Preparing for Publication

You have three ways to include RATS graphs in a publication:

•Export the graph in one of the standard graphics file formats and then import the graph into your word-processor or page-layout program.

•Use Edit—Copy to copy a graph to the system clipboard, and then paste it into your word-processing application.

•Print a copy of your graph directly from RATS (for instance, as a PDF file) and include this in your publication.

The first two are obviously more flexible, since most word processors will allow you to size and shape the graph to fit your document.

Make sure that you have the desired settings for the proportions and color as discussed on in "Working with Graph Windows". Those will be applied when exporting or copying the graph.

Exporting/Saving

To export (save) to disk a graph that you have already generated, you should:

1.Make sure the desired graph window is active.

2.Choose the File—Export or File—Save As operation from the menu or the toolbar icon. Select the desired format from the drop-down list.

Another option is to use the GSAVE instruction before generating your graphs to have RATS save them automatically.

PostScript is the preferred format for saving graphs because it gives the most accurate translation of the graph, and works very well if you will be producing your final output as a PDF file or on a PostScript printer. For PostScript, you can choose from two orientations, Portrait and Landscape. When you place the graph file on a page, these will have the same orientations shown on the previous page for printing. Portrait is the standard here, and is what we use in all the graphs in the manuals other than samples of landscape.

PDF format should also work very well for any applications that support importing PDF files. WMF (Windows Metafile) is available on Windows, but might not be acceptable for all publications, as it’s specific to Windows. PNG is a portable “bit-map” format, which also is often not acceptable for publication because it doesn’t resize well, but is a good choice for (for instance) a web page. (The graphs in our help are all PNG.)

Copying and Pasting

To copy a graph to the clipboard, make sure the desired graph window is active and then choose the Edit—Copy operation from the menu or click on the toolbar icon.

Windows versions copy both bitmap and Windows metafile versions of the graph to the clipboard, while Macintosh versions copy in PDF format. To paste the graph, switch to the other application and select the Paste or Paste Special... operation from its Edit menu (Paste Special... allows you to select the format that is pasted).