<html><head><meta name="color-scheme" content="light dark"></head><body><pre style="word-wrap: break-word; white-space: pre-wrap;">\documentclass[12pt,a4paper]{book}
\usepackage{pictex}
\usepackage{graphics}
\usepackage{citesort}
\usepackage{verbatim}
\usepackage{rotating}

% **   Macros   **
\def\FastPiCTeX{F\kern-.30em\lower.5ex\hbox{A}\kern-.12emS\kern-.18em\lower-0.5ex\hbox{T}\PiCTeX}

\author{
Harald Martin Stau\ss, MD \\
Dept. of Integrative Physiology \\
The University of Iowa \\
410 Field House \\
Iowa City, IA 52245 \\
USA \\
e-mail: harald-stauss@uiowa.edu
}

\title{Generating Charts with \FastPiCTeX}
\date{\today}

\begin{document}
\maketitle

{
\setlength{\parindent}{0pt}
{\bf \FastPiCTeX:} H. M. Stau\ss, 2$^{nd}$~edition, 2008

\vfill
\begin{center}
Dedicated to \\
the Free Software Foundation \\
 and all \TeX\ users
\end{center}

\vfill This manual was generated using \LaTeX\ and \PiCTeX. The
sources of the \FastPiCTeX\ program together with the \LaTeX\ sources
of this manual are freely available. The rules of the GNU public
license apply. The author would appreciate receiving picture postcards
of the home town of people who like this program.  }

\tableofcontents
\listoffigures
%\listoftables

\chapter{GNU general public license}
\begin{center}
Version 2, June 1991 \\
\vspace*{1em}
Copyright \copyright \ 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc. \\
675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA \\
Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies \\
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed. \\
\end{center}

\section{Preamble}
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\begin{enumerate}
\setcounter{enumi}{-1}
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\begin{center}
NO WARRANTY
\end{center}

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\begin{center}
END OF TERMS AND CONDITIONS
\end{center}
\end{enumerate}

\chapter{Introduction}
When I was writing my doctoral thesis in the late 80$^{th}$, I spent
my total savings and bought an IBM-compatible personal computer, that
was based on a 8080~microprocessor. Of course, I was using \LaTeX\ as
text-processing software. Inspired by my brother Bernhard, I decided to
use \PiCTeX\ to generate the charts for my thesis. However, I soon
recognized that the \TeX\ version that I used at this time (PC\TeX)
was not suitable to generate \PiCTeX\ charts, since I very often
received messages, such as: \\ 
\verb|! TeX capacity exceeded, sorry [main memory size = 65536 bytes]|

Finally, the excellent \TeX\ implementation from Eberhard Mattes
appeared and I could use Big\TeX\ to generate my theses using the
MS-DOS operating system.  Later, I switched to the Linux operating
system that came with the te\TeX\ implementation and memory management
was no longer a limitation. Today, I am using the MikTeX
implementation of \TeX\ on the MS-Windows Vista operating system. The
old original files of my doctoral thesis still run smoothly through
MikTeX without modifications and that is 20 years after the thesis was
written.

However, the use of \PiCTeX\ for generating charts is still quite time
consuming, because the \PiCTeX\ macro language, although very
powerful, is somewhat awkward. Pictures must be described by the
\PiCTeX\ programming language and usually a lot of debugging is
necessary to obtain the desired result. This may be the largest
disadvantage of \PiCTeX. Otherwise, \PiCTeX\ is very advanced and
offers nearly everything necessary to generate very nice charts of
scientific data material. In order to overcome the time consuming part
of generating the \PiCTeX\ code, I decided to write a
\PiCTeX-preprocessor that does all the nasty part in generating
\PiCTeX\ code. This preprocessor takes a very simple macro file as
input and generates an output file containing the \PiCTeX\ code. The
output file can then be included in a document by the \verb|\input|
command. As with most preprocessors there are some limitations of
\FastPiCTeX. First, only numerical diagrams based on data material can
be generated. Second, only a limited set of commands are implemented,
offering only basic instructions. Therefore, fine tuning the \PiCTeX\
code is usually still necessary. However, a working skeleton of the
\PiCTeX\ file can be generated easily by \FastPiCTeX.

\chapter{Installation and Usage}
To use \FastPiCTeX\ you certainly need \TeX. \TeX\ was developed by
Donald E. Knuth. His \TeX book \cite{4} is the basis of all packages
based on the most advanced typesetting software available for almost
any computer platform. In addition to \TeX\ you also need \LaTeX\ that
was developed as an extension to \TeX\ by Leslie Lamport who has
written the original \LaTeX\ manual \cite{3}. In addition, you need
\PiCTeX\ that is described in \cite{1}. The \PiCTeX\ manual by the
author of \PiCTeX, Michael J. Wichura, is an indepth description of
the \PiCTeX\ system and is certainly worth to read. The \PiCTeX\
manual used to be freely available on the Internet. Currently, it is
only available for purchase.

