A Quick MetaPost Example

This document gives a quick example of how to use MetaPost for graphics in LaTeX.

The Files

First of all, here are the contents of file.tex:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
Hi there:  \includegraphics{file1.mps}
\end{document}

And, here is the MetaPost file file.mp. It contains an arrow and the letter "A" just above the middle of the arrow.

outputtemplate:="%j%c.mps";
beginfig(1);

z1=(0,0);
z2=(10mm,10mm);

drawarrow(z1--z2);
label.ulft(btex $A$ etex, .5[z1,z2]);

endfig;

bye

To create a dvi file, use the following commands. You don't need to run mpost a second time if you just update the tex file.

mpost file
latex file

To view the dvi file, use the commands:

dvips -o file.ps file
gv file.ps

The file file1.mps produced by mpost is not really a PostScript file; therefore you cannot use gv to view it.
For the same reason, xdvi will not show file.dvi.

If you want to create a pdf file, just use the following commands:

mpost file
pdflatex file

Again, it is not necessary to run mpost if it has already been run since file.mp was last updated.