Using XFig

Peter Hiscocks

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering

Ryerson Polytechnic University

phiscock@ee.ryerson.ca

December 26, 2001

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Contents
1 Producing Documents 4
1.1 Document Processing Tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
1.2 Bitmap and Vector Drawing Programs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

2 Applying XFig 4

3 Drawing Tools 4

4 Editing Tools 6
4.1 Grouping . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
4.2 Scaling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.3 Align . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.4 Move, Add and Remove Vertex . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.5 Delete . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
4.6 Update Parameter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.7 Edit . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
4.8 Horizontal and Vertical Flips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.9 Rotations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.10 Spline to/from Straight Line Segment / Box to/from Arc-Box . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
4.11 Add / Remove Arrowhead . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

5 Importing and Tracing: the Picture Object Tool 11

6 Creating Schematic Drawings 12

7 Incorporating Figures in Text 16

7.1 Latex Picture Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
7.2 Pictex Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.3 Postscript Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.4 Encapsulated Postscript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
7.5 GIF Format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

8 Printed Circuit Board Design: Filled Areas 19

9 Perf Board Layout 21

10 Screen Capture to Xfig 22

11 Making Overheads using Xfig 22

11.1 Large Fonts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

12 Automatically Changing Exported Size and Format 24

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13 Configuring Xfig 25
13.1 Installation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
13.2 Screen Size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
13.3 Colour . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
13.4 HELP Doesn’t Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
13.5 References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

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1 Producing Documents
We are blessed to live in a time when document production tools, word processors and drawing programs, have
become accessible to everyone and relatively easy to use. These document processors allow us to produce doc-
uments ranging from short technical papers to extensive textbooks, documents that are that are pleasant to view,
easy to read, and entirely electronic.
As recently as the mid-80’s, we were still using rubber cement to paste figures into documents. If they still
exist at all, the documents themselves are now falling apart: the hand-drawn diagrams are yellow, and fall off the
page that they were mounted on.
In contrast, an electronic document does not age and can be revised with ease. Sections of it can be cut and
pasted for use in other documents. Copies are clean: they are not marked up with corrections and revisions. They
can be transmitted electronically. Best of all, in my opinion, the figures are included automatically.

1.1 Document Processing Tools

In the UNIX world, XFig is one of the most popular and used programs to produce diagrams. (Unfortunately, it is
not available to run under DOS or Windows). Other tools include the LATEX text processing program, GNUPLOT
for generating graphs, xdvi and ghostview for viewing documents, and xv for manipulating images. This suite of
programs makes it possible to produce high quality documents that can be printed (treeware) or viewed on-screen.

1.2 Bitmap and Vector Drawing Programs

There are basically two types of drawing programs in this world: bitmap and vector programs.
Paint programs, such as XPaint, work with bitmaps, which are groups of pixels. The drawing program lays
down and manipulates individual pixels in various ways. Paint programs have their uses, but it is difficult to
create and manipulate symbols, and they are generally not suitable for technical drawings. On the other hand,
paint programs are good at generating different fill patterns, creating shapes (such as curves), and complicated
shading.
Vector drawing programs work with drawing elements such as lines, circles and polygons. These elements
may be grouped and manipulated in various ways, such as being moved or sized. Vector drawing programs are
well suited for technical work such as electronic schematics and mechanical diagrams. XFig is a vector drawing
program, and it has some paint-program features. For example, it is possible to fill areas. Unlike paint programs
however, XFig has a problem with complex curves.

2 Applying XFig
The drawing program XFig can be used to create a wide variety of technical drawings. It’s not difficult to learn
to use XFig, but it can take a while to learn to use it in an effective and efficient manner. This report assumes that
you have learned the basics of operating the program. It provides hints on various techniques that may be useful
with the program. It is not intended to be a comprehensive manual for the program: that is the purpose of the
HTML pages, which may be viewed by any browser, and the MAN entry.

3 Drawing Tools
The drawing tools of XFig are shown in figure 1.

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 Circles and Ellipses

Spline Curves

Irregular Polygon Straight Line

Rectangle Arc-Box

Regular Polygon Arc

Regular Polygon Text

Library Tool

Figure 1: XFig Drawing Tools

(XFig was used to create figure 1. The procedure is described in section 10.)
Most of the drawing tool operations are straight forward, but here are some miscellaneous hints on the use of
the various tools:

The Spline Curves are the only available method for constructing smooth curves. The upper spline passes
through the two end points and approximates the other entered points. The lower spline passes through all
the drawn points.
The Line is drawn by specifying the starting point and subsequent points with mouse button 1 and the end
point with mouse button 2. A freehand line (and spline) may be drawn by starting with mouse button 2.
When the Regular Polygon tool is selected, a parameter box appears at the bottom of the screen, allowing
one to specify the number of vertices in the polygon. By creating a polygon with n vertices and then drawing

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 construction lines from the centre of the polygon to the vertices, one can subdivide a circle into n-1 equal
segments. This is useful when drawing something like a Compass Rose, for example.
The Arc is specified by marking three points with mouse button 1. When a precise arc is required, it is
often useful to first draw a circle with the desired radius and centre point. Then place the arc points on the
circumference of the circle as required, and erase the circle.
Many parameters become available when the Text tool is selected. A wide variety of text fonts are available,
and the text can be printed at various sizes and justifications. To edit text, you can use the Edit tool
(described below). Alternatively, choose the Text drawing tool, click the cursor at the point of the text to be
modified, and type in the desired text.
The use of the Picture Object tool is described in section 5 below.
Selecting the Library tool pops up a panel from which one of several libraries of Fig objects may be loaded.
After selecting one of the objects and popping down the panel, you may place the object on the canvas one
or more times by pressing mouse button 1 at each location. The image of the object follows the mouse
for placement ease. Pressing mouse button 2 while in this mode pops up the library panel where you may
select another object or library. Another useful feature is that before placing an object on the canvas it may
be rotated clockwise 90 degrees by pressing ’r’, counter-clockwise by pressing ’l’, flipped vertically by
pressing ’v’, or flipped horizontally by pressing ’h’.

