Including pdf figures in Latex document using TexnicCenter

Question

I am sorry if I missed anywhere the obvious answer to my problem, but after searching several hours for a solution I am a bit lost...

I am using Texniccenter and MikTex under Windows Vista to create a pdf document with Latex. Most of my images are in PS format and hence I use the LaTex=>PS=>PDF profile to create my document. If I however try to include a pdf image instead of a ps the document creation is interupted and no final pdf output is created.

My code looks like this:

\usepackage{graphicx}
\usepackage{pdfpages}

\begin{figure}[h!]
\centering
\includegraphics[scale=0.5]{image.pdf}
\caption[]{}
\label{}
\end{figure}

Is there anything obvious that I am missing here ?

Answer 1

When compiling with pdflatex (via the LaTeX => PDF option) and including graphicx, this automatically loads relevant epstopdf details. As such, (E)PS images should be converted on-the-fly to PDF equivalents. You should notice file.eps and file-eps-converted-to.pdf in your working folder.

So, if you're including both PDF and (E)PS images, use pdflatex.

From the epstopdf README:

epstopdf is a Perl script that converts an EPS file to an 'encapsulated' PDF file (a single page file whose media box is the same as the original EPS's bounding box). The resulting file suitable for inclusion by PDFTeX as an image. The script is adapted to run both on Windows and on Unix-alike systems.

The script makes use of Ghostscript for the actual conversion to PDF. It assumes Ghostscript version 6.51 or later, and (by default) suppresses its automatic rotation of pages where most of the text is not horizontal.

LaTeX users may make use of the epstopdf package, which will run the epstopdf script "on the fly", thus giving the illusion that PDFLaTeX is accepting EPS graphic files.

_{You may have to include the --shell-escape flag, although it doesn't seem to be required on my system.}

Answer 2

This is actually an answer to Werner’s one.

---

This worked fine here (Windows, MiKTeX 2.9) with pdflatex, I needed to load epstopdf after graphicx explicitly:

\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx,epstopdf}
\begin{document}
\includegraphics[width={\textwidth}]{golfer.eps}
\end{document}

In TeXnicCenter one must add in the LaTeX => PDF output profile to the command line arguments either --enable-write18 or --shell-escape. The former is the original MiKTeX command line option, but the latter works now as well. (These options are BTW described in the epstopdf manual.)

BTW, also related: How to compile a document with EPS images using TeXnicCenter?

_{If you tend to upvote this answer, then consider the same for Werner’s contribution!}