Google Groups no longer supports new Usenet posts or subscriptions. Historical content remains viewable.
Dismiss

Problems about Graphics

106 views
Skip to first unread message

MuTsun Tsai

unread,
Nov 3, 2004, 1:36:48 AM11/3/04
to
I used to paste the graphics generated by Mathematica on my reports written
with Microsoft Word, but I also have two problem :

1. The graphics always become bigger than it is in Mathematica notebook, and
I'll have to resize it to 85% so that it will looks just the same size as it
is in Mathematica. But at the beginning as I used Mathematica there's no
such problem; I can't remember exactly when this problem first happened.

2. The curves are not as smooth as they should be. No matter what I do
there's always sawtooth with it.

What should I do to solve those problems? Thanks!


Urijah Kaplan

unread,
Nov 4, 2004, 2:01:59 AM11/4/04
to

1.Are you sure the magnification is 100%?

2.Select the graphic, then Edit->Copy As->Metafile and paste it into Word.
You can also Export[] the graphics as Windows metafile format (.wmf).


--Urijah Kaplan

MuTsun Tsai

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 2:22:20 AM11/5/04
to
Urijah Kaplan wrote:
> MuTsun Tsai wrote:
>> I used to paste the graphics generated by Mathematica on my reports
>> written
>> with Microsoft Word, but I also have two problem :
>>
>> 1. The graphics always become bigger than it is in Mathematica notebook,
>> and
>> I'll have to resize it to 85% so that it will looks just the same size as
>> it
>> is in Mathematica. But at the beginning as I used Mathematica there's no
>> such problem; I can't remember exactly when this problem first happened.
>>
>> 2. The curves are not as smooth as they should be. No matter what I do
>> there's always sawtooth with it.
>>
>> What should I do to solve those problems? Thanks!
>
> 1.Are you sure the magnification is 100%?

Yes, quite sure.
I'm not sure if the problem is due to the different using of DPI between
Word and Mathematica, as Word is using 96DPI but Mathematica is 72DPI. It's
the only possible cause I can come up with.

> 2.Select the graphic, then Edit->Copy As->Metafile and paste it into Word.
> You can also Export[] the graphics as Windows metafile format (.wmf).

I've tried that, but the metafile it exports already has sawtooth on it. Of
course it's not that obvious on the screen, but it does after printed out or
as I zoom in on the screen. I don't know why can't mathematica just generate
some smoother metafile.


Paul Abbott

unread,
Nov 5, 2004, 2:46:46 AM11/5/04
to
In article <cmck57$i0m$1...@smc.vnet.net>,
Urijah Kaplan <u...@sas.upenn.edu> wrote:

> MuTsun Tsai wrote:
> > I used to paste the graphics generated by Mathematica on my reports written
> > with Microsoft Word, but I also have two problem :
> >
> > 1. The graphics always become bigger than it is in Mathematica notebook,
> > and I'll have to resize it to 85% so that it will looks just the same size as
> > it is in Mathematica. But at the beginning as I used Mathematica there's no
> > such problem; I can't remember exactly when this problem first happened.

If you do

Format | Edit Style Sheet...

for the Notebook, select the Graphics/Printout Style, then use

Format | Option Inspector...

type in

magn

(or any part of the word magnification) and hit return, I expect you
will find that

Magnification -> 0.85

for your StyleSheet. In other words, the StyleSheet automatically
reduces the size of graphics for printout, which is usually what you
want, especially if you are printing directly from a Notebook. Note that
if you have

Format | Show Page Breaks

selected you will automatically be in the Printout Style.

> > 2. The curves are not as smooth as they should be. No matter what I do
> > there's always sawtooth with it.
> >
> > What should I do to solve those problems? Thanks!
> >
> >
>
> 1.Are you sure the magnification is 100%?
>
> 2.Select the graphic, then Edit->Copy As->Metafile and paste it into Word.
> You can also Export[] the graphics as Windows metafile format (.wmf).