4 Editing Tools
The editing tools of XFig are shown in figure 2.

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 Group Ungroup

Ungroup temporarily

Scale Align

Move vertex Move

Add vertex Copy

Remove vertex Delete

Update parameter(s) Edit

Flip vertically Flip horizontally

Rotate clockwise Rotate counterclockwise

Transform to/from spline Add/remove arrow tofrom line

and to/from box/arc-box

Figure 2: XFig Editing Tools

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 These tools are described in the following sections:

4.1 Grouping
One of the most useful functions in any drawing program is the ability to specify a group of symbols into what
is called a compound object. This effectively allows you to create any object and then move it as a unit in the
drawing.
For example, an electronic symbol consists of an arrangement of circles and lines. Once grouped into a
compound, the symbol becomes a transistor and may be positioned, rotated, or become part of a larger symbol.
On digital schematics, grouping may apply to a bunch of gates that perform some function, such as buffers on
a digital bus. They may be grouped and moved as an 8-bit buffer unit.
In XFig, symbols are grouped as follows:

1. Select the compound tool by clicking on it with mouse button 1. The tool darkens to indicate it is selected.
At the same time, handles (squares) will appear on each symbol of the drawing.
2. Select the items one at a time to be grouped, by clicking on each item handle with mouse button 1. The
handle of each item will darken when it is selected. If you change your mind, click on the same handle to
unselect that item.
3. When ready to make the compound, click mouse button 3. Handles of the selected items disappear and new
handles appear at the corners of the new compound object.

Often, it is faster to group a whole bunch of things at once. This is done as follows:
1. Select the compound tool by clicking on it with mouse button 1.
2. Select a group of items by pressing mouse button 2 and dragging a rectangle around the groups. When the
rectangle is positioned correctly, click mouse button 2 again, and everything within the group is selected at
once.
3. Click mouse button 3. Handles will then appear at the corners of the new compound object.
Ungrouping (breaking) is much easier:
1. Select the break compound tool (mouse button 1).
2. Select the compound to be ’broken’ (mouse button 1). The handles of the individual objects appear.
3. Click on the handle of the compound object to be broken. It becomes individual objects, and their individual
handles are shown.
If you only want to modify an object in a compound object but don’t want to hassle with ungrouping and
re-grouping it, the open compound tool is useful.

1. Select the open compound tool (mouse button 1).

2. Select the compound to be ’broken’ (mouse button 1). All the other objects on the canvas dissappear except
the compound and the handles of the individual objects in that compound appear. Also, a popup panel
appears with two buttons: ‘Close This Compound’ and ‘Close All Compounds’.

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 3. After editing the objects (including adding new objects and deleting objects) click on ‘Close This Com-
pound’ to automatically re-group the objects into the compound and make the other parts of the drawing
re-appear. You may repeatedly open compound objects within other compound objects. If you are inside a
compound that is several levels deep inside other compounds, the ‘Close All Compounds’ button will close
them all up in one step.

4.2 Scaling
In general, I don’t use this tool very often. When you are working to a rectangular grid (snap-to-grid drawing),
you expect various symbols to line up in a particular way. For example, the base of a transistor should always be
on a grid point. However, scaling symbols destroys that simple relationship.
That said, the scaling control is quite versatile: an object may be scaled horizontally, vertically or diagonally.
The last method changes the size of the object without changing its proportions.

4.3 Align
This tool is useful when you want a precise alignment, vertical or horizontal, and snap-to-grid is not an option.

1. Group the objects to be aligned as described in section 4.1 above.

2. Select the Align tool.
3. From the Alignment Parameters at the bottom of the drawing area, select the type of alignment desired
(one of six possiblities).
4. Click on the group and the objects in it will be aligned as required.

Nifty.

4.4 Move, Add and Remove Vertex

These tools are very useful. They can be used on many of the drawing objects to modify the shape of the object.
For example, a line vertex may be moved, a line may be broken into additional sections (kinked), or a line may be
reduced to fewer segments (straightened) with these tools.
One caution: when adding a vertex to a spline, the add point must be on an imaginary straight line between
two existing vertices, not on the spline trace itself. This can take a while to figure out if you don’t know what’s
going on . . . .

4.5 Delete
Select Delete and then click on an object to erase it. If you make a mistake, Undo will bring the object back, but
keep in mind that there is only one level of undo. You can only Undo the latest action.
To erase a group of objects, select Delete and then use the middle mouse button to drag a selection rectangle
around the objects. Click the middle button again and the objects are erased.

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4.6 Update Parameter
This tool is not a must-use when you are first learning XFig, but it can be a real time-saver later. The Update
tool allows you to change an object’s properties by clicking on the object. As a consequence, it is especially
useful when a large number of objects must be changed. For example, you might decide that every text string on
a drawing should be larger. One possible technique is to Edit every text string. However, Update is much faster.
Here’s how it works: When you select the Update function, the Update Parameters are shown at the bottom
of the screen. Unfortunately, there’s not enough room to show them all, but the important ones are there. (You
may have to scroll it using the scrollbar below it to see all the parameters). Now, when you click on an object, its
properties will be changed to the properties shown in the Update Parameters list.
There’s another way to do this, which is quite useful:
1. Select the Update tool
2. Choose some object A that has the parameters that you would like to copy to another object. Click on that
object with mouse button 2 instead of button 1.
3. The parameters of this object are now transferred to the Update Parameters display.
4. Now click on the object B to be updated, using mouse button 1, and object B will acquire the settings of the
object A.
Furthermore, and this can be a life-saver, if you update a compound object such as an object with several text
strings included in it, every sub object in that container (in this case, every text string in that object) will acquire
the new properties.
If you only want to affect certain parameters of an object, there are little red boxes in the upper-right corners
of the Update Parameters buttons. You can select and deselect those settings that you want to use for updating
objects or the panel itself. In addition, you may turn all the boxes on by pressing the solid red button in the box
labelled Update Control which appears on the left side of the Update Parameters panel. There is also a black
button which turns off all the update boxes and a half red/half black button which toggles the current state of the
update boxes.

