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bugs - Graphics elements do not line up perfectly in exported PDFs


Bug introduced in version 9.0 and persisting through 10.4




Graphics elements do not always line up perfectly in exported PDFs using "Save As..." method.


Take, for example:


 Graphics[{Point[{0, 1}], Line[{{0, 0}, {0, 1}}]}, AspectRatio -> Automatic]


It looks like this on screen:



Notice that the dot isn't centred on the end of the line.


Now let's export to PDF (hoping that what we saw displayed in the Mathematica GUI is just a rendering problem). Right click the graphic, and choose Save As... -> PDF. The PDF looks like this when magnified in a viewer:



There is clearly a very serious misalignment. Is there a workaround?


Note: this seems to be a new problem in version 9. Version 7 and 8 are not affected.



Answer



A simple workaround is to use Export instead of right clicking and choosing Save As ... The result will look like this:




Much better.


It's not clear to me why this difference exists between saving from the front end or using Export, but there is a significant difference in the quality of the output. Notice that the line widths are different too (the Export version is correct).


Conclusion: better not use the interactive Save As feature for graphics, or copy the graphic to the clipboard on OS X (which will have the same rendering imperfections).


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