[XeTeX] how to use pstricks with xetex or xelatex

[Ulrike Fischer]

Am Wed, 13 Aug 2008 10:59:45 -0700 schrieb Patrick Smith:

> I am relatively new to xetex (actually the whole world of TeX)  and I am
> struggling to get pstricks to work. I have been able to muddle my way
> through other configuration and set up issues, but pstricks is giving me
> problems - namely I can "compile" the tex file but the pdf that gets
> generated contains everything *except* the figure drawn by pstricks. All I
> get is a big white space the size of the chart, like it is reserving the
> space for it.
> I am tried both the Basic MacTex 2007 and the full MacTeX 2007 distros on a
> Mac OS X 10.5 system.
> 
> If someone could provide simple installation instructions for pstricks
> and/or a complete tex document known to work with the commands needed to
> compile and produce the pdf with the plot in it, that would be great. I
> could really use whatever pointer anyone has on this.

1.  you need a rather recent xetex and xdvipdfmx, and you should use
xdvipdfmx as driver (that's the default with new xetex but not in
version .996). 

2. xetex must find the correct .con-files:

Run the following document and then look in the log-file:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pstricks}
\begin{document}
test
\end{document}

It should contain lines like this
(C:\Programme\MiKTeX2.7\tex\xelatex\xetex-pstricks\pstricks.con
(C:\Programme\MiKTeX2.7\tex\generic\pstricks\xdvipdfmx.con))

3. Then you can try (attention: very slow compilation!):

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pst-calendar}
\begin{document}
\psset{Year=2008,unit=0.5cm}
\psCalDodecaeder[style=june]
\end{document}



-- 
Ulrike Fischer