4.7 Edit
The Edit tool allows you to view or change the properties of an object using a dialog popup. The most common
edits are
altering the content of a string of text
changing text justification left, right or center
changing the point size of a text string
enabling the special flag on a text segment so LATEX will process it as a special symbol. Don’t forget to
enclose the text string in $ signs, as required by LATEX , if the string represents a math symbol.
changing the width of a line segment
changing the depth of an object so that it is displayed above or below some other object. Objects at level 0
are on top, higher numbered objects are at lower (possibly hidden) levels.

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4.8 Horizontal and Vertical Flips
Not much to say: they work as advertized. In addition, for these and the rotation buttons, pressing mouse button
2 instead of 1 will first make a copy of the object then flip or rotate it.

4.9 Rotations
Again, pretty straightforward, but notice that the rotation angle can be changed in the Parameter Display list.

4.10 Spline to/from Straight Line Segment / Box to/from Arc-Box

This will convert a spline to an ordinary line or a box to an arc-box and vice versa.

4.11 Add / Remove Arrowhead

Not only does it work, but the algorithm is smart enough to know which way the arrow should point. Works with
all types of lines, too, not just straight ones. To remove arrowheads, click mouse button 2.

5 Importing and Tracing: the Picture Object Tool

It is possible to import a ’picture object’, such as a bitmap (GIF, JPEG, etc.) or a drawing or photograph that has
been scanned, into XFig. This may then be scaled, rotated, and incorporated into the final drawing. Formats such
as EPS, GIF, JPEG, TIFF, and others are supported.
I found this very useful in the production of a textbook. The author had produced a large number of hand-
drawn charts and graphs that were to be incorporated into the final text. Using a flatbed scanner on a DOS system
at the university, I scanned each of the images into an eps file. This was aggravated by frequent crashes of the
DOS system, and the files had to be scanned at low resolution to fit onto a floppy disk.
The quality of the scan was unuseable in the final text: line widths were variable and there was a lot of image
noise. I loaded each eps image into XFig, traced the image, and then deleted the eps image. The resultant tracing
was of a form that could be incorporated directly into the text, with the bonus that it was not only of far higher
quality than the scan, but also a much smaller file size.
Tracing the image was facilitated by the XFig undo feature. In the process of tracing, I would periodically
delete the eps image to compare the tracing with the original. Then, when I knew what had to be fixed, I would
undo the delete to restore the eps image for further tracing.
In another case, I wished to produce an annotated photograph: a photograph containing descriptive text with
pointers to different areas of the photo. This is easy: import the photo, mark it up with lines, arrows and text, and
then export or print it.
The procedure for importing a picture image takes several steps:

1. Ensure that the picture image (foo.eps, for example) is in a known location in the file system.
2. Select the picture object tool by clicking on it. Nothing happens just yet.
3. Using Button 1 of the mouse, drag a rectangle (any size, it doesn’t matter) onto the drawing canvas.
4. Click Button 1 again to lock the size of the rectangle. A dialog box appears.

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 5. Type the file name (foo.eps) into the file selector field and click on Apply. The image loads into the
rectangle.
6. Click on the use orig size button to establish the eps image at its original size, or enter a percent of full-size
value and click the Scale by % button and then click the Apply button again. The image adjusts itself to
the correct size.
7. Click on Done to exit the dialog box.
The picture image can now be rotated, moved and sized as desired.

6 Creating Schematic Drawings

Extremely complex electronic diagrams may be done with ease using XFig. I’ve moved away from pencil and
paper: once I have a rough idea of the circuit, I draw it out using XFig and then proceed to analyse and test it
further. Pencil drawings now seem too slow and difficult to change.
I have created a library of schematic symbols as one xfig drawing, called symbols.fig, which is shown in figure
3. In version 3.2.1 of XFig with the addition of the Library Tool, these symbols have been incorporated into the
Electrical and Logic libraries to make it easy to create schematics.
You simply click on the Library Tool button to pop up the library panel and pull down the menu of current
libraries and choose the one you want. This loads the library of objects into xfig where they appear in a scrollable
list. Single clicking on an object will make its image appear in the Object Preview window. When you have found
the object you want press the Select object button to select it and pop down the library panel. Double clicking on
the object name will select it and pop down the panel in one step.
Now, as you move the mouse over the canvas you will see the object you are dragging. If you need to rotate
it or flip it before placing it, press ‘r’ to rotate it clockwise (right), ‘l’ for counter-clockwise (left), ‘h’ to flip it
horizontally, or ‘v’ to flip it vertically.
When you have it in the correct orientation and position on the canvas click mouse button 1 to place it. You
can place the same object over and over again.
If you want to select another object from the library, click mouse button 2 and the library panel will pop up
again.
As with all xfig operations, clicking mouse button 3 cancels the library operation.
Besides using the Library Tool, there are various ways to use parts of existing figures to create new figures.

The Merge Load

To merge another drawing into your drawing without destroying the drawing, under the File menu, choose the
figure to merge and press the Merge button. This will merge the new figure into your existing figure as a compound
object which then may be moved, scaled, etc.
Alternatively, you can cut and paste from another instance of XFig, as described next.

Cutting and Pasting

Unix is a multi-tasking operating system, so it is possible to invoke more than one instance of XFig. Start up XFig
twice: one instance will be used to draw the picture, which I will call schematic.fig. The other instance should be
started, and the file symbols.fig loaded into it. I will call this symbols.fig.
It is now possible to cut and paste symbols from symbols.fig into schematic.fig.

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 1. View the symbols.fig drawing by opening its window.
2. Select the copy function. A little box ’handle’ appears with each symbol.
3. Right Click (button 3) on the handle. A message ’object copied to scrapfile.fig’ appears on the status line.
4. View the schematic.fig drawing by opening its window. Click on the PASTE function at the top of the
window, and the selected symbol will appear in your drawing.

