TeXipedia

graphics

Provides essential functionality for including and manipulating external graphics files within LaTeX documents.

Overview

Serves as a fundamental component for handling graphics in LaTeX, offering a consistent interface for incorporating various image formats and controlling their presentation.

  • Supports multiple file formats through different drivers, adapting to various output formats including PDF and DVI.
  • Enables basic image manipulations such as scaling, rotation, and positioning.
  • Features commands for specifying bounding boxes and controlling image placement.
  • Forms the foundation for more specialized graphics-related packages and is essential for creating technical documents, academic papers, and presentations with visual elements.
  • Being part of the core LaTeX required set makes it a cornerstone package that most other graphics-related packages build upon.

Getting Started

To use graphics, include it in your document preamble:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphics}

For more flexibility with graphics inclusion, you may prefer the extended graphicx package which provides a more convenient key-value interface:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}

Examples

Including and scaling an external image file in a LaTeX document.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\section{Including Graphics}

Here is an included image scaled to 50\% of its original size:

\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{example-image}

The \texttt{example-image} is a standard test image available in most \LaTeX{} distributions.
\end{document}

Rotating and positioning an image with specific dimensions.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\section{Rotating and Sizing Graphics}

Here is a rotated image with specific width:

\begin{center}
\includegraphics[width=6cm,angle=45]{example-image}
\end{center}

Rotating graphics is useful for landscape figures or special layout requirements.
\end{document}

Using the graphicx package's clipping and trimming features.

\section{Advanced Graphics Manipulation}

Here is an image with a specific portion displayed:

\begin{center}
\resizebox{8cm}{!}{\rotatebox{30}{\includegraphics{example-image}}}
\end{center}

The \texttt{resizebox} command maintains the aspect ratio when one dimension is set to `!`.