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NAME

       fig2sty - LaTeX Layout Generator

SYNOPSIS

         fig2sty [-debug] [-baselineskip=..] [-fontsize=..]
                 [-reference=(grid|upper|lower)] [-offset=..]
                 [-figversion=..] [-nopipe] [-fig2dev=...] input-file

       "-debug"
           Show base lines in background picture

       "-baselineskip", "-fontsize", "-reference", "-offset"
           Default values. May be overridden by tags.

       "-figversion"
           XFig format version which will be fed to "fig2dev" to generate
           background picture

       "-nopipe"
           If your version of "fig2dev" does not accept piped input use this
           switch

       "-fig2dev"
           If you have installed several versions of "fig2dev" you can specify
           which version to use

DESCRIPTION

       fig2sty allows you to generate fancy layouts with LaTeX.  The basic
       idea is to draw layout definitions interactively with XFig and
       transform this definition to a LaTeX style file. You can then use LaTeX
       to typeset your text into arbitrarily shaped polygons (frames) within
       the layout.

       You can even add any graphical elements in the layout definition which
       will appear in the LaTeX output as a background picture.

How to draw the layout definition.

       Any closed polygon or box may be a frame. But it must not have an area
       fill such that your coloured background boxes will not interfere with
       your frames. Tags are associated to each frame. A tag is simply a text
       "key=value" marked as special and positioned within the bounding box of
       the respective frame.  If there are any ambiguities, simply put your
       frame and its tags into a compound.

       Several key words are interpreted by "fig2sty":

       "type"
           This tag is compulsory; a frame will not be detected as such if you
           don’t provide a type tag. You can have several type tags in your
           layout, but you may as well have several frames associated with the
           same type tag. Text will then flow between all the frames of common
           type. The type tag must neither contain numerals nor any special
           characters, just plain alpha characters. If you care about the
           ordering of the text flow you can use the following tag:

       "n" Text will flow between frames of common type in increasing size of
           "n"

       "baselineskip"
           Text will be typeset in a fixed line grid. Baselineskip provides
           the distance between neighbouring lines. All frames of a certain
           type share the same baselineskip. If you provide several of them,
           the tag within the frame of lowest "n" will be used. If you have
           rectangular frames of equal widths only you may set
           "baselineskip=any". Text will then by set in ordinary horizontal
           mode. For any other kind of frame or multiple rectangulars with
           differing width "baselineskip=any" is forbidden.

       "reference"
           Lines of all frames will be aligned if you assign the value "grid"
           to this tag. Other possibilities are "upper"("lower") which will
           align to the upper(lower) boundary of your frame. Each frame has
           its private reference.

       "offset"
           You can shift your base lines by an arbitrary amount by providing
           the "offset" tag. Each frame has its private offset.

       "fontsize"
           Used only as minimal distance from top baseline to the upper
           boundary of the frame.

       "head"
           LaTeX code to be prepended to the text

       "tail"
           LaTeX code to be appended to the text

           Default values to the tags are "baselineskip=12", "reference=grid",
           "offset=0", but you can overwrite these defaults by the command
           line options. All dimensions are given in TeX pt.

How the baselines are chosen

       First of all, you can’t have lines split horizontally.  Lines will
       always go from the leftmost intersection of the base line with the
       frame to the rightmost one. There is not really any technical reason
       for this (except for laziness, one of the virtues...). If you find this
       to be a major restriction, please let me know.

       The baselines are chosen such that the distance to the reference point
       is a multiple of "baselineskip". "fig2sty" will ensure that no textual
       element of size "fontsize" will overlap the given frame. This is indeed
       the only use of the "fontsize" tag. "fontsize=baselineskip" is usually
       a good choice except when using small letters at wide vertical spacing.
       The choice of the reference point is based on the "reference" tag. The
       value "grid" means that a global reference point (the upper-left corner
       of the layout) will be used. This allows text in different frames to be
       aligned. "reference=upper" means that text will touch the upper
       boundary of your frame. The analogous functionality is provided by the
       "lower" value.

How to use in your LaTeX document.

       If you have two frames of type ’"abstract"’ and ’"text"’ within the
       layout "fancylayout" you type:

       \documentclass{article} \usepackage{figtosty} \usepackage{fancylayout}

               \begin{document}
               ...
               \begin{fancylayout}
               \begin{figframe}{abstract}
               blah blah
               \end{figframe}

               \begin{figframe}{text}
               blah blah
               \end{figframe}
               \end{fancylayout}

               ...
               \end{document}>

INSTALLATION

       You will need XFig.pm in your Perl Library path , figtosty.sty in your
       LaTeX search path and fig2sty in your binary search path.

KNOWN BUGS

       list environments do not respect frame boundaries

       some mysterious bug with splines

       doesn’t work with \sloppy

AUTHOR

       M. Rohner, rohner@ife.ee.ethz.ch

CONTRIBUTORS

       Thanks to Tobias Oetiker for his helpful comments

SEE ALSO

       XFig.pm