If you only need a few symbols, you can cut and paste one at a time. If you need a bunch, make a group in
symbols.fig and paste that group into schematic.fig.
An example of a schematic diagram created with this process, is shown in figure 4.

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 CHARPIXEL

D Q

Q’

RT
CT 1 13
4
CEP MR Q0 Q1 Q2 Q3 14
Vref+ Vlc V+ Iout
A Q CET AC161 TC
DAC0800LCN
15 Vref- 2
B Q’ Iout*
CP Comp V- MSB Data LSB
PE P0 P1 P2 P3
16 3 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

11 12 13 14 3 4 5 6
-
3 17 9
A B C D E F G H
+ 5 15 QH’ 7
10
SER HC165 Qh 9 QH
7 13
6
CLK CLK 9 11 QG
INHIBIT LOAD

12
15 1 2 HC595 QF 5
I7 19
13 4
I6 1/2 HC139 7 18 2 QE
14
I5 Y3 16 4
3 6 3
15
B Y2 QD
I4 14 6
1
2 Y1 5 2
I3 AC151 A
12 8 QC
2
5 4
I2 Z Y0
G1 14 1
3
6 1 DATA QB
I1 11
4 Z SCK 15
I0 HC244 12 QA
RCLCK
9
S2
CLR OE
10 11
S1
10 13
11 Reset
S0 10
7 Clk 74HC4040 +
ENBL
Q1 ;Q2 Q3 Q4 Q5 Q6 Q7 Q8 Q9 Q10 Q11 Q12 74LS138
9 7 6 5 3 2 4 13 12 14 15 1
A Y0
B Y1
C Y2
Y3
Y4
G1 Y5
G2A Y6
14 G2B Y7

Figure 3: Schematic Symbols

 C1
R1 D1 100n
75k 1N4148 R5 5k1 R6 10k C2
Q1 16u, 10V
Speed 4 TIP120
9
-
R2 3 - R2 5k1
8 12
-
1 U1C 14
25k 2 U1A + 13 U1D
10 Supply
+ +
R3 5k1
5VDC

11 R4
5k1

5
+
7
U1B 6
-

R7
3k9
Motor
D2
R8 R9 800mA, 1 ohm
1N4001
1k0 0.2 ohm

U1 Q1
NOTES: Motor Speed Controller
1
Q1 may be any NPN type TIP series Darlington transistor.
Q1 must be on a heat sink, area 3 inches squared Ryerson Polytechnic University
Op amps are from Quad Op Amp, LM324N or LM324AN (DIP package). Peter Hiscocks, October 30, 1997
Recalculate resistor values to suit other components. Print at 70%
For D1, any small signal silicon diode may be substituted BCE Revision: 0.1
For D2, any 1N4000 series diode or 1 amp diode may be substituted.
File: motcon2.fig
R9 is 5, 1 ohm resistors in parallel

Figure 4: Motor Control Circuit

15
 As time passes, you will build up a library of useful functions that you can add to the installed libraries or
your own libraries. Or you can cut and paste figures from previous projects into new projects. For example, I have
created an elaborate 68HC11 board schematic that has been pasted into various project schematics.

Why not use a Schematic CAD Program?

Programs for the design of printed circuit boards often include a schematic editor. The printed circuit layouts are
fine, but I’m not a big fan of the schematic drawings they produce. The drawings are often difficult to read and
do not show a logical flow from left to right, top to bottom. The points where wires attach to a symbol are often
fixed, regardless of the position of the symbol, which makes for a confusing drawing. On the other hand, the CAD
schematic interfaces directly with the layout function: if the schematic is correct, the layout will be correct.
It would be nice if it were possible to convert a schematic, drawn under XFig, into a form that could be
imported into a printed-circuit board design program, such as ORCAD.

7 Incorporating Figures in Text

XFig includes an Export facility, in which the file description may be exported to different file formats. The most
useful ones are Latex Picture, Pictex, Postscript, Encapsulated Postscript and bitmap formats such as GIF,
JPEG, TIFF and several others.
The different file formats allow figures, drawn in XFig to be read by other computer programs and incorporated
in various text documents.
The advantages, disadvantages and uses of these formats are as follows:

7.1 Latex Picture Format

The LATEX text processing language has a limited number of drawing commands: circle, box, and line, and these
may be used to draw simple pictures. For the Latex Picture format, XFig copies out a description of the picture
in commands that can be directly processed by LATEX. The file may be called into the main text document with
the LATEXcommands:

\begin{figure}[htb]
\begin{center}
\input{figures/cooling-function.latex}
\end{center}
\caption{Cooling Functions}
\label{fig:cooling-function}
\end{figure}

where the figure to be incorporated is in the sub-directory figures and is named cooling-function.latex. The
figure will be centred, have a caption Cooling Functions, and may be referred to in the text by its symbolic name,
fig:cooling-function. (That way, the program numbers the figures automatically, and the author doesn’t have to
be concerned with that chore.)
Latex figures are processed quickly, which is not the case for some other formats. One big advantage of the
Latex Picture format is that any LATEX symbol or mathematical
expression may be incorporated in the picture.
In electrical engineering, one quite often needs such symbols as and  on drawings. This is accomplished by
writing $\Omega$ and $\mu$ on the diagram where they are required. If the Text Flag for that text is set to

16
Special, then it will be incorporated verbatim in the description of the drawing and LATEX will put the correct
symbol on the drawing.
The Text Flag may be accessed by selecting the XFig Edit function and then selecting some text. The edit
dialog box then pops up and includes a switch that can make the text Special.
When the Text drawing mode is selected, the Special switch is accessible under the Text Flags control at the
bottom of the drawing canvas.

