1A2PING(1) Peter Szabo A2PING(1)
2
6 a2ping.pl -- convert between PS, EPS and PDF and other page description
7 formats
8
10 Z<> B<a2ping.pl> [B<-->]B<help>
11 B<a2ping.pl> [B<-->]B<doc>
12 B<a2ping.pl> [I<options>] <I<inputfile>> [[I<outformat>:] I<outputfile>]
13
15 B<a2ping> is a UNIX command line utility written in Perl that converts many
16 raster image and vector graphics formats to EPS or PDF and other page
17 description formats. Accepted input file formats are: PS (PostScript), EPS,
18 PDF, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PNM, BMP, GIF, LBM, XPM, PCX, TGA. Accepted output
19 formats are: EPS, PCL5, PDF, PDF1, PBM, PGM, PPM, PS, markedEPS, markedPS,
20 PNG, XWD, BMP, TIFF, JPEG, GIF, XPM. B<a2ping> delegates the low-level work
21 to Ghostscript (GS), B<pdftops> and B<sam2p>. B<a2ping> fixes many glitches
22 during the EPS to EPS conversion, so its output is often more compatible and
23 better embeddable than its input. Without the C<--below> option, it is
24 guarenteed to start at the 0,0 coordinate. C<--below>, C<--hires> and C<-v>
25 are recommended options. The page size is set exactly corresponding to the
26 BoundingBox. This means that when Ghostscript renders it, the result needs
27 no cropping, and the PDF MediaBox is correct. If the bounding box is not
28 right, of course, you have problems. If you feed crap in, you get crap. But
29 you can supply the B<--bboxfrom=compute-gs> option to make GS recompute the
30 bounding box. The name of the input file doesn't matter -- B<a2ping> detects
31 the file format based on the first few bytes of the file. The name of the
32 output file matters if I<outformat> is missing from the command line: then
33 the extension of the output file determines the FileFormat (I<outformat>).
34
36 The internal file format of B<a2ping.pl> is PS/EPS. Everything read is first
37 converted to PS or EPS, then processed by B<a2ping.pl>, then converted to the
38 output format. To analyse the bounding box and other properties of non-EPS
39 PS files (and EPS files with option B<--bboxfrom> other than B<=guess>), GS
40 is used. Converting PS to EPS involves this analysis. To write PDF files, GS
41 is used. To read PDF files, B<pdftops> from the B<xpdf> package is used.
42 Sampled input formats are PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PNM, BMP, GIF, LBM, XPM, PCX and
43 TGA. To read sampled input formats, B<sam2p> is used. B<sam2p> is a raster
44 image converter written in C++ by the author of B<a2ping.pl>. Extra output
45 formats are PNG, XWD, BMP, TIFF, JPEG, GIF and XPM. To write extra output
46 formats, B<sam2p> and GS are used. PNM output formats are PGM, PGM and PPM.
47 To write PNM output formats, GS is used.
48
50 General Options
51 -h, --help
52 Show a summary of the usage
53 --doc
54 Show the man page
55 -v, --(no)verbose
56 Show progress and debug messages (default: no)
57 Options for the Bounding box
59 --(no)hires
60 Use HiResBoundingBox in the input file, if present (default: yes)
61 --(no)exact
62 Use ExactBoundingBox in the input file, if present (default: no)
63 --(no)keepoldmediabox
64 keep only old, [0 0]-based MediaBox in PDF (default: no)
65 --bboxfrom=adsc|compute-gs|guess|pagesize
66 Method for determining the BoundingBox (default: guess)
67 --(no)below
68 Allow page content below and left of the origin (default: no)
69 Options for graphics and fonts
71 --(no)compress
72 use compression (default: best)
73 --(no)antialias
74 render shades at outlines. Possible values: (=I<scale3yes> =I<no>
75 =I<yes>) (default: scale3no)
76 --(no)lossy
77 allow lossy image filters (EPS->PDF) (default: yes)
78 --papersize=unchanged|force-unknown|600bpx5cm
79 (default: default) (bp)
80 --threshold=
81 min color for 1 in 8->1 bit conv (default: 128)
82 Options for debugging and changing internals
84 --(no)tmpunlink
85 Unlink temporary files (default: yes). Use B<--notmpunklink> if you want
86 to inspect intermediate files.
