[texhax] dealing with maps

[pierre.mackay]

debian wrote:

>Please,
>
>I am trying to write a small guide to a local canal using Latex.
>
>What is the recommended way to incorporate maps ?  From the Ordinance
>Survey I can trace the map I want by hand and then scan it into a
>file.  But, I then want to add text and graphics to it, before
>incorporating it into my latex production.
>  
>
I have been doing a lot of that lately, and I regret to say that there 
does not seem to be anything yet to replace Adobe Illustrator, which 
(for me) means that I have to control my nausea and run a Windows 
session every once in a while. A well-layered Illustrator file, saved as 
EPS will certainly do the trick.
I wish I could make Wine work for Illustrator, but not so far. The EPS 
utilities in DVIPS work very
well indeed.

If anyone has any answers that can release us from these remaining 
dependencies on Windows, please let us hear it. Vector graphics is still 
one of the weak points in a Linux environment.

I tend to save in the Illustrator 8 format rather than in the 
Illustrator-CS format, because the latter has been carefully designed to 
be an unreadable mystery.

Pierre MacKay