How do you use Psvectorian?

Question

Can someone provide a short explanation or example of using psvectorian? http://melusine.eu.org/syracuse/pstricks/vectorian/psvectorian.pdf

Specifically, I am looking for an explanation of how to download required documentation, files, styles, etc (I downloaded the files from CTAN to no avail). I also would like to know how to use these ornaments in the body of the document as well as the fancyhdr environment for both centered headers and footers. Lastly, can I use psvectorian while typesetting in XeLaTeX?

Maybe there is a quick and simple example someone can provide?!

Answer 1

pst-vectorian should form part of your distribution already, as it is shipped with both TeX Live and MiKTeX. Note that in order to use the package, you need to use

\usepackage{psvectorian}

in your document preamble (it's location on CTAN is spelled differently from the actual package name). However, if even this doesn't work, then you can download the entire package ZIP and store its contents in your texmf-local folder. Then, run texhash to update the TeX File Name Database (FNDB), after which you should be able to use the package without problem.

The following works as-is under LaTeX or XeLaTeX:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{psvectorian,fancyhdr,lipsum,multido}
\pagestyle{fancy}
\fancyhf{}% Clear header/footer
\renewcommand{\headrulewidth}{0pt}% No header rule
\fancyhead[C]{\psvectorian[height=.7\baselineskip]{187}}
\fancyfoot[C]{%
  \makebox[0pt]{\thepage}%
  \smash{\raisebox{-\baselineskip}{\makebox[0pt]{\psvectorian[width=\textwidth,height=\baselineskip]{85}}}}}
\begin{document}
\lipsum[1]
\begin{center}
  \psvectorian[width=.3\textwidth,height=\baselineskip]{47}
\end{center}
\lipsum[2]
\begin{center}
  \quad\multido{\i=102+1}{7}{\psvectorian[height=.8\baselineskip]{\i}\quad}
\end{center}
\lipsum[3]
\end{document}

Ornament usage is done using \psvectorian[<options>]{<number>} where <number> is taken from the list of ornaments in the documentation. If you plan on using some symbols more frequently, it's best to define a macro with some contextual name so you can reference it easier. For example,

\newcommand{\owl}[1][]{\psvectorian[#1]{123}}