PDFLaTeX with EPS and PNG Figures

Take a look at this trick in the post at http://opendevice.blogspot.com/2008/05/eps-files-and-pdflatex.html. The idea is simple. It asks for converting eps figures into pdf figures before compiling the tex file. But it is necessary to remember that only the name, not the .eps extension, of eps figures can be placed in\includegraphics{}; otherwise the eps figures will be converted every time the tex file is compiled.


"There is this odd quirk in LaTeX. The latex executable compiles your .tex files in the old-fashioned DVI format. As such, it accepts by default only .eps (Encapsulated PostScript) images. pdflatex compiles your .tex files in the standard PDF format. For some mysterious quirk, pdflatex accepts raster formats like .png and .jpg , but does not accept .eps!

Sometimes you want the best of both worlds. An undergraduate of my lab, after some googling, found you can force pdflatex to insert .eps files happily:

1)Install texlive-extra packages, or any other package containing the epstopdf utility.

2) Insert the following code in your .tex file:

\newif\ifpdf
\ifx\pdfoutput\undefined
\pdffalse
\else
\pdfoutput=1
\pdftrue
\fi
\ifpdf
\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{epstopdf}
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.eps}{pdf}{.pdf}{`epstopdf #1}
\pdfcompresslevel=9
\else
\usepackage{graphicx}
\fi

3) Compile using pdflatex with the -shell-escape command line option

It seems to work."