1PS2EPS(1) PS2EPS(1)
2
6 ps2eps - convert PostScript to EPS (Encapsulated PostScript) files
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9 ps2eps [ -f ] [ -q ] [ -N ] [ -O ] [ -X ] [ -n ] [ -P ] [ -c ] [ -C ] [
10 -m ] [ -B ] [ -E ] [ -s pagedim ] [ -t offset ] [ -r resolution ] [ -R
11 +|-|^ ] [ -l ] [ -g ] [ -H ] [ -d ] [ -h|--help ] [ -a ] [ -W ] [ -L ]
12 [ -V|--version ] [ -- ] [ psfile1 ] [ psfile2 ] [ ... ]
13
16 This manual page documents ps2eps version 1.70.
17 ps2eps is a tool (written in Perl) to produce Encapsulated PostScript
19 Files (EPS/EPSF) from usual one-paged Postscript documents. It calcu‐
20 lates correct Bounding Boxes for those EPS files and filters some spe‐
21 cial postscript command sequences that can produce erroneous results on
22 printers. EPS files are often needed for including (scalable) graphics
23 of high quality into TeX/LaTeX (or even Word) documents. It can also
24 be used to calculate correct BoundingBoxes for PDF files by using the
25 option --BBonly. However, it cannot produce a PDF file, but it can be
26 used together with pdfcrop.
27 Without any argument, ps2eps reads from standard input and writes to
29 standard output. If filenames are given as arguments they are pro‐
30 cessed one by one and output files are written to filenames with exten‐
31 sion .eps. If input filenames have the extension .ps or .prn, this ex‐
32 tension is replaced with .eps. In all other cases .eps is appended to
33 the input filename. Please note that PostScript files for input should
34 contain only one single page (you can possibly use the psselect from
35 the psutils package to extract a single page from a document that con‐
36 tains multiple pages).
37 If BoundingBox in output seems to be wrong, please try options --size
39 or --ignoreBB. See also section TROUBLESHOOTING.
40
42 ps2eps follows the usual GNU command line syntax, with long options
43 starting with two dashes (`-'). A summary of options is included be‐
44 low.
45 -h, --help
47 Show summary of options.
48 -V, --version
50 Show version of program.
51 -f, --force
53 Force overwriting existing files. ps2eps will not overwrite
54 files by default to avoid deleting original EPS files acci‐
55 dently.
56 -q, --quiet
58 quiet operation (no output while processing files, except er‐
59 rors).
60 -N, --noinsert
62 do not insert any postscript code. Normally a few postscript in‐
63 structions are added around the original postscript code by
64 ps2eps which can be turned off by this option.
65 -O, --preserveorientation
67 do not filter %%Orientation: header comment.
68 -X, --BBonly
70 Just print the resulting bounding box(es) to standard error, no
71 output file is written. ps2eps will perform a read-only opera‐
72 tion. This is highly useful to calculate bounding boxes of PDF
73 files. Can be used with option --quiet to suppress other output
74 and also with --nohires to suppress output of the HiResBounding‐
75 Box. It can be used with pdfcrop as follows: pdfcrop --gscmd
76 'gswrap-ps2eps.sh' file.pdf where gswrap-ps2eps.sh containts
77 something like ps2eps -l -X -q $BASH_ARGV
78 -n, --nofix
80 do not try to fix postscript code by filtering some instruc‐
81 tions.
82 -P, --removepreview
84 remove preview image (smaller file, but no preview anymore).
85 -F, --fixps
87 fix postscript code unconditionally. Otherwise, filtering is
88 usually triggered by detection of certain drivers only.
89 -c, --comments
91 preserve document structure comments.
92 -C, --clip
94 insert postscript code for clipping. Unless --nohires is speci‐
95 fied, the HiResBoundingBox (enlarged by 0.1 points) is used for
96 clipping.
97 -m, --mono
99 use black/white bitmap as base for calculation (default: off).
100 -s, --size=pagedim
102 where pagedim is a pre-defined standard page size (e.g.,
103 a4,a0,b0,letter,...) or explicitly specified in a format
104 pagedim:=XxY[cm|in], where X and Y are numbers (floating points
105 are accepted) followed by units centimeter (cm) or inch (in),
106 (default: cm). Use --size=list to list pre-defined pagesizes.