This, of course, assumes that you are using Windows. Under OS X you
should use

Edit | Copy As | PICT with embedded PostScript

Cheers,
Paul

--
Paul Abbott Phone: +61 8 6488 2734
School of Physics, M013 Fax: +61 8 6488 1014
The University of Western Australia (CRICOS Provider No 00126G)
35 Stirling Highway
Crawley WA 6009 mailto:pa...@physics.uwa.edu.au
AUSTRALIA http://physics.uwa.edu.au/~paul

MuTsun Tsai

unread,
Nov 6, 2004, 2:22:53 AM11/6/04
to
Paul Abbott wrote:
> If you do
>
> Format | Edit Style Sheet...
>
> for the Notebook, select the Graphics/Printout Style, then use
>
> Format | Option Inspector...
>
> type in
>
> magn
>
> (or any part of the word magnification) and hit return, I expect you
> will find that
>
> Magnification -> 0.85

Well, what I see is 0.8 instead.

> for your StyleSheet. In other words, the StyleSheet automatically
> reduces the size of graphics for printout, which is usually what you
> want, especially if you are printing directly from a Notebook. Note that
> if you have
>
> Format | Show Page Breaks
>
> selected you will automatically be in the Printout Style.

So what should I do now? I've tried to change the magnification into
different number, but the problem remains.

>> > 2. The curves are not as smooth as they should be. No matter what I do
>> > there's always sawtooth with it.
>

> This, of course, assumes that you are using Windows. Under OS X you
> should use
>
> Edit | Copy As | PICT with embedded PostScript
>
> Cheers,
> Paul

So there's no way I can get rid of it under Windows?


John Fultz

unread,
Nov 6, 2004, 2:32:01 AM11/6/04
to
On Fri, 5 Nov 2004 02:17:07 -0500 (EST), MuTsun Tsai wrote:
> Urijah Kaplan wrote:
>
>> MuTsun Tsai wrote:
>>> I used to paste the graphics generated by Mathematica on my reports
>>> written
>>> with Microsoft Word, but I also have two problem :
>>>
>>> 1. The graphics always become bigger than it is in Mathematica
>>> notebook, and I'll have to resize it to 85% so that it will looks just
>>> the same size as it is in Mathematica. But at the beginning as I used
>>> Mathematica there's no such problem; I can't remember exactly when
>>> this problem first happened.
>>>
>>> 2. The curves are not as smooth as they should be. No matter what I do
>>> there's always sawtooth with it.
>>>
>>> What should I do to solve those problems? Thanks!
>>>
>> 1.Are you sure the magnification is 100%?
>>
> Yes, quite sure.
> I'm not sure if the problem is due to the different using of DPI between
> Word and Mathematica, as Word is using 96DPI but Mathematica is 72DPI.
> It's the only possible cause I can come up with.

That is certainly a plausible explanation, except for your claim that the
problem has not always happened. In fact, I suspect it has always happened
to you. You could, of course, set the magnification to compensate, but I
won't pursue that much further since my answer to your next question
negates this as an issue. The differing DPI issue, incidentally, won't go
without review in future versions of Mathematica, but I'm not prepared to
say anything more at the moment.


>> 2.Select the graphic, then Edit->Copy As->Metafile and paste it into
>> Word.
>> You can also Export[] the graphics as Windows metafile format (.wmf).
>>

> I've tried that, but the metafile it exports already has sawtooth on it.
> Of course it's not that obvious on the screen, but it does after printed
> out or as I zoom in on the screen. I don't know why can't mathematica
> just generate some smoother metafile.

Try magnifying the graphic to a much larger size, copying and pasting into
Word, and then resizing it down in Word. Mathematica samples the metafile
at screen resolution, which generally looks pretty good when scaled up by a
factor of two or three. But, the resolution of modern printers tends to be
four to eight times screen resolution, and so artifacts can creep in. For
example, the points describing a curved line, when sampled at screen
resolution, may begin to describe a line with artifacts when those
down-sampled points are then multiplied by large numbers (which is all
metafile scaling does). By sampling those points at a larger size, and
thus a finer resolution, then scaling down, you compensate for this
somewhat.

A future version of Mathematica will sample metafiles at 300% of the
current magnification which, according to my tests, tends to take care of
nearly all visible artifacts when printing the graphic out at the copied
size (you could, of course, introduce artifacts by then increasing the size
of the metafile in Word dramatically, then printing, but one must draw the
line somewhere).

Sincerely,

John Fultz
jfu...@wolfram.com
User Interface Group
Wolfram Research, Inc.


0 new messages