There is provision in MetaPost for avoiding this problem: issue the commandError: /undefined in cmmi10
prologues := 2;
at the start of the .mp
file.
Unfortunately, the PostScript that MetaPost inserts in its output,
following this command, is incompatible with ordinary use of the
PostScript in inclusions into (La)TeX documents, so it’s best to
make the prologues
command optional. Furthermore, MetaPost takes a
very simple-minded approach to font encoding: since TeX font
encodings are anything but simple, encoding of text in diagrams are
another source of problems. If you’re suffering such problems (the
symptom is that
characters disappear, or are wrongly presented) the solution is
to view the ‘original’ MetaPost output after processing through
LaTeX and dvips.
Conditional compilation may be done either
by inputting MyFigure.mp indirectly from a simple wrapper
MyFigureDisplay.mp:
or by issuing a shell command such asprologues := 2; input MyFigure
(which will work without the quote marks if you’re not using a Unix shell). A suitable LaTeX route would involve processing MyFigure.tex, which contains:mp '\prologues:=2; input MyFigure'
Processing the resulting DVI file with the dvips command\documentclass{article} \usepackage{graphicx} \begin{document} \thispagestyle{empty} \includegraphics{MyFigure.1} \end{document}
would then give a satisfactory Encapsulated PostScript file. This procedure may be automated using the Perl script mps2eps, thus saving a certain amount of tedium. The Plain TeX user may use an adaptation, by Dan Luecking, of a jiffy of Knuth’s. Dan’s version mpsproof.tex will work under TeX to produce a DVI file for use with dvips, or under PDFTeX to produce a PDF file, direct. The output is set up to look like a proof sheet. A script application, mptopdf, is available in recent (La)TeX distributions: it seems fairly reliably to produce PDF from MetaPost, so may reasonably be considered an answer to the question…dvips -E -o MyFigure.eps MyFigure
This answer last edited: 2013-04-23
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