107 See also environment variable PS2EPS_SIZE.
108 -t, --translate=x,y
110 specify an x,y offset (may be negative) in postscript points
111 (1/72 dpi) for drawing. This option may be required if your
112 drawing has negative coordinates which usually lets ghostscript
113 cut the negative part of your picture, because it starts to ren‐
114 der at positive coordinates. The resulting output will also be
115 shifted.
116 -r, --resolution=dpi
118 specify a resolution in dpi (dots per inch) for drawing under
119 ghostscript. Default resolution is 144 dpi which is the double
120 of the typical 72 dpi. This option may help if there is a hard‐
121 ware dependent resolution encoded in the postscript, e.g.,
122 600dpi. Example: ps2eps -l -r 600 test.ps
123 -R, --rotate=direction
125 This option rotates the resulting EPS output. The parameter di‐
126 rection determines the direction of rotation: + means +90 de‐
127 grees (clockwise),- means -90 degrees (counter-clockwise), and
128 ^ means 180 degrees (up-side down).
129 -l, --loose
131 expand the original tight bounding box by one point in each di‐
132 rection.
133 -B, --ignoreBB
135 do not use existing bounding box as page size for rendering.
136 -E, --ignoreEOF
138 do not use %%EOF as hint for end of file. Otherwise, ps2eps as‐
139 sumes that postscript code ends after the last %%EOF comment,
140 because some drivers add trailing binary ``garbage'' code which
141 gets deleted by ps2eps by default.
142 -g, --gsbbox
144 use internal bbox device of ghostscript instead of the external
145 C program bbox. The internal bbox device of ghostscript gener‐
146 ates different values (sometimes even incorrect), so using the
147 provided bbox should be more robust. See also environment vari‐
148 able PS2EPS_GSBBOX.
149 -H, --nohires
151 do not generate a %%HiResBoundingBox comment for output.
152 -a, --accuracy
154 increase the accuracy by turning subsample antialiasing on (may
155 be slower)
156 -L, --license
158 show licensing information.
159 -d, --debuggs
161 show ghostscript call. This may be helpful for solving problems
162 that occur during a ghostscript call.
163 -W, --warnings
165 show warnings about sanity of generated EPS file. Certain post‐
166 script commands should not be contained in an EPS file. With
167 this option set ps2eps will issue a warning if it detects at
168 least one of them.
169
171 Based on the given postscript source code (in most cases generated by
172 some postscript printer driver) there are many potential obstacles or
173 problems that may occur when trying to create proper EPS files. Please
174 read this section carefully to be aware of common pitfalls.
175 INCOMPLETE/CLIPPED IMAGES
177 or how to determine the right size for ghostscript.
178 If you have documents that are larger than your ghostscript default
180 (usually A4 or US letter), you have to specify the page dimensions ex‐
181 plicitly using the -s option. Otherwise your EPS might be cut off dur‐
182 ing rasterizing by ghostscript resulting in a wrongly calculated bound‐
183 ing box. You can pass all pre-defined page sizes to -s that ghostscript
184 understands. These are currently: 11x17, ledger, legal, letter, let‐
185 tersmall, archA, archB, archC, archD, archE a0, a1, a2, a3, a4, a5, a6,
186 a7, a8, a9, a10, isob0, isob1, isob2, isob3, isob4, isob5, isob6, b0,
187 b1, b2, b3, b4, b5, c0, c1, c2, c3, c4, c5, c6, jisb0, jisb1, jisb2,
188 jisb3, jisb4, jisb5, jisb6, flsa, flse, halfletter. Unfortunately, all
189 sizes are currently only available in portrait orientation (not land‐
190 scape).
191 By default, ps2eps uses an already given %%BoundingBox from the source
193 file, which often corresponds to the size of the physical page format
194 for which the document was printed. However, you should be aware that
195 this already specified bounding box may be not correct, thus resulting
196 in a wrongly cropped (or even no usable) .eps-file. ps2eps can only do
197 as good as ghostscript does in rendering the original postscript file
198 (though ps2eps even works with negative and fractional values are con‐
199 tained in the original bounding box by using automatic translation).