Installation of \FastPiCTeX\ is as simple as unpacking the archive,
and running make. A binary executable version of \FastPiCTeX\ for the
MS-DOS/Windows operating system is included. Compilation of the
program for other operatign systems should be straight forward with
any standard C++ compiler (I have used the MinGW Compiler).
\begin{verbatim}
tar -xzvf fastpictex-x.y.tar.gz
cd fastpictex-x.y/src
make
\end{verbatim}

Once you have generated the executable, you are ready to generate
\PiCTeX\ code in just a few seconds. \verb.fastpictex. is a command
line program that accepts two parameters: the input file name and the
output file name. The input file is a \FastPiCTeX\ macro file, while
the output file is the \PiCTeX\ code that can be included in a \LaTeX\
document. Thus, running \FastPiCTeX\ is as simple as typing:
\begin{center}
\verb.fastpictex file_in file_out.
\end{center}

As an example, consider the very simple input file
(\verb|bargraph.fpt|) that generates a bargraph with four columns and
standard-error bars:

\verbatiminput{bargraph.fpt}

To generate a \PiCTeX\ file that can be included in any \LaTeX\ file
(the \PiCTeX\ package must be included) run the command:
\begin{center}
\verb|fastpictex bargraph.fpt bargraph.ltx|
\end{center}

A \LaTeX\ document that includes the bargraph (see Fig.~\ref{bargraph})
generated by \FastPiCTeX\ could be:
\begin{verbatim}
\documentclass[12pt]{book}
\usepackage{pictex}
\begin{document}
This is a pretty nice bar graph: \\
\input bargraph.ltx
\end{document}
\end{verbatim}

\begin{figure}
\input bargraph.ltx
\caption[A bargraph]{\small \label{bargraph} This bargraph was
produced by \FastPiCTeX\ by only four lines of input code.}
\end{figure}

\chapter{The macro language}
The \FastPiCTeX\ macro language consists of a few commands that can be
used to design a chart. The series of comands that compose a chart are
generally written to a file using a text editor, such as emacs or
vi. A command always starts in the first column of a line. Following
the command word at least one whitespace character must be inserted
before the parameters for the command are added. The parameters for
the commands are also separated by whitspace characters and can
continue in subsequent lines. However, if several lines are used for
one command, then the subsequent lines must start with at least one
whitespace character (instead of with a command word). As an example,
consider the following macro for the line graph shown in
Fig.~\ref{linegraph}:

\verbatiminput{linegraph.fpt}

\begin{figure}
\input linegraph.ltx
\caption[A linegraph]{\small \label{linegraph} A linegraph.}
\end{figure}

In this example, the \verb.x. and \verb.y. commands are spread over
two lines. Note, that the second lines for these commands start with
whitespace characters. Whitespace characters can be blanks or
tabulators. 

It is also possible to design charts with more than one series of
data. For each series of data, commands must be provided as
demonstrated in the next example. The example consists of three series
of xy charts. The resulting chart is shown in
Fig.~\ref{xygraph}. Note, that the three data series are automatically
distinguished by different symbols (i.e. by filled circles, open
circles, and by diamonds).

\verbatiminput{xygraph.fpt}

\begin{figure}
\input xygraph.ltx
\caption[A XY-graph with three series]{\small \label{xygraph} A
XY-graph with three series.}
\end{figure}

In addition, it is possible to combine different graph types in one
chart. Consider an example, in which the data points of an XY-Graph
should be connected by lines. A macro file for such a chart
composition is shown in the next example (Fig.~\ref{mixgraph}).

\begin{verbatim}
type xy
x    1   2   3   4   5
y    9   12  15  17  19
dx   0.5 0.6 0.4 0.5 0.7
dy   0.8 0.9 1.2 2.0 2.4
type line
x    1   2   3   4   5
y    9   12  15  17  19
\end{verbatim}

\begin{figure}
\input mixgraph.ltx
\caption[A graph with different chart types]{\small \label{mixgraph} A
graph with different chart types.}
\end{figure}

If a chart that consists of several series is to be composed, it is
important to understand, how \FastPiCTeX\ handels the order of the
commands. If a command word occurs for the first time, the command
belongs to the first series. If the command word appears for a second
or third time, it belongs to the second or third series. Therefore,
the example that generated Fig.~\ref{mixgraph} could have also been
written as:
\begin{verbatim}
type xy
type line
x    1   2   3   4   5
x    1   2   3   4   5
y    9   12  15  17  19
y    9   12  15  17  19
dx   0.5 0.6 0.4 0.5 0.7
dy   0.8 0.9 1.2 2.0 2.4
\end{verbatim}


In the following sections of this chapter, the various commands are
described in detail. For each command, examples are given as to how to
use the commands.


