MetaPost

MetaPost是一个程序语言和它的编译器的名字，衍生于高德纳的Metafont。MetaPost擅长通过数学描述制作矢量图，生成的图片为PostScript格式。它的语法来自Metafont。

MetaPost

编程范型	指令式，排版
設計者	John D. Hobby
實作者	Taco Hoekwater
型態系統	推断类型, 动态类型, 强类型
操作系统	跨平台
許可證	公有领域
網站	Development website
啟發語言
Metafont

实例

这个文件example.mp通过MetaPost的编译器编译（在Linux系统中使用mpost命令）之后产生了3个EPS文件： example.1, example.2, example.3。这三个文件就是右边的三张图

 

example outputs

 transform pagecoords;  pagecoords:=identity scaled 10mm shifted (100mm,150mm);  beginfig (1)  fill ((0,0)--(2,0)--(2,1)--(1,1)--(1,2)--(0,2)--cycle)  transformed pagecoords withcolor green;  draw ((2,0)..(2,1)..(1,1)..(1,2)..(0,2))  transformed pagecoords;  drawarrow ((0,0)--(2,2)) transformed pagecoords;  endfig;  beginfig (2)  draw (for i=0 up to 7: dir (135i)-- endfor cycle)  transformed pagecoords;  endfig;  pagecoords:=identity scaled 15mm shifted (100mm,150mm);  beginfig (3);  % declare paths to be used  path p[],p[]t;  % set up points by defining relationships  z1=(0,0); z2=z1+2up;  z3=z1+whatever*dir (60)=z2+whatever*dir (-50);  z4=z3+(-1.5,-.5);  z5=z1+dir (135);  z0=whatever[z1,z2]=whatever[z3,z4];  % set up paths  p0=fullcircle yscaled .5 rotated 45 shifted z0 ;  p1=z2—z4..z0..z3---z1;  p2=p1 cutbefore p0 cutafter p0;  p3=p0 cutbefore p1 cutafter p1;  p4=p2—p3—cycle;  % define transformed versions of paths and points  for i=0 up to 4: p[i]t=p[i] transformed pagecoords; endfor  for i=0 up to 5: z[i]t=z[i] transformed pagecoords; endfor  % do some drawing  fill p4t withcolor (1,1,0.2);  draw z1t—z2t withcolor .5white;  draw z3t—z4t withcolor .5white;  pickup pencircle;  draw p0t dashed withdots scaled .3;  draw p1t dashed evenly;  draw p2t withcolor blue;  draw p3t withcolor red;  label.lrt (btex $z_0$ etex, z0t);  label.llft (btex $z_1$ etex, z1t);  label.top (btex $z_2$ etex, z2t);  label.rt (btex $z_3$ etex, z3t);  label.llft (btex $z_4$ etex, z4t);  for i=0 up to 4:  drawdot z[i]t withpen pencircle scaled 2;  endfor  endfig;  bye 

产生的3个eps文件可以直接用在TeX中（通过LaTeX的\includegraphics命令、ConTeXt的\externalfigure命令、Plain TeX的\epsfbox命令，或者Plain pdftex中来自supp-pdf.tex的\convertMPtoPDF命令。为了看或者打印这三张图片，这些引用是必须的，因为TeX的字体(Metafont)并不包含在MetaPost产生的eps文件中。

参见

•  自由软件主题

• PGF/TikZ

参考

• MetaFun (modules for Metapost) by Hans Hagen, [1] （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆）
• Donald Knuth: The METAFONTbook, (Computers and Typesetting Volume C) Addison-Wesley 1986. ISBN 0-201-13444-6
• Comprehensive T_EX Archive Network (CTAN): http://www.ctan.org/ Archive.is的存檔，存档日期2012-12-09. Repository of the T_EX source and hundreds of add-ons and style files.
• (La)TeX Navigator provides 305 simple MetaPost examples:
• Taco Hoekwater: MetaPost developments—autumn 2006 （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆）. TUGboat 27:1 (2006).

外部链接

• The TeX users group (TUG) http://www.tug.org/ （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） has a page devoted to MetaPost: http://www.tug.org/metapost.html（页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆）
• Active development of MetaPost continues at
• allows MetaPost to be used from the functional programming language Haskell
• John D. Hobby has a homepage at and some other pages and publications devoted to MetaPost, though these are now a little dated
  • Historic MetaPost homepage:
  • A User's Manual for MetaPost John D. Hobby. Available as a file mpman.ps distributed with MetaPost, or from the . Also available in PDF format （页面存档备份，存于互联网档案馆） from CTAN.