Hi. Here is a micro-introduction to Latex, a document preparation system. The main proximate reason I'm telling you about it is so that you can use it to print Encapsulated PostScript (or .eps) files (used by Mentor to describe figures, etc.) nicely. As some of you have discovered, printing eps files directly on a printer causes one or more edges to be cropped off. Other reasons for using Latex: Microsoft Word is a WSYIWYG text editor/processor: What You See Is What You Get. Such systems have also been called: "What you see is ALL you get". Latex is a "compiled" system. You create an ASCII file (with any text editor you want), and within that file you place the text of your document with high-level text processing commands. Latex is sufficiently powerful and capable that a couple of books have been written to help use it: "The Latex Document Preparation System" (or something like that), second edition, by Leslie Lamport. Describes Latex basics. "The Latex Companion". Describes advanced features. Copies of one or both of these may occaisionally be found in the ELE computer lab. These books have very good indices, so it's easy to use them both as user and reference manuals. One of the very helpful features of Latex is its ability for the author to refer to figures and other entities with symbolic names, which Latex then creates numbers and cross-references for automatically. This makes moving figures and references around very easy. I won't go into all of this here. Here is about the simplest latex file you could create, to print an eps file (figure) called "fig.eps"; say this latex file is called: test.tex \documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage{epsfig} \begin{document} \epsfig{file=fig.eps,width=5in,height=4in} \end{document} The width and height spec.'s in the epsfig command are optional. It is usually better to only specify one dimension; the other will be scaled automatically to maintain the original perspective (ratio of height to width). Once you've created the latex file, you compile it with the command: latex test.tex You must then convert its output (test.dvi) to a Postscript file: dvips -f test.dvi > test.ps You may now print it: lpr -Phagar test.ps You can also look at the postscript file on the workstation screen with the UNIX "ghostview" program. Execute the ghostview command (just type the name), then point it at test.ps, and you'll see what the output will look like from the printer. ------------------------------------------------------- It is also possible, if not desirable, to do an entire report in Latex. A sample Latex template is: \documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage{epsfig} \begin{document} % This line is a comment; it is not processed by Latex. % The following part prints a title, etc. \begin{center} {\Large Title of My Great Idea Description} \\ Charles Babbage \\ ELE 405 \\ March 1, 1997 \end{center} % The \section{} command creates a numbered section heading. The % numbering is automatic. \section{Introduction} % Here is the text for the first section This is the best idea ever thought of, the best thing since sliced bread. If you don't agree, tough. \section{Idea Description} The basic idea is to use wire and a piece of wood to demobilize a mouse. A picture of this is shown in Figure~\ref{trap}. % The following figure is referenced using the name "trap". Latex % numbers the figure and replaces all of the references to "trap" with % the number "1" (in this case). \begin{figure} \epsfig{file=fig.eps,height=2.5in} \caption{This is a better mouse trap.} \label{trap} \end{figure} \section{Another Description} I'm repeating myself. If you 've forgotten what the trap looks like, look at Figure~\ref{trap} again. % Any number of references are possible. \section{Summary} You should be able to compile and print this file (but you'll have to supply your own "fig.eps" file, and I haven't tried it, so it may be buggy). Note that to make the cross-references come out right, you'll have to run the latex command twice on the same file. Good luck! \end{document}