7.2 Pictex Format

There are certain drawing elements that LATEX cannot cope with directly. For example, lines at certain slopes,
circles of certain diameter, and continuous spline curves are not allowed. To cope with this, the Pictex format
does all drawing by placing a series of points. As a result, the the Pictex format can describe extremely complex
images, but there is a price to pay. The Pictex format is both larger and slower to process (much slower) than the
Latex format. A document with many Pictex inclusions can bring a 486-66 to its knees, so it is best to use Pictex
only when needed.
The Pictex format has the advantage that, like the Latex format, it can incorporate LATEX symbols directly.
The incantation to include a Pictex image is exactly the same as shown above for a Latex image, with the
difference of the file name suffix, which is .pictex, of course.
The start of the LATEX document must include the statement
\usepackage{piclatex} % Pictex drawing package
so that it includes the necessary macros to process pictex drawings.
(If you use this package, you will get these error messages at the beginning of processing the document:
l.1444 \setplotsymbol({\fiverm .})% ** initialize plotsymbol
l.1730 \setshadesymbol ({\fiverm .})% ** initialize plotsymbol
Simply press return to get past this: the messages may be ignored.)

7.3 Postscript Format

Many printers accept postscript formatted files directly. The Ghostview previewer may be used to observe a
postscript file, and can print selected pages from the postscript file to a printer. Thus, if you were creating a
document to be taken to another printer and printed, you would probably export to the postscript format.
When exporting as postscript, always preview the image using Ghostscript, to ensure the image is the right
size and orientation.
Postscript images are not directly importable into documents: that is the function of the Encapsulated Postscrip-
t format.

7.4 Encapsulated Postscript

There is very little difference between a postscript file and an eps file: only the difference of the bounding box
statement. The preamble of the postscript file says
%%BoundingBox: 65 242 547 550
The preamble of the eps file says

17
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 482 308

The postscript file specifies an absolute position for the image: the eps file is intended to be offset by some
amount, determined by the program incorporating the diagram. This is useful to know, since one has often to
convert from one form to another, and this can be done by editing the Bounding Box statement. The other
difference is that the PostScript file contains a showpage command which tells the printer to actually print the
page after rendering it.
Encapsulated Postscript files may be incorporated in a LATEX drawing with an incantation like the following:

\begin{figure}[htb]
\begin{center}
\epsfig{file=figures/symbols.eps}
\end{center}
\caption{Schematic Symbols}
\label{fig:symbols}
\end{figure}

where the diagram is in the figures subdirectory and is named symbols.eps.

The start of the LATEX document must also include the statement:
\usepackage{epsfig}
to tell LATEX to incorporate the necessary macros to process eps documents.
For reasons noted below, the processing of eps images is instant because LATEX does not process them. It
simply makes a note of the location of the drawing and its size.
The big disadvantage of encapsulated postscript format is that it cannot easily incorporate LATEX symbols: the
XFig Special flag does not work. There are ways to get around this, but they are complicated and, in my opinion,
it is easier to simply use the Pictex format when the diagram is complex and LATEX math or greek symbols must
appear on the diagram.

The Case of the Missing Pictures

There is one important thing to understand about incorporating eps documents in a LATEX document. When you
process LATEX , it produces a .dvi (Device Independent) file. Then this file may be previewed using the viewer
program XDVI, which shows very nice images of the generated text and its included pictures and drawings.
Now, the eps files that constitute the images in the document are not actually processed into the text of the
.dvi file. The .dvi file includes pointers to the eps files (and bounding box information), and XDVI simply goes to
those files when it needs to display a picture. This is fine: if you have an eps image being shown by XDVI and
you edit the image in some way, then that edit will be reflected immediately in the XDVI display: you don’t have
to re-LATEX the file.
However, if you were to carry the .dvi file to another location and then display or print the file, the images
would not be present unless you explicity brought them along.
The solution to this is to ensure that any document containing eps images is converted to postscript format
before transporting it. The program dvips is commonly used for this, and it inhales both the .dvi text file and the
.eps image files, and generates a composite postscript (.ps) file. This postscript file is now the final material, text
and pictures, and it can be previewed using ghostview.

18
7.5 GIF Format
I have not actually used this facility (version 2.1 doesn’t include it) but it should make it possible to incorporate
XFig pictures in Windows-based programs such as WordPerfect or Microsoft Word.
Microsoft Word claims to be able to import eps files, but it requires a TIFF-based preview bitmap in the eps
file to view it on the screen. It will, however print correctly even without a preview.

8 Printed Circuit Board Design: Filled Areas

XFig can serve as a printed circuit board layout tool for simple PC board designs, when most of the circuit is
discrete components. It’s not really up to a complex design or one where a large number of IC’s are involved, but
for analog circuits or preliminary layout of a design, it’s quite useful.
The first hurdle is the scale factor. Integrated circuits and electronic components are laid out on a hundred-mil
grid: 0.1 inches or some multiple thereof. The XFig grid, on the other hand, is sixteen divisions to an inch. (This
refers to version 3.2 patch level 1 of XFig, and later versions may differ.)
One solution is to define two XFig divisions as 0.1 inches. They are actually 0.125 inches, so the drawing
must be scaled by a factor of 0.8 to produce a full-sized print. Fortunately, there is a Magnification function on
the Print dialog box, which can be used to print at a magnification of 80%.
To draw a copper area on a PC board, use one of the closed polygon functions. When one of these is selected,
a fill style selector appears on the bottom line of the screen. The default fill pattern is none. Pop this control open
and then select a desired fill pattern. (To save ink, choose one of the less dense patterns.)
Now you’re ready to create the design.
Use the outlines from the Electrical Library file. Move the packages around until you have what looks like a
feasible layout.
Each connection on the PC board, between two or more pins, is an island of copper. To create an island, start
by drawing an arbitrary shaded polygon. Don’t worry about the shape or size at this point, just get some polygon
drawn. You can use the smooth-edged polygon or the one composed of straight line segments.
There are three Edit Mode tools to modify the shape of this polygon: move point, add point, delete point.
When you select one of these tools, the vertices of the polygon are shown as handles. Using the three tools, you
can modify and drag the polygon into any shape you want. Adding and moving points allows you to spread the
polygon to the required locations. Removing points allows you to undo mistakes or clean up busy areas of the
drawing.
When the board is finally laid out, print the drawing at 80% (full size) and then use a copier to print onto an
adhesive film material. Peel off the paper backing and stick the now-printed film to a bare copper board. (It’s
important that the board copper surface be clean and free of contaminants. Polish the board with fine steel wool
until it shines. Then wipe the board with nailpolish remover to remove any chemical contaminants. It’s also
critical that the adhesive film be well attached to the copper, and not contain any air bubbles.)
Using the printed pattern as a guide, use a razor knife to cut away the film where the board should be etched.
When this is complete, immerse the board in ferric-chloride etchant to create the final board.
An example drawing of a board made with this technique is shown in figure 5.

