Download Editing ancient technical and mathematical figures: Tools and

ble, and to keep lines smooth; a figure produced by a tool such
as Inkscape, DRaFT, METAPOST, or another one, should never be
scanned, but directly included as vector graphics, for instance as a
PDF file (but PDF files can also contain bitmaps, so that one should
be careful); this also applies to figures which are part of web pages
and such figures should, when possible, use a vector format such as
SVG;
• second, complex drawings should be parameterized, so that a figure
can easily be scaled, and the features of its lines, curves, points, or
the colors, etc., easily changed.
In addition, the user should have a fine control over labels, and be able
to compute accurately the positions of some points, if there is such a need.
Of course, any repetitive work should not be done with a graphical
interface. For instance, if we want to change the thickness of a number of
lines, or change globally the size of labels, or their colors, etc., a program
will do much better.
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