200 Therefore, if the given bounding box is to small or incorrect anyway,
201 you can ignore the existing bounding box with the -B option, which will
202 cause ghostscript to use its internal default size (or use -s). How‐
203 ever, if the BoundingBox has negative coordinates, which is not allowed
204 by the specification, ps2eps will shift the output to positive values.
205 Hint: to avoid rotating the picture if you have the original drawing in
207 landscape format, you may use the ``Encapsulated Postscript'' option in
208 the printer driver which should generate an EPS file (but with a bound‐
209 ing box of the sheet size!). But some Windows printer drivers are draw‐
210 ing the image with an offset from the bottom of the portrait page, so
211 that a part of it is drawn outside the landscape oriented page. In
212 this case, you'll have to specify a square size of the page using the
213 maximum length, e.g., 29.7cm x 29.7cm for an A4 page.
214 CLIPPING
216 or why gets some of my text deleted above the included .eps file?
217 Some postscript drivers draw a white rectangle from the top left corner
219 of the page to the right lower corner of the object. This may erase
220 some or even all text above your imported/included EPS file, which is
221 very annoying. In order to prevent this, most programs have a clipping
222 option for imported .eps files (within LaTeX you can use \includegraph‐
223 ics*{}) for this purpose. If this is unfortunately not the case, you
224 can use the -C option of ps2eps which will (hopefully) do it for you.
225 Unfortunately, PScript.dll 5.2 (Windows XP) introduced new very badly
226 behaving Postscript code (initclip) which will even override the outer
227 clipping! Thus, a new filter had to be installed in ps2eps which will
228 fix it.
229 However, because most programs clip directly on the bounding box, you
231 still may loose some pixels of your image, because the bounding box is
232 described in the coarse resolution of postscript points, i.e. 72 dpi.
233 In order to prevent this, you can use the -l option or -C option (for
234 the latter, clipping by the importing program should be disabled then)
235 to allow for a 1 point larger bounding box. -C clips around a 1 point
236 enlarged bounding box and -l enlarges the bounding box values by 1
237 point (you can also combine both options).
238 INCLUDED FILTERS
240 Some postscript sequences, e.g., for using specific printer features
241 (featurebegin ...), are not working well within an .eps file, so ps2eps
242 tries to filter them out. But please note that filters for postscript
243 code may not work properly for your printer driver (ps2eps was mainly
244 tested with HP and Adobe printer drivers, although it may work for all
245 printers using the PScript.dll). In this case you can try to turn of
246 filtering by using option -n, or try to find the bad sequence in the
247 postscript code and adapt the filter rule in the ps2eps script (vari‐
248 ables $linefilter, $rangefilter_begin, $rangefilter_end; linefilter is
249 an expression for filtering single lines, rangefilter_... are expres‐
250 sions that filter all lines between a pattern matching $rangefilter_be‐
251 gin and $rangefilter_end; drop me an e-mail with your modifications).
252 However, things may change as the printer drivers (e.g., PScript.dll)
253 or postscript language evolve.
254 Some applications or drivers generate postscript code with leading or
256 trailing binary code, which often confuses older postscript inter‐
257 preters. ps2eps tries to remove such code, but it may sometimes make a
258 wrong guess about start and end of the real postscript code (drop me an
259 e-mail with a zipped postscript source, see section BUGS).
260 Comment lines or even blank lines are removed (which is the default to
262 make .eps files smaller), which may corrupt your output. Please check
263 the next section how to fix this. ps2eps removes blank lines and also
264 <CR> (carriage ceturn ``\r'') at the end of lines. However, nicely for‐
265 matted postscript code gives a hint by using ``%%BeginBinary'' ``%%End‐
266 Binary'' comments. When ps2eps detects these comments it will refrain
267 from any filtering action within the marked binary sections.
268 ps2eps filters also %%Orientation: comments by default (you can use op‐
270 tion -O to turn off filtering), because ghostscript may ``automagi‐
271 cally'' rotate images when generating PDF images, which is not desired
272 in most cases. Hint: you can turn off that feature in ghostscript un‐
273 conditionally by specifying -dAutoRotatePages=/None.