19
 R3 VR1 R2 C3
LED1 D2 U1 C1 Mov
R1 C2
Q1 D1 1
E C B
R4 L2

C4
F1

R7 R6 C5 L1 C6
D3
LED2 U2

R5 C9
F2
L3

C10

R10 C7
R9 D4

20
LED3 U3 U4
Q2 VR2
E C B
L3
L5
R8 22
F3
C8

Figure 5: Power Supply Layout

Microgrid 3R
Power Supply Layout
Foil Side View
P.Hiscocks, Feb1996
9 Perf Board Layout
Prototype electronic circuits are often constructed on unclad perforated board. Wire wrap sockets and discrete
components are glued to the board, and then wires run between the IC and discrete component pins.
Alternatively, some types of prototype board such as Veroboard have copper strips on the wiring side that can
be used to make connections. You install wire jumpers running North-South on the component side of the board
and connect these to copper traces on the wiring side to run East-West. The copper traces are broken at various
points, using a twist drill to eat away the copper. The results are compact, reliable and attractive.
XFig is useful in laying out a prototype circuit of this type. The parts are positioned on the drawing and lines
drawn to indicate the wiring connections that will take place. One colour of line can be used to indicate wires on
the component side, and a second colour to indicate copper connections on the wiring side. Parts and connections
can be moved over and over until the design is optimized for neatness and size. Copper run breaks can be indicated
on the drawing.
When the design is finalized, it can be printed at full size and glued to the perf board. The printed pattern is a
very useful guide to the position of components, connections and copper break points. This greatly simplifies the
construction and debugging task: building the board becomes an exercise in following the drawing pattern.
An example design of this type is shown in figure 6. Notice that the board consists of two identical circuits.
This is where a drawing program like XFig is really useful: generating the second layout is simply a matter of
copying the original.

2.9"

C1
R2
R1

D1

Q1
Pot Supply
Pot Wiper Motor Speed Controller, Vero Layout
Pot Gnd U1 1.6"
C2

Motor+
Motor- Ryerson Polytechnic University
R4
R3
D6

Vcc Peter Hiscocks, Oct 30, 1997

Gnd
R9A

R9D
R9B
R9C

R9E

Print at 80% for full scale print

R6
R7

R5
R8

Revision: 0.1
File: motcon-layout.fig
C1
R2
R1

D1

Q1
Pot Supply
Pot Wiper U1
Pot Gnd
C2

Motor+
Motor-
R4
D6

R3

Vcc
Gnd
R9A

R9D
R9B
R9C

R9E
R6
R7

R5
R8

Figure 6: Veroboard Layout

21
10 Screen Capture to Xfig
The program xv is another wonderfully useful program available in the Unix world. It is a general purpose image
capture and manipulation program.
For this document, we needed images of the toolbars of the XFig program. Fortunately, among its many useful
features, xv has a grab function which allows one to capture an area of the video screen.
First, xv was used to grab the toolbar area of an XFig window. Then, using other xv tools, the image was then
de-coloured (converted to grey scale) and thresholded to a black and white image. The xv ’crop tool was used
twice on the black-white image of the XFig toolbars to make to the draw and edit toolbars, which were saved as
postscript (ps) files. (There is no option to save an image as an eps file, so postscript is the next best thing.)
Each postscript file was then loaded into XFig, marked up with textual annotations, and saved as an eps file.
Ghostview was used to preview these eps files to ensure that everything was there.The eps file was then called
into the LATEX document to make the desired figure.
Astonishingly, it all worked.
You can also capture windows and areas of the screen using the Picture Object feature, but XFig unmaps all
of its windows from the screen during this operation to ‘get out of your way’ so you would have to run two XFigs
at the same time and use one to capture parts of the other.

11 Making Overheads using Xfig

Xfig is a great tool for creating the overheads for a slide show. Often, the situation is this: you have created a
document on a particular topic and now you need to do a presentation. Each of the overheads is to be a summary
of one of the important ideas in the original paper.
Luckily, you don’t need to retype each of the overheads. The text can be cut and pasted from the original
document. The facility to do this is really useful, but really well hidden.
You need to ensure that the ’text-paste’ operation is set up properly. I can’t speak for other machines, but on
mine (the ’Manhattan’ distribution of RedHat) the function of this key is defined in the file

/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults/Fig

Edit this file, looking for the following stanza:

! make the F20 key paste text in the canvas

Fig*canvas.translations: #override \n\
<Key>F1: PasteCanv()\n

In this particular case, the text-paste operation is defined to be the ’F1’ key. Originally, it was ’F18’ or some
other strange value and I had to change it. You can change it to ’F1’ or some other key of your choice.
Now you’re ready for a paste operation:
Select the text widget in Xfig.
Select any of the Xfig text attributes, such as Font and Size that you want the pasted text to have.
Position the text cursor where you want the text to appear in the Xfig window.
Set up the text to be pasted so that it’s visible in an XTerm.

22
 In the XTerm window, use the left mouse button to highlight the text to be copied.
Move the focus back to the Xfig window and press button F1.
The text should paste correctly into the Xfig window.
An example is shown in figure 7. I selected the ’Bookman-LightItalic’ 12 point font in Xfig. Then I copied
the text from a previous paragraph of this paragraph into Xfig. I outlined the text with a box and saved it as an
encapsulated-postscript file at 70% magnification. Then I added the instructions to this LATEX document to import
the eps file as figure 7.

