But, for now, how does XFig do it?
Xfig accomplishes this by overlaying a postscript file (without the latex text) and then providing a latex file which goes back and places the latex text in just the right spots. To get latex text in your figure, you need to set the ‘special’ attribute of the text to ‘yes’. It’s an option that appears when editing existing text or when you select the text cursor to create new text. Text which is set to ‘special’ is rendered by latex and not as postscript when exported appropriately. Next, you need to export your figure into _two_ files. One is a .pstex file (postscript) and one is .pstex_t file (latex). Xfig exports all the drawing commands and postscript text in the .pstex file, and then the .pstex_t file contains the commands to import the .pstex file along with the commands to place the appropriate latex symbols _over_ the postscript rendering. Voila! Latex incorporated into xfig drawings! (Note: Sometimes, xdvi has trouble displaying the latex stuff on top of the postscript stuff.