274 CORRUPTED OUTPUT
276 Some postscript code may get corrupted when comment lines or even blank
277 lines are removed (which is the default to make .eps files smaller),
278 because those files may contain encoded images which also have a % as
279 first character in a line or use a special comment as end of image de‐
280 limiter. If this is the case, use the -c option to prevent filtering
281 comments.
282 COLOR AND MEMORY
284 ps2eps supports colored postscript, consequently letting ghostscript
285 consume more resources for drawing its bitmap (roughly 6MBytes for an
286 A4 page). bbox is reading the bitmap line by line so it consumes only
287 minimal memory. If you experience problems with memory consumption of
288 ghostscript, you may use the -m option for using a monochrome image.
289 But this will probably result in wrongly determined bounding boxes with
290 colored images, because ghostscript has to do black/white dithering and
291 may thus suppress objects drawn in light colors.
292 Another option in case of memory problems and too long run times is to
294 use the much more memory efficient internal ghostscript bbox by using
295 the -g option.
296
298 Please note that a command line option always takes precedence over the
299 related environment variable.
300 The environment variable PS2EPS_SIZE can be used to specify a default
302 page size and take any argument that --size accepts. Examples: export
303 PS2EPS_SIZE=a0 (bash-like syntax) or setenv PS2EPS_SIZE letter (csh
304 syntax).
305 If the environment variable PS2EPS_GSBBOX is set the internal bbox de‐
307 vice of ghostscript will be used instead of the external command bbox.
308 Examples: export PS2EPS_GSBBOX=true (bash-like syntax) or setenv
309 PS2EPS_GSBBOX 1 (csh syntax).
310
312 The usual call is simply: ps2eps -l file
313 A relatively failsafe call would be (if your postscript is smaller than
315 iso b0 [100cm x 141.4cm] and you have a fast computer with enough mem‐
316 ory): ps2eps -l -B -s b0 -c -n file
317 If output is not correct try: ps2eps -l -B -s b0 -F file
319
321 ps2eps was written by Roland Bless.
322 WHY?
324 Other programs like ps2epsi do not calculate the bounding box always
325 correctly (because the values are put on the postscript stack which may
326 get corrupted by bad postscript code) or rounded it off so that clip‐
327 ping the EPS cut off some part of the image. ps2eps uses a double pre‐
328 cision resolution of 144 dpi and appropriate rounding to get a proper
329 bounding box. The internal bbox device of ghostscript generates differ‐
330 ent values (sometimes even incorrect), so using the provided bbox
331 should be more robust. However, because normal clipping has only a
332 resolution of 1/72dpi (postscript point), the clipping process may
333 still erase parts of your EPS image. In this case please use the -l op‐
334 tion to add an additional point of white space around the tight bound‐
335 ing box.
336 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
338 Some people contributed code or suggestions to improve ps2eps. Here are
339 at least some names (sorry if I forgot your name): Christophe Druet,
340 Hans Ecke, Berend Hasselman, Erik Joergensen, Koji Nakamaru, Hans
341 Fredrik Nordhaug, Michael Sharpe. Special thanks goes to Michael
342 Sharpe from UCSD who suggested a lot of useful features for ps2eps and
343 who fixed bbox to become more precise and robust.
344 An earlier version of this manual page was originally written by Rafael
346 Laboissiere <rafael at debian.org> for the Debian system. Thank you
347 Rafael!
348 Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document
350 under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or
351 any later version published by the Free Software Foundation; with no
352 Invariant Sections, no Front-Cover Texts and no Back-Cover Texts.
353
355 If you experience problems, please check carefully all hints in the
356 section TROUBLESHOOTING first. Otherwise, check for an updated version
357 at <URL:http://www.tm.uka.de/~bless/ps2eps> or send a gzipped file of
358 relevant postscript source code with your error description and ps2eps
359 version number to <roland at bless.de> (please allow some time to re‐
360 ply).
361
363 bbox (1), gs (1), ps2epsi (1)
364 September 1st, 2018 PS2EPS(1)