  
        !#"
$%&
  "
')(+*  +,+-

 -. /
10.2+ 3  "4&"1.5612&7%8- . % 7% (9:'
0.2#"4 " 7% 
- (;<#&- -3 !"
=

.5)5> 0?-3-
#= 5@7!+ "
= /!  A7%7!(

Figure 7: Pasted Text

Initially, the box was the wrong size. I had to adjust it in Xfig and re-export the drawing until it was correct.
If you’re using the xdvi viewer, each time you resave the eps file, the new version appears automatically in xdvi.
(You do have to close and open the xdvi window.) You don’t have to reprocess the LATEX document.
Now, how would you assemble a bunch of these slides as a slide show?
One method would be to create a LATEX document that imports each overhead as a separate page in the doc-
ument. As you made up the slide show, you could process it as a LATEX document and preview it using the xdvi
previewer. If you need to incorporate mathematics into the overheads, paste in the LATEX text, mark it as ’spe-
cial’ text in Xfig, and export it to a file format such as Pictex that understands math symbols. When the entire
slide show is assembled, use dvips to convert it to a postscript document. This is the completed slide show. Use
ghostview to present the overheads one after another or in whatever order is appropriate.

11.1 Large Fonts

In the construction of overheads and other for some other applications it is necessary to have very large typefaces.
Depending on your installation, you probably don’t have typefaces beyond much beyond 24 point. You can ask
for a 60 point typeface in the text size entry widget, but the text limits at its maximum, which isn’t that large.
You can however generate really large type by exporting the type in magnified form and then re-importing it back
into xfig. For example:
1. Create the text, using the appropriate typeface. If it’s not all one sentence, then use the grouping tool to
make it one object. (If you are using this text in a presentation, you might want to use a pen colour other
than black. Ghostview can cope with colours.
2. Select the EXPORT menu, postscript option.
3. Set the Magnif% control to something large, like 400%. Export the text to a file test.ps.
You could load the file into ghostview to view it at this point. Or you could load the enlarged image in
test.ps into xv or the gimp image manipulation program for further processing.
To incorporate this magnified text with other drawing elements, re-import the postscript file back into xfig:

23
 1. Click on the Camera icon to import the postscript file.
2. Press the right mouse button, draw a rectangle and then enter the name of the file, test.ps. The text
will appear on the canvas drawing area, magnified to 400%. It will have significant jaggies (steps) on the
characters because of xfig’s limitations in rendering postscript characters. Ignore this.
3. Add the additional drawing elements - lines, text, whatever - and then resave the drawing.
4. Print or export the drawing as required.
If you are exporting one line of text, you will notice that the postscript file image of the magnified text is
truncated: a few pixels are missing from the bottom of each character. To eliminate this, add some drawing
element such as a line, below the line of text. Then the exported file expands to include the whole character,
without flattening the bottoms of the characters. If the line is objectionable, change its colour to the same as the
background (eg, white) to make it disappear.
The overall result of this process is not perfect - the final image still contains some stair-stepping. But the
results are quite acceptable for most presentation graphics.

12 Automatically Changing Exported Size and Format

Consider the following scenario: you have produced a large number of diagrams for inclusion in some TEX or
LATEX document. They were all produced (let us say) as pictex formatted images at 85% magnification. Now you
realize that they need to be bigger, 115% magnification. You could load the .fig version of each file into xfig
and re-export it at the correct magnification, but this is tedious.
A better solution is to use the fig2dev program in a shell script to automate the process.
The fig2dev program converts a .fig formatted diagram into some different output format, such as la-
tex, pictex or postscript. When xfig exports a diagram, it uses fig2dev to generate the correctly
formatted file.
The fig2dev program is part of the transfig software package. If the export function of xfig works
correctly, then fig2dev is installed and working.
For example, the following command line will generate the pictex formatted version of a file foo.fig at a
magnification of 115%.
transfig -L pictex -m 1.15 foo.fig > foo.pictex
The -l option selects the conversion to use, in this case, fig to pictex. The -m option selects the magnifi-
cation. For all the details, consult the man entry for fig2dev.
To apply this to a group of files, you could put fig2dev in a shell script such as the following, which I call
makepictex:
#!/bin/bash
# This script renames all .tex files to .pictex.
# Run it with the full directory path to ensure you run this one
# and not some other ’rename’ script.

for i in *.fig
do
j=‘basename $i .fig‘

24
 fig2dev -L pictex -m 1.15 $i > $j.pictex
done
You can edit the fig2dev line to accomplish the desired productions. The line j=‘basename $i .fig‘
strips off the suffix of a file name: for the file foo.fig, the variable j becomes foo by itself. The fig2dev
command then processes each fig file into pictex format in a file named foo.pictex. Make sure the script
is executable
chmod u+x makepictex
and invoke it with the full path name of the directory that it’s in. For example, if it’s in the subdirectory
/home/phiscock/papers/op-amps/figures then you would execute the command:
/home/phiscock/papers/op-amps/figures/makepictex
Another scenario where you might find this useful: your document contains many diagrams so to save space,
you archive the .fig version of each diagram and not the exported file. At some point, you find you need to
regenerate all the exported files. A batch file similar to the above can accomplish this in one fell swoop. Of course,
all the magnifications must be the same, so the size of the diagram must be specified in the document itself. This
is a good argument for keeping the xfig export magnification factor as unity whenever you export a diagram.
Specify the size you need with the command that imports the figure into the document.

13 Configuring Xfig
The installation and configuration process has three stages:
Install the program
Fit the screen size
Get colours to work.

13.1 Installation
On a Redhat Linux system, or some other system that uses the RPM (Redhat Package Management) system, the
installation steps are as follows:
Mount the CDROM that came with the distribution.
Find the Redhat directory
In that directory, find the xfig package, which will be named something like xfig3.2.2.rpm.
Install it with the RPM command:
rpm -i xfig2.2.2.rpm
(Grizzled old Unix veterans now heard muttering about how easy people have it these days, not having to use
MAKE files etc etc.) The xfig package is also available on the web. You could use Google to find it.
A Slakware system is similar, except that packages end in a .tgz extension and the command is installpkg.
If you are generating outputs in latex or other formats for incorporation in documents, you will also need to
install the transfig package. This handles the translation of the document description from fig into various
other formats.

