Installing LaTeX

Visit The LaTeX project or install texlive:

sudo aptitude install texlive-latex-recommended texlive-pictures texlive-latex-extra

Tikz

Visit Examples for Tikz.

Examples from economics.

Examples

Supply and demand diagram.

Convert tikz into images

A LaTeX file that uses tikz aimedto export images should look like this:

\documentclass[landscape,10pt]{article}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}

\usepackage{ae}
\usepackage{amssymb}
\usepackage{url}
\usepackage{xspace}

\usepackage{tikz}
\usetikzlibrary{mindmap,trees}
\usetikzlibrary{shapes}

% set up externalization
\usetikzlibrary{external}
\tikzset{external/system call={latex \tikzexternalcheckshellescape -halt-on-error
-interaction=batchmode -jobname "\image" "\texsource";
dvips -o "\image".ps "\image".dvi;
ps2eps "\image.ps"}}
\tikzexternalize

\begin{document}

\tikzstyle{root concept}+=[concept color=red!60]

\begin{tikzpicture}


\end{tikzpicture}


\end{document}

Here is an example to construct a mindmap.

The script to compile this is as follows:

#!/bin/bash

# We have to make it an executable file by changing the permissions.
# chmod u+x compile-latex.sh

latex -shell-escape $1".tex" &
latex -shell-escape $1".tex" &
latex -shell-escape $1".tex" &
dvips $1".dvi" &

ps2pdf $1".ps"

Once a ps-file is generated, it can be converted into an eps-file:

ps2epsi source-figure0.ps target-figure0.eps

The eps-file can then be converted into a rasterized image file using Ghostscript

gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dEPSCrop -r600 -sDEVICE=pngalpha -sOutputFile=outputfile.png inputfile.eps

Bash script

This script is for compiling a latex file:

#!/bin/bash

# We have to make it an executable file by changing the permissions.
# chmod u+x compile-latex.sh

latex $1".tex" &
latex $1".tex" &
latex $1".tex" &
dvips $1".dvi" &

Once the permission of the file has been changed (in order to make it executable):

chmod u+x compile-latex.sh

It can be run like this:

./compile-latex.sh sourcefile

(the sourcefile has to be without the '.tex' extension)

Convert pdf, ps into images

Use ImageMagick, by installing:

sudo aptitude install imagemagick

Or alternatively (chosen method), use

ps2epsi filename.ps filename.eps
gs -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dEPSCrop -r600 -sDEVICE=pngalpha -sOutputFile=filename.png filename.eps

Compress a pdf file

If you have many graphics in your pdf file, you may want to increase th ecompression of your file. You can do this using ghostscript in command line:

gs -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.3 -dPDFSETTINGS=/screen -dEmbedAllFonts=true -dSubsetFonts=true -dColorImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic -dColorImageResolution=144 -dGrayImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic -dGrayImageResolution=144 -dMonoImageDownsampleType=/Bicubic  -dMonoImageResolution=144  -sOutputFile=small-output-file.pdf large-input-file.pdf