This section is about the converter. You have to convert images into Pixie's own .PXI file format before the viewer applet can display them. You do that just once for each image, using a Java application that runs from the commandline prompt on your machine. See Using the Pixie Viewer to find out what to do with the .PXI files once you've got them.
The commandline to run the converter program is horrendously long, so the first thing you will want to do is put it into a batch file or shell script. A sample batchfile for Windows is provided in the install archive, called ConvPxi.bat, which assumes that ConvPxi.zip is in the current directory. A more realistic batch file would provide the full path of the ConvPxi.zip file, so that it could be run from any directory. It might look like:
jre -cp C:/Pixie/ConvPxi.zip gnu.bhresearch.pixie.Convert %1 %2 %3 %4 %5
Something similar will work with other operating systems.
You can provide ConvPxi with the filename on the commandline, instead of having it prompt you. The full commandline is:
ConvPxi [-hv] [-r 999[,999]] infile [outfile.pxi]
Parameters in square brackets are optional. In more detail:
ConvPxi
-h
-v
-r
infile
outfile.pxi
Here is an example which uses all the common options:
ConvPxi -v -r 600,400 Eg.wmf Eg.pxi
Here is the simplest example:
ConvPxi Eg.wmf
Pixie cannot convert all metafiles perfectly. There are a number of drawing features which it will leave out. These include:
In practise Pixie reproduces over 90% of common metafiles, but you should always check the output yourself.
Pixie uses fonts from the browser to draw text. This can be a problem. If you use a font which visitors don't have installed, Pixie will substitute a different one. They will still be able to read the text, but the exact appearance and positioning will be off. It's safest to use one of the fonts from this list:
The Pixie converter will warn you if you use any other font.
It is safest to use literal text only for mundane things, like titles, or labelling diagrams, where exact layout is not crucial. For more artistic uses, like logos and special effects, you should convert the text into outlines before producing the metafile. Most good drawing programs offer a feature to do this. The outlines take up more space in the file, but they should be drawn much more accurately.