25
13.2 Screen Size
It is not uncommon when starting xfig for the first time to find that the window exceeds the screen size and the
colours are missing. Fortunately, xfig and X Window are extremely configurable, so these glitches can be
fixed.
The screen size may be reduced to fit by means of the command line options that set the width of the canvas,
the height of the canvas, and the number of buttons per row on the control panel. (Refer to the man entry for xfig
for a list of all the options.)
For example, to make xfig fit on my Toshiba laptop, for which the screen resolution is 800x600 pixels, I used
the command line
xfig -pwidth 8 -pheight 5.5 -but_per_row 3
This squishes the canvas down to 8 inches by 5.5 inches and stacks the buttons three to a row.
To avoid having to type in this command line every time you start xfig, you can create an alias in one of
the shell configuration files. In my case, a linux system, the shell is Bash and I added the following line to the
.bashrc file:
alias xfig=’xfig -pwidth 8 -pheight 5.5 -but_per_row 3 &’
The ampersand in the command line puts the xfig process in the background so that you get the command prompt
back after starting xfig. (Remember, to list files that begin with a dot, you must use the -a option to ls, as in
ls -a.)
To get this alias to take effect, you need to logout and login again or use the source command to get Bash
to read the configuration file, as in source .bashrc.
Typing ’xfig’ now invokes this entire command line automatically.
Incidentally, you can find out which shell your system is using with the command
echo $SHELL
If you are using some shell other than Bash, you’ll have to read the manual entry on that shell to determine the
names of the configuration files, their configuration files, and syntax of the entries.

13.3 Colour
When xfig is installed, its X Window configuration files will also have been automatically installed in an ap-
plication defaults directory. On my Redhat system, this is
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults
and on the Slakware system
/usr/X11R6/lib/app-defaults
There, you will find configuration files for many X Window programs, among which should be Fig and Fig-
color. (Non Americans should take special notice the spelling of color, which Brits and Canadians spell colour).
The objective is to get xfig to read the Fig-color file when it starts up.
When X Window starts up, it executes a program xinit (see the man entry for xinit). This program
looks for a file named .xinitrc in the user’s home directory. The .xinitrc script is an important file – it
specifies the X window manager and the various X windows programs that appear on the desktop at startup. The
.xinitrc file in turn identifies a configuration file named .Xdefaults. To get xfig to read it’s application
default file Fig-color, add to the .Xdefaults text the magic line:

26
 Fig*customization: -color
In some cases, the X configurations are contained in a file named .Xresources. In that case, edit the
.xinitrc file to read that instead.
Restart X Windows. Depending on your system, simply pressing <ctrl><alt><backspace> will take
you back to the logon screen. Log on as normal and start xfig. It should be in glorious colour.
On some machines, pressing <ctrl><alt><backspace> takes you back to the command line dumb
terminal screen. Run startx to restart X Window.
If there is no file .xinitrc in your home directory, use the locate command to search for .xinitrc
or xinitrc. There will probably be an example somewhere in the system that can be copied into your home
directory and edited to suit.
If there is no file .Xdefaults in your home directory, simply create it, containing the magic line given
above.

13.4 HELP Doesn’t Work

Some of the files called by the xfig HELP menu are in .PDF format. The standard program for reading .PDF
files is acroread. On my system, acroread wasn’t installed, so the HELP menu failed. This was not good:
people couldn’t read the wonderful document ’Using Xfig’!
However, I discovered that ghostview will display .PDF just as well as postscript documents.

The Easy Way

The simple way to fix HELP 1 is to edit the applications default file Fig (as previously described in section 13.3
above) in /usr/X11R6/lib/X11/app-defaults. The relevant lines that appear as:
! pdfviewer - put your favorite pdf viewer here.
! This is for viewing the xfig how-to guide and man pages
Fig.pdfviewer: acroread
change acroread to ghostview. You’ll need to be root to edit the file. That’s it, HELP should now work
properly.

The Hard Way

I put a symbolic link in my bin directory to create a ’pseudo-acroread’, using the following steps:
1. Check that you have a bin subdirectory in your home directory. If you don’t have a bin subdirectory,
simply create it with the command:

˜/bin

2. Check to see it’s part of your PATH by doing the command (assuming the bash shell)

echo $PATH
1 Someone is bound to point out that you can’t read this fix unless you can use the HELP facility in the first place, a classic chicken & egg

scenario. However, this file is available on my web page. Or a resourceful operator will find the file in the innards of their system, and read it
there.

27
 3. If the bin subdirectory is not part of the path specification, add a line to your .bash_profile file like
this:

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin

You’ll have to log out and back in for this to have an effect, or execute

source .bash_profile

4. Execute the which command to find the location of ghostview. (It might also be known as gv):

which ghostview

This will show you where ghostview lives. On my system, it’s in

/usr/X11R6/bin/ghostview

5. Finally, link acroread to ghostview with the following command (or whatever’s appropriate for the
location of ghostview in your system):

ln -s /usr/X11R6/bin/ghostview ˜/bin/acroread

Now the xfig HELP menu item should work, and whether you wanted to be or not, you’re on your way to
becoming a Linux Guru.
It would be crazy to do this when you could use the simple method and edit the app-defaults file instead,
right? Well, maybe not.
When you back up your system, the critical thing to backup is your /home directory. Unless you make a
point of backing up app-defaults, Fig, Fig-color and the edits you made are not archived. By making a link
that’s stored in the /home/bin directory , if you archive the home, the link gets backed up.

13.5 References
To learn the details of BASH and its configuration files, there is:

Learning the BASH Shell, 2nd Edition

Cameron Newham and Bill Rosenblatt
O’Reilly & Associates Inc, 1998

For more information on using and configuring the X Window System, you might want to read

X Window System User’s Guide, Volume 3

Valerie Quercia and Tim O’Reilly
O’Reilly & Associates Inc, 1993

28