\section{Comments, the \% command}
To add comments, use the command word \%. As an example, the macro
code for one of the former examples (Fig~\ref{mixgraph}) can be
written as:

\verbatiminput{mixgraph.fpt}

\section{The size command}
The size command allows to define the width and height of the
plot. The parameters of the size command are the width and the height
of the chart which must both be given in units of centimeters (cm). If
no size command is given, the width and height both default to
6~cm. The output of the following example is shown in
figure~\ref{size}.

\verbatiminput{size.fpt}

\begin{figure}
\input size.ltx
\caption[An example with a non-standard size]{\small \label{size}
An example with a non-standard size.}
\end{figure}

\section{The type command}
The type command defines what kind of chart should be generated. The
available chart types are:
\begin{itemize}
\item XY-graphs
\item line graphs
\item bar graphs
\end{itemize}
Please keep in mind, that you must enter a type command for every
series in your chart. It is \textbf{not} possible to define the
chart type once for all series!

\subsection{XY-Graphs}
To generate a XY-graph, simply use ``\verb|type xy|''. An example is
given in Fig.~\ref{xygraph}. With XY-graphs it is sometimes
interesting to study the correlation between the two variables X and
Y. With \FastPiCTeX\ this can be accomplished by the ``\verb|tline|''
command explained later.

\subsection{Line-Graphs}
To generate a line-graph, use ``\verb|type line|''. An example is
given in Fig.~\ref{linegraph}. 

\subsection{Bar-Graphs}
To generate a bar-graph, use the command ``\verb|type bar|''. An
example is given in Fig.~\ref{bargraph}. The x-coordinates of
bar-graphs always start at~1 and increase by steps of~1. Therefore,
the x~command for a bar graph may consist of only the letter~x and no
actual x-coordinates.

\section{The tline command - Regression lines}
The ``\verb|tline|'' command generates regression lines and the linear
regression equation for XY-graphs. The ``\verb|tline|'' command is
followed by a parameter that can be 0, 1, or 2. A parameter of 0 is
equivalent to not type the ``\verb|tline|'' command at all.

\begin{description}
\item []\verb|tline 0| no regression line and no linear regression
  equation.
\item []\verb|tline 1| regression line but no linear regression
  equation.
\item []\verb|tline 2| regression line and linear regression equation.
\end{description}

Below is the \FastPiCTeX\ code of a small example with regression
lines. The corresponding graph is shown in
Fig.~\ref{tline_easy}. Please note that the linear regression equation
is only printed for the second XY-graph because the parameter for the
\verb|tline| command for the first XY-graph is ``1''. 

\verbatiminput{tline_easy.fpt}

\begin{figure}[htb]
\input tline_easy.ltx
\caption[A small example with regression lines]{\small
  \label{tline_easy} A small example with regression lines.}
\end{figure}

A more complex example of a \FastPiCTeX\ file with regression lines is
shown below and the corresponding graph is povided in
Fig.~\ref{tline_complex}. The
\verb|\begin{sideways} ... \end{sideways}| environment used in this
example requires the rotating package. 

\verbatiminput{tline_complex.fpt}

\begin{figure} 
\input tline_complex.ltx
\caption[A complex example with regression lines]{\small
  \label{tline_complex} A complex example with regression lines. The
  legend was moved from the right side of the figure to the bottom by
  editing the \LaTeX\ file of the diagram.}
\end{figure}

\section{The x command}
The x command is used to define the x-coordinates. A x~command is
required for every series in a chart. However, the actual
x~coordinates may be omitted (i.e. the x~command consists of only the
letter~x). In this case the x-values are assumed to start at~1 and
increase by steps of~1. For example, consider the following graph that
is composed of bar, line, and xy series (Fig.~\ref{x-command}):

\verbatiminput{x-command.fpt}

The bars and lines of the resulting graph (Fig.~\ref{x-command}) have their
x-coordinates at 1, 2, 3, and 4. These x-coordinates are automatically
defined by \FastPiCTeX. 

\begin{figure} 
\input x-command.ltx
\caption[An example without x-coordinates]{\small \label{x-command} An
example without x-coordinates.}
\end{figure}

\section{The xticlabels command}
The xticlabels command allows to define labels for the tics at the
x-axis. Examples are given in Fig.~\ref{xticlabels} that were created
by the \FastPiCTeX\ commands:
\verbatiminput{xticlabels1.fpt}
and
\verbatiminput{xticlabels2.fpt}

If the labels contain blanks, you may enclose the entire label in
quotes as demonstrated in on of the examples. One limitation is that it is
not possible to use \LaTeX\ formatting commands such as {\verb.\bf.} or
{\verb.\it.} in xticlabels.

