When using the DVI or PS output from LaTeX, you actually have to put any graphics into some external file, and include that in the final output. This is because TeX does not manage your images like Word or WordPerfect; rather, it simply says something like "leave this box alone, because something else will go in there".
In this sense, WYSIWYG packages are somewhat superior, since it is very easy to import images of all kinds. Nonetheless, there are times when even this little extra pain makes LaTeX superior, due to its ability to guarantee that the captions are correctly numbered, and that they actually stay with the images.
Assuredly, it is very easy to produce figures for papers in drawing packages such as PowerPoint, or Visio, as well as importing graphics from the clipboard in Windows. Most of these files are already in (or can be converted to) Enhanced MetaFile, or Windows MetaFile format, which is a terse representation for graphics, storing the image as a set of lines and text rather than bits. This allows it to be resized with sharpness. It is such a good idea, that it has actually been thought of before, notably in the EPS (Embedded PostScript) format. By an amazing coincidence, this is a common input format to LaTeX's DVI/PS output formats. By an even more amazing coincidence, there is a package to convert from {W,E}MF to EPS.
- Download the EMFtoEPS package, from Dirk Struve, at http://www.projectory.de/emftoeps/ and install it on you machine, making sure to choose a PostScript printer in your output settings.
- Install GhostView and GhostScript.
- Save your PPT, Word Drawing, or other image into Enhanced Metafile Format (EMF) as, say,
figure.emf - Open EMFtoEPS (available on the desktop, when remotely logged in to ransom) and open the EMF file you just saved
- Choose Convert from the menu to do either all files, or those selected by you
- The files are saved in the same directory, with the extension
*.eps, sayfigure.eps - Open the generated EPS file with GhostView, and choose the
File->PS to EPS, allow the bounding box to be automatically calculated, and save with a different filename, say,figure_use.eps - You may import
figure_use.epsinto a latex document.