# Are there external graphics files with natural depth?

The \includegraphics command from the graphicx package provides options height and totalheight for resizing embedded graphics.

As long as the graphics file doesn't possess a natural depth, it doesn't make a difference whether the one or the other option is used.

Therefore I wonder why totalheight is provided at all. Are there graphics file formats that allow for natural depth? I have never met one so far, but I am willing to accept the contrary.

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The keys are interpreted in order so after

angle=180, height=3in


it first flips the image upside down so it's all in the depth, then tries to scale the 0pt height to 3in....

The first release didn't have a totalheight key, I added one pretty quickly:-)

You are probably correct that the external images in general don't naturally have a depth but the package doesn't assume that: if there was an image format with a natural baseline specification as well as total size, a graphicx driver could import that into latex with natural height and depth.

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Thank you! I completely disregarded the case of rotation prior to resizing. Now totalheight makes sense, indeed. –  AlexG May 15 '14 at 9:06