Using FERRET output in presentation programs

[Arne Biastoch <abiastoch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Ferreters,

more and more often I am faced with the need to present FERRET output 
electronically, e.g. by presentation programs as MS Powerpoint, 
StarOffice or OpenOffice.

Using postscript output here is not an option because some programs 
(e.g. StarOfice, OpenOffice) show only a greyscale preview, others (e.g. 
Powerpoint) do show a color preview - but only up to a certain filesize. 
Using the GIF output is also not reasonable because it scales very 
poorly. Especially if one changes its size in the presentation program 
axes disappear, text is unreadable and the figure itself is very coarse 
grained. The optimal way would be to use a scalable format, e.g. WMF 
(Windows Metafile Format).

My is that one could use the EPS output but added by a scalable WMF 
preview within that file (this is some sort of standard, done by default 
in some other programs that write postscript). This would have the 
advantage that one could use only one file with the following capabilities:
- a scalable WMF picture for online presentations
- automatic use of the EPS picture when the presentation is printed
- use of the EPS picture in LaTeX documents
Till now I have not been able to set up a framework (on UNIX or Windows) 
to generate these files althouh it should be possible in principle. Has 
anyone else tried to go this way?

I would line to ask those of you who are using FERRET output in 
electronic presentations about their experiences and tips. Maybe I miss 
somethings here and there is a very easy and flexible solution.

In this context I would like to ask if someone ever used the Plot Plus 
Meta File Viewer called "Multiview" 
(http://www.epic.noaa.gov/java/MultiView). It should convert PPL 
metafiles to other formats, e.g. WMF. Unfortunately I was unable to read 
in FERRET output.

Thanks for any comments/tips.

Ciao,
	Arne

--

Dr. Arne Biastoch

Institute for Marine Research         phone: ++49 431 600-4013
FB1 Ocean Circulation and Climate     fax  : ++49 431 600-1515
Duesternbrooker Weg 20                email: abiastoch@ifm.uni-kiel.de
24105 Kiel, Germany

http://www.ifm.uni-kiel.de/fb/fb1/tm/data/pers/abiastoch.html