auto-pst-pdf produces a confusing error message

Question

Actually I don't want to use auto-pst-pdf forever. But Harish Kumar (in his comment) requested to use it for the sake of simplicity. I tried it several decades ago and it did not work. The MWE below is the example I tried and failed.

\documentclass[pstricks]{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-plot}
\usepackage{auto-pst-pdf}
\psset
{
    unit=\psrunit,
    polarplot,
    algebraic=true,
    plotpoints=1000,
}

\begin{document}
\multido{\i=1+1}{25}{%
\begin{pspicture}(-3,-3)(3,3)
\pscircle[linestyle=dashed](0,0){2}
\psplot[linecolor=red]{0}{TwoPi}{2+.5*cos(\i*x)}
\end{pspicture}}
\end{document}

it compiles fine if you change standalone to article; as such, perhaps add the standalone tag to your question — cmhughes, Nov 18 '12 at 01:51
What error message do you actually get? (I got The program 'pdflatex' is currently not installed. but that's a different reason ;-) ) — Martin Scharrer, Nov 19 '12 at 21:37
One workaround to use pstricks in pdflatex mode is to \usepackage[pdf]{pstricks}. So,auto-pst-pdf is automatically included, thereby pstricks in the standalone document class options can be removed. Finally preamble looks like \usepackage[pdf]{pstricks} would come first, then add ons \usepackage{pst-plot} and no need for \usepackage{auto-pst-pdf}. This works well for me.BTW if you kindly post 'confusing error message' in the question it would help others. — texenthusiast, Dec 30 '12 at 04:32
You always should add the error message you get to the question. Also please state what exactly you want to achieve. You want to get a multi-page PDF where every page contains a single step of the animation, right? — Martin Scharrer, Jan 01 '13 at 11:15
@MartinScharrer: Yes. I want to produce a multi-page PDF where each page contains a single frame of an animation. But actually I never want to use auto-pst-pdf, it is just a request of Doctor Kumar in another question (forgot the link). — kiss my armpit, Jan 01 '13 at 11:18

score 6 · Accepted Answer · 2012-12-30T09:52:32.543

6

the documentclass standalone cannot work together with the auto-pst-pdf package and the [pstricks] option for standalone. Use

\documentclass{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-plot}
\usepackage{auto-pst-pdf}
\psset{%
    polarplot,
    algebraic,
    plotpoints=1000}

\begin{document}
\multido{\i=1+1}{25}{%
  \begin{pspicture}(-3,-3)(3,3)
  \pscircle[linestyle=dashed](0,0){2}
  \psplot[linecolor=red]{0}{TwoPi}{2+.5*cos(\i*x)}
\end{pspicture}}
\end{document}

However, it makes no sense to use standalone and auto-pst-pdf together.

edited Dec 30 '12 at 09:52

answered Dec 30 '12 at 09:30

I fully agree with the last sentence. – Martin Scharrer Jan 01 '13 at 10:53

Martin Scharrer · Answer 2 · 2013-01-01T11:16:57.260

As Herbert already mentions in his answer, the pstricks option of standalone doesn't work with auto-pst-pdf. Both seem to redefine the pspicture environment in an incompatible way. This makes perfectly sense because both try to due basically the same thing: create one page for every pspicture.

In order to make both work together remove the pstricks option (which loads pstricks and sets pspicture as a "multi environment") and add an additional environment to let standalone create multiple pages:

\documentclass[multi=multipage]{standalone}
\usepackage{pst-plot}
\usepackage{auto-pst-pdf}
\psset{%
    polarplot,
    algebraic,
    plotpoints=1000}

\begin{document}
\multido{\i=1+1}{25}{%
  \begin{multipage}
  \begin{pspicture}(-3,-3)(3,3)
    \pscircle[linestyle=dashed](0,0){2}
    \psplot[linecolor=red]{0}{TwoPi}{2+.5*cos(\i*x)}
  \end{pspicture}
  \end{multipage}
}
\end{document}

However, in this case file.pdf is basically identical to file-pics.pdf anyway and therefore you don't need to use standalone at all. Simply use a document like this and use file-pics.pdf directly. I assume here that what you want it a multi-page PDF which contains one step at every page.

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pst-plot}
\usepackage{auto-pst-pdf}
\psset{%
    polarplot,
    algebraic,
    plotpoints=1000}

\begin{document}
\multido{\i=1+1}{25}{%
  \begin{pspicture}(-3,-3)(3,3)
    \pscircle[linestyle=dashed](0,0){2}
    \psplot[linecolor=red]{0}{TwoPi}{2+.5*cos(\i*x)}
  \end{pspicture}
}
\end{document}

auto-pst-pdf produces a confusing error message

2 Answers2