The zeroth step in using ePiX is to have a LATEX document, say sample.tex, that requires a mathematically accurate figure. If you use LATEX 2e, your file should begin
\documentclass[12pt]{article} \usepackage{amsmath,latexsym,epic,eepic}The epic and eepic packages are the relevant ones here. If you plan to create color figures, you will also need pstcol or color, which are part of modern LATEX 2e. If you are using plain LATEX , your file will start
\documentstyle[12pt,epic,eepic]{article}and color is not available. Somewhere in sample.tex is the figure itself:
\begin{figure}[hbt] \begin{center} \input{tutorial-plot.eepic} \caption{Plotting the sin function with \ePiX.} \label{fig:example-plot} \end{center} \end{figure}Before you run LATEX , you need a file named tutorial-plot.eepic in the current directory. This is where ePiX comes in. If you have created an input file called sine.c, as directed in Section 2.1, and if ePiX is correctly installed, then you type
epix sine.c tutorial-plot.eepicAfter a short interval, during which some reassuring messages will be printed on the screen, you will get the prompt back and the .eepic file will be there. That's all there is to it. You may leave off the file extensions, and may even omit the name of the output file if you want it to be the same as the name of the input ( sine.eepic in this example).
To process the LATEX file, either run LATEX as usual, or do
laps samplewhich runs LATEX on sample.tex, then uses dvips to convert the dvi to the Postscript file sample.ps. This is a convenient option if your document includes color figures. laps (for ``LATEX to Postscript'') is a shell script included with ePiX.
ePiX comes with a sample document containing side-by-side comparison of over a dozen source files and their output. Section 3 is a complete description of ePiX's features, and Section 5 describes troubleshooting. Good luck, and happy drawing!