87 --gs-cmd=path
88 path to Ghostscript program (default: gs or gswin32c)
89 --gs-ccmd=path
90 path to Ghostscript for BoundingBox calculation (default: gs or gswin32c)
91 --gsextra=GS_ARGS
92 Pass extra arguments to gs
93 --extra=
94 Pass extra arguments to external program (i.e pdftops)
95
97 · If your EPS contains a wrong bounding box, you can fix it by running
98 "a2ping.pl -v --bboxfrom=compute-gs thefile.eps --"
99 · You can specify - as inputfile to get stdin and as outputfile to get
101 stdout. This works even for PDF files (which must be seekable), because
102 a2ping copies them to a temporary file automatically.
103 · If inputfile and outputfile are the same, a2ping copies the inputfile to a
105 temporary location first. However, this usage is recommended only if there
106 is a backup of the file to be restored in case a2ping doesn't produce the
107 desired result.
108 · If you specify -- as outputfile, it will be the same as inputfile.
110 · a2ping respects --Duplex for FileFormat PCL5, even though GS doesn't.
112 · If you have an incompatible PS that GS can read but your printer cannot
114 print, just run "a2ping.pl foo.ps PDF: - | a2ping.pl - PS: foo.ps"
115 · If you have a PS coming from Win32 (often with extension ".prn"), run it
117 through a2ping. It will remove the resolution changes and the progress text
118 printed to the terminal (which confuses gv(1) and makes some filters in the
119 print queue emit incorrect output).
120 · a2ping does antialiasing (--antialias=scale3no) of glyphs and curves when
122 emitting a sampled image (FileFormats such as PGM and PPM). This improves
123 readability of the glyphs. =yes instructs GS to do internal antialiasing,
124 but it usually doesn't improve much. =scale3no turns off GS internal
125 antialiasing, but makes it render everything 3x3 as big, and then scales it
126 back down. =scale3no turns on both 3x3 scaling and GS internal
127 antialiasing, which results in thicker lines and worse quality in general.
128 · When creating a PBM file, antialiasing usually doesn't improve the quality,
130 so it is switched off by default. But if you set --antialias=scale3no or
131 --antialias=scale3yes, GS will render a PGM file, and the value of
132 --threshold determines the minimum intensity for white in the final PBM.
133 · If you need a bigger sampled output file, specify a larger --Resolution.
135 The default is --Resolution=72. If your sampled output file is going to be
136 really big, you should specify --AntiAlias=yes instead of the default
137 --AntiAlias=scale3no to speed up conversion.
138 · To make sure fonts are included in a PDF file generated from eps, use
140 --gsextra='-dEmbedAllFonts=true -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer'.
141
143 · Doesn't depend on the filename or extension of the input file.
144 · Conversion from EPS to PDF: fixes glitches etc., calls gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite
146 · Conversion from EPS to EPS: fixes various glitches, moves (llx,lly) to
148 (0,0), removes binary junk from the beginning of the EPS etc.
149 · Conversion from PDF to PDF: keeps the file intact
151 · Conversion from PDF to EPS: calls pdftops -eps (of the xpdf package)
153 · Conversion from PS to EPS: keeps 1st page only, removes setpagedevice etc.
155
157 The author of B<a2ping> is Péter Szabó <F<pts@fazekas.hu>>. B<a2ping> is
158 inspired by and historically based on the B<epstopdf> Perl script modified by
159 Thomas Esser, Sept. 1998, but his modifications have been removed from
160 B<a2ping>, and also B<a2ping> and B<epstopdf> do not share common code
161 anymore. B<epstopdf> is written by Sebastian Rahtz, for Elsevier Science.
162 B<epstopdf> contained extra tricks from Hans Hagen's texutil. B<a2ping>
163 contains contributions from several people, see the file F<HISTORY.txt> for
164 details. Thank you all for contributing!
165a2ping 2018-03-08 A2PING(1)