@Section
@Title { Stand-alone illustrations }
@Tag { illustrations }
@Begin
@PP
This section describes how to use Lout to produce an illustration for
stand.alone.illustrations. @Index { stand-alone illustrations }
illustrations. @Index { illustrations }
inclusion in some other document, which may itself be a Lout document
but need not be. The opposite process, the inclusion of an illustration
in a Lout document, is the subject of Section {@NumberOf include}.
@PP
Suppose you want to produce the following logo
for inclusion in some other document:
@ID {
45d @Rotate @CurveBox { ARMY @LP 180d @Rotate ARMY }
}
This is just an object, and it is not hard to make it using Lout's
graphics features:
@ID @Code "45d @Rotate @CurveBox { ARMY @LP 180d @Rotate ARMY }"
The problem is that objects ordinarily come out on pages with margins,
page numbers, and so forth, which we don't want here. The solution
is to use the illustration document type, whose setup file, curiously
enough, is called {@Code "picture"}:
illustration. @Index @Code "@Illustration"
@ID @OneRow @Code {
"@SysInclude { picture }"
"@Illustration {"
" 45d @Rotate @CurveBox { ARMY @LP 180d @Rotate ARMY }"
"}"
}
After the usual @Code "@SysInclude" line comes one @Code "@Illustration"
symbol. Following it is an arbitrary object which becomes the entire
result, with no pages and no margins, ready for inclusion in some other
document as an illustration.
@PP
The @Code "@Illustration" symbol has options for setting the initial
font, paragraph breaking style, colour, and language. Here they are
with their default values:
@ID @OneRow @Code {
"@Illustration"
" @InitialFont { Times Base 12p }"
" @InitialBreak { adjust 1.2fx hyphen }"
" @InitialSpace { lout }"
" @InitialLanguage { English }"
" @InitialColour { black }"
"{"
" ..."
"}"
}
You can specify any colour from the list in Section {@NumberOf colour},
for example {@Code blue}, and then your illustration will have that
colour wherever it is included.
@PP
Because there are no pages, the width and height of the result are
indeterminate, depending on how large the object turns out to be. This
makes things very awkward for filled paragraphs and centring, which depend
on knowing how much space is available to be occupied. So you should either
avoid filled paragraphs and all displays and lists altogether in
illustrations, or else enclose your object in a @Code "@Wide" symbol:
wide @RawIndex { @Code "@Wide" }
wide.illustrations @SubIndex { with illustrations }
@ID @OneRow @Code {
"@Illustration 5c @Wide {"
" ..."
"}"
}
to make clear how wide you want your illustration to be.
@PP
The technical name for a file containing a stand-alone illustration
encapsulated.postscript @Index { encapsulated PostScript file }
eps @Index { EPS file }
is `encapsulated PostScript file' or `EPS file' for short. To get
Lout to produce an encapsulated PostScript file instead of an ordinary
PostScript file, you have to use the @Code "-EPS" Unix command line
flag. For example, suppose the Lout file containing our example
illustration is called {@Code "army"}; then the appropriate Unix
command for formatting it is
@ID @Code "lout -EPS army > army.eps"
An EPS file is supposed to contain only one `page', so Lout will refuse
to generate any second or subsequent pages when the @Code "-EPS" flag
is given. There is also a minor difference in format between ordinary
and encapsulated PostScript files, which is why the @Code "-EPS" flag
is needed at all.
@End @Section
