Thanks, Karl. Here at the University of Queensland, at a rough estimate, I spend as much time helping staff with the eps-pdf problem in graphics as with all their other problems in LaTeX combined. I've occasionally thought about doing something with \includegraphics after copying it to \UQincludegraphics, but that would make most files using it not usable outside UQ. If someone can manage a fix so that pdflatex can read eps files, it would save a lot of hassles with including epstopdf, and keeping two versions of the source file for publishers who still like getting stuff as *.ps Thanks in advance to whoever manages this, Ken Smith -----Original Message----- From: Mailing list for the LaTeX3 project on behalf of Karl Berry Sent: Tue 3/3/2009 5:10 AM To: [log in to unmask] Subject: \includegraphics, eps, pdf, and \write18 Frank and all, Well-known issue: one of TeX's longest-standing problems is that pdftex cannot read .eps files. This still happens to many users -- not TeXxies who read mailing lists and know perfectly well what to do, but the "silent majority" who just type their math papers with whatever they are given. I have talked to a lot of them at math conferences, e.g., just a couple months ago. This is the #1 annoyance in practice by far. Of course the issue can't be solved in pdftex itself, since eps is fundamentally incompatible with pdf. However, we can solve it in practice in another way: automatically invoke a conversion program like epstopdf in \includegraphics. This is what Heiko's epstopdf.sty package already does. But we want it to work without the user having to do an explicit \usepackage, because many users do not know about it and can't figure out such things. And they shouldn't have to -- every other typesetting program in the world is perfectly happy to import eps's while writing pdf's. So, I think that what's needed on the LaTeX side is for epstopdf's functionality to be incorporated into graphics.dtx. I doubt LaTeX wants to actually load epstopdf, since it uses one of Heiko's other packages, among other things. But it is not very long. I really want this to get fixed, and will write the change if I have to, although of course I'd be very grateful if someone else can do it. Assuming, that is, that you-all would accept such a change. Wdyt? Thanks, Karl P.S. A related issue is enabling \write18 by default so that the conversion can take place. I'm still not willing to go enable unrestricted shell escapes by default, but Akira Kakuto and I have implemented what we think is an acceptable compromise: allowing \write18 to execute one of a list of commands specified in specified in texmf.cnf, if shell_escape is set that way (which it will be). epstopdf, Siep's epspdf, etc., will be in the list, of course.