Include EPS graphics in pdflatex

It’s a shame that pdflatex supports jpg, png, pdf… graphic type but not EPS while latex supports EPS but not the others. From my previous post, there is an easy way to convert EPS to pdf.  But it is just annoying that every time you want to include an eps graphic you have to do the conversion manually. After googling, I found out that there is a way to let pdflatex do the conversion for you. Here is how.

1. Install texlive-extra-utils which contains epstopdf.

sudo apt-get install texlive-extra-utils

2. Insert the following code in in the preamble of your document.

\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. Include eps graphics like usual

\includegraphics[width=7in]{result_1.eps}

4. Compile the tex file with -shell-escape option

 pdflatex -shell-escape texWithEPSYAY.tex

During the compiling pdflatex converts the included eps graphic files into pdf files on the fly using epstopdf. After compiling, esptopdf generates a lot of pdf files (conversion from eps files). You will find the compile (is compile a noun?) a little bit slow. That is because it takes some time for epstopdf to convert eps files to pdf files. As one can imagine, it will become REALLY slow as the number of eps graphics included in a document increases. One way to fix this problem is that when inserting an eps graphic in a document, LEAVE THE FILE EXTENSION OFF. For example, instead of

\includegraphics[width=7in]{result_1.eps}

use

\includegraphics[width=7in]{result_1}.

By this way, pdflatex first checks if result_1.pdf exists. If not, it locates result_1.eps and converts it to a pdf file. When result_1.pdf does exist, it simply inserts result_1.pdf in the document. Therefore, pdflatex only does the conversion when the corresponding pdf file does not exist. If you do NOT leave the file extension off, pdflatex would convert the eps graphics in the document to pdf files every time you compile.

Hope this helps.