MLPost

This is MLPost, an OCaml interface to MetaPost.

Quick links:

• Usage
• Options
• Cairo Output
• API documentation
• Examples
• FAQ

Installation

mlpost can be installed with opam:

$ opam install mlpost

If you don't have opam, you can install it following the how to install opam guide.

If you can't or don't want to use opam, you can build the package with dune build -p mlpost @install but you'll first have to install the dependencies by yourself. You can find the list of dependencies in the dune-project file.

Usage

Open the Mlpost module:

open Mlpost

Define your figures in an OCaml file fig.ml:

let fig_a = ...
let fig_b = ...

Each figure has type Command.t.

Add some code to emit Metapost code, as follows:

let () = Metapost.emit "file_a" fig_a
let () = Metapost.emit "file_b" fig_b

Then run the mlpost program on this file:

$ mlpost fig.ml

It will create PostScript figures in files file_a.mps, file_b.mps, etc.

Options

mlpost supports the following options:

-pdf
    creates .mps files instead of .1, for inclusion in LaTeX files
    compiled with pdflatex (the PostScript file is actually the
    same, but the suffix is used by pdflatex to identify
    PostScript produced by Metapost)

        The bash script view-mps, enclosed in mlpost repo, can be used
        to view .mps files.

-latex main.tex
        indicates the main LaTeX file, from which the prelude is
        extracted to be passed to Metapost (this way you can use
        macros, fonts and packages from your LaTeX document in your
        figures).

-xpdf
        opens an xpdf viewer with the generated figure. Subsequent calls with
        the option -xpdf will refresh the viewer, if it is still open.

-native
        compile to native code. This is usually faster.

-eps
        produce standalone postscript files

-ocamlbuild
        use ocamlbuild to compile the source; this may be useful if there are
        a lot of dependencies

-ccopt <options>
        pass options to the ocaml compiler

-execopt <options>
        pass options to the compiled program

Cairo output

The following functions are not supported in combination with the Concrete / Cairo modules:

• Path.build_cycle
• Pen.square
• Pen.from_path

FAQ

When I run the mlpost tool on my figure, I get the error ! Unable to make mpx file..

This is a cryptic error message from MetaPost saying that there is some error in the Latex code that is part of your figure. However, it often points to some random Latex code, so you will have to figure out the problem by yourself, or by looking at the mpxerr.tex file that has been generated. You can also try to pass the mpxerr.tex file to latex to see which is the exact latex error message.

When I look at generated foo.1 or foo.mps file, gv/evince does not display the figure correctly / gives some error.

These generated files are not proper PostScript files. They need to be included in a Latex file using \includegraphics. If you pass the -eps option to mlpost, it generates encapsulated PostScript files that can be viewed with a PostScript viewer like gv. However, font rendering may be quite different.

In my Latex prelude I include other Latex files using \input{foo.tex}. When I compile my figure with mlpost, these files are not found.

You are probably compiling your figure and your Latex file in different directories. You can make the file foo.tex visible to Latex changing the environment variable $TEXINPUTS to contain the directory where foo.tex lives.