containing aligned text (scientific data), 
>that is, it is essentially ascii.  I need to annotate this
>text with various graphics and enclose some of the text in
>colored or shaded boxes.
>
>I have Killustrator, tgif, staroffice, and xpaint.  NONE of
>these apps can handle this SIMPLE task.  Killustrator only
>accepts *.kil format files and will not import text.  Staroffice
>is essentially useless because it can't properly format the
>text - because it doesn't have any monospaced fonts available
>(what's up with that?!).  tgif will accept ps, eps, and a few 
>other formats, and it is this app that I have been fighting 
>with all day.  I THOUGHT it was going to work but it ends up
>screwing up the output so as to make the app useless.  The
>problem:
>
>I had a simple text file that NO graphics app can import or
>use.  I had to open it in netscape and print it to a file
>in postscript format.  I then used pstoedit to convert the
>ps file into a native tgif *.obj file.  I can now open up
>the file in tgif and on the screen it looks great.  I can
>even annotate the text and create boxes, etc.  When it comes
>time to print, however, the printer output is not what is
>on the screen.  I may have a box on the screen properly 
>drawn around certain text on the screen, but the printer
>output has the box in a different, slightly offset position.
>
>This is a serious flaw...you cannot trust the screen image
>to match what the printer produces.  In addition, though the
>text looks to be nicely placed on the page on the screen,
>the position of the text on the printer output has little
>bearing to the image.  Instead of being centered, the text
>is packed up nice and tight to the top of the paper with
>some text cutoff as a result.
>
>Basically, I can't find any graphics tools for linux that
>can handle really simple graphics work.  
>
>IS THERE ANY graphics app available for linux that can 
>actually import ascii text (not just ps, not eps, not latex,
>etc) and have the graphics and placement on the screen
>actually match reality when you print?  
>
>This is a serious problem for me in being able to use
>linux.  I am close to the point of having to do serious
>writing and publishing work on windows as a result of
>this.
>
>Please tell me there is another way.
>
>patrick
>
>
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> 

 Stephen King  Crazed Artist Studios
 http://www.crazedartist.com  ftp.crazedartist.com
 [EMAIL PROTECTED]  Voice (253) 856-1874


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