\begin{center}
\begin{figure}
\small 
\input xticlabels1.ltx
\input xticlabels2.ltx
\caption[Examples with labels at the tics of the x-axis]{\small
\label{xticlabels} Examples with labels at the tics of the x-axis.}
\end{figure}
\end{center}

\section{The y command}
The y command is used to define the y-coordinates. This command is
required for every series in a graph. It is possible to add a string
(enclosed in doublequotes) directly (without any whitespace) after the
numbers for the y-values. This string will be printed on top of the
data point in the chart. This feature allows to add asterisks to
indicate that this data point is significant or to add other kind of
information to a specific data point. Examples are given in
Fig.~\ref{bargraph}, \ref{asterisk}, and~\ref{legend-command}. The
latter one was produced by the following \FastPiCTeX\ commands:

\verbatiminput{asterisk.fpt}

\begin{center}
\begin{figure}
\small 
\input asterisk.ltx
\caption[An example giving extra information on data points]{\small
\label{asterisk} An example giving extra information on data points.}
\end{figure}
\end{center}

\section{The dx command}
The dx command can be used to define error bars in x-direction. For
example, if the standard errors are given, \FastPiCTeX\ draws
horizontal error bars extending to the left and to the right by
$\pm$~the standard errors. An example is given in Fig.~\ref{mixgraph}.

\section{The dy command}
The dy command can be used to define error bars in y-direction. For
example, if the standard errors are given, \FastPiCTeX\ draws vertical
error bars extending up- and downwards by $\pm$~the standard
errors. Examples are given in Figs.~\ref{bargraph}, \ref{mixgraph},
and \ref{x-command}.

\section{The heading command}
The heading command can be used to define a heading for a chart. The
heading is placed above the chart. Standard \LaTeX\ formatting
commands can be used as illustrated in the example given in
Fig.~\ref{heading}.

\verbatiminput{heading.fpt}

\begin{figure}
\input heading.ltx
\caption[A chart with a heading]{\small \label{heading} A chart with a
heading.}
\end{figure}

\section{The xlabel and ylabel commands}
These two commands can be used to enter a label to the x- and
y-axis. Like in the heading command, regular \LaTeX\ formatting
instructions can be included. If the y-axis label should be rotated by
90$^\circ$, the command ``\verb.\rotatebox{}{}.'' can be used. This
command is included in the graphics package distributed with most
\TeX\ and \LaTeX\ distributions. However, the
``\verb.\rotatebox{}{}.''  command uses special commands that can only
be handeled by some DVI-drivers, such as the DVIPS driver. Another
alternative is the rotating package that offers the
\verb|\begin{sideways} ... \end{sideways}| environment that has been
used to generate Fig.~\ref{tline_complex}. An example using the
``\verb.\stack{}.'' command to write the y-axis label vertically is
shown in the next Figure (Fig.~\ref{axislabels}).

\verbatiminput{axislabels.fpt}

\begin{figure}
\input axislabels.ltx
\caption[A chart with a heading and labels at the axis]{\small
\label{axislabels} A chart with a heading and labels at the axis.}
\end{figure}

\section{The xgrid and ygrid commands}
If these commands are given, gridlines will be drawn in the x or y
direction respectively. The commands do not need any parameters. If
the xgrid or ygrid commands are not given, no gridlines will be
drawn. An example is given in Fig.~\ref{grids} that was generated by
the following commands:

\verbatiminput{grids.fpt}

\begin{figure}
\input grids.ltx
\caption[A chart with grid lines]{\small
\label{grids} A chart with grid lines.}
\end{figure}

\section{The legend command}
If several series of data are plotted in one single diagram, one need
to know which series represents which data. To add a legend to a
series simply use: ``\verb|legend description of data series|''. An
example is given in Fig.~\ref{legend-command} that was generated by
the following \FastPiCTeX\ file:

\verbatiminput{legend.fpt}

\begin{figure} 
\input legend.ltx
\caption[An example with legends]{\small \label{legend-command} An
example with legends.}
\end{figure}


\section{The pictex command}
Text following the pictex command is simply copied into the pictex
file to be interpreted by \PiCTeX. This command allows adding plain
\PiCTeX\ instructions to \FastPiCTeX\ files. The syntax for this command
is not very complicate:
``\verb|pictex whatever you want to pass on to pictex|''. An example
is provided in Fig.~\ref{pictex-command} that was generated by the
following \FastPiCTeX\ code:

\verbatiminput{pictex-command.fpt}

\begin{figure} 
\input pictex-command.ltx
\caption[\PiCTeX\ commands included in \FastPiCTeX]{\small
\label{pictex-command} \PiCTeX\ commands included in \FastPiCTeX.}
\end{figure}


% Bibliography

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\bibliography{fastpictex} 

\end{document}
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