Quality loss with eps files

[muebi]

Hi,

I have a quick question: I am using very simple commands to put several eps files next to each other e.g., convert +append file1.eps file2.eps result.eps before using them in latex. This works fine except that the quality of the combined eps file is considerably decreased after this process and way too low for my purpose.
Is there a way to do this without quality loss?

By the way, I have the same problem when I add annotations to eps files using convert. The resulting eps file has poor quality.

[fmw42]

IM will probably convert eps (a vector format) to raster and then append and then convert back to eps. IM is not a good vector processor as it converts to raster. So you will likely get loss of quality.

see

http://www.imagemagick.org/Usage/formats/#vector

[muebi]

ok, thanks for this info. So what I am supposed to now (practically)?
Would using png for manipulations with IM be an option an then later use something else to convert it to eps? I absolutely need eps format in the end - there is no way around. Basically, all I want to do is append multiple figures to one and edit it e.g., add some simple annotations - nothing fancy.

[HugoRune]

There are some tools that deal especially with eps, like
http://www.ifa.hawaii.edu/~kaiser/misc/epsfcompose
http://home.clara.net/nox/software/epsmerge/
I have however used none of them.

My latex skills are a bit rusty, but I remember simply using \subfigure in latex to put several images next to each other.

If you generate the eps files from png files, then you can concatenate the png files first and then convert them.
(I recall that I used imagemagick to generate a jpg, and then jpg2ps or jpgtops to convert to eps, I think the quality was besser, but I do not remember for sure)