1A2PING(1) Peter Szabo A2PING(1)
2
6 a2ping.pl -- convert between PS, EPS and PDF and other page description
7 formats
8
10 a2ping.pl [--]help
11 a2ping.pl [--]doc
12 a2ping.pl [options] <inputfile> [[outformat:] outputfile]
13
15 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. a2ping delegates the low-level work to
21 Ghostscript (GS), pdftops and sam2p. a2ping fixes many glitches during the
22 EPS to EPS conversion, so its output is often more compatible and better
23 embeddable than its input.
24 Without the "--below" option, it is guarenteed to start at the 0,0
26 coordinate. "--below", "--hires" and "-v" are recommended options.
27 The page size is set exactly corresponding to the BoundingBox. This means
29 that when Ghostscript renders it, the result needs no cropping, and the PDF
30 MediaBox is correct.
31 If the bounding box is not right, of course, you have problems. If you feed
33 crap in, you get crap. But you can supply the --bboxfrom=compute-gs option to
34 make GS recompute the bounding box.
35 The name of the input file doesn't matter -- a2ping detects the file format
37 based on the first few bytes of the file. The name of the output file matters
38 if outformat is missing from the command line: then the extension of the
39 output file determines the FileFormat (outformat).
40
42 The internal file format of a2ping.pl is PS/EPS. Everything read is first
43 converted to PS or EPS, then processed by a2ping.pl, then converted to the
44 output format.
45 To analyse the bounding box and other properties of non-EPS PS files (and EPS
47 files with option --bboxfrom other than =guess), GS is used. Converting PS to
48 EPS involves this analysis.
49 To write PDF files, GS is used.
51 To read PDF files, pdftops from the xpdf package is used.
53 Sampled input formats are PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PNM, BMP, GIF, LBM, XPM, PCX and
55 TGA. To read sampled input formats, sam2p is used. sam2p is a raster image
56 converter written in C++ by the author of a2ping.pl.
57 Extra output formats are PNG, XWD, BMP, TIFF, JPEG, GIF and XPM. To write
59 extra output formats, sam2p and GS are used.
60 PNM output formats are PGM, PGM and PPM. To write PNM output formats, GS is
62 used.
63
65 General Options
66 -h, --help
67 Show a summary of the usage
68 --doc
70 Show the man page
71 -v, --(no)verbose
73 Show progress and debug messages (default: no)
74 Options for the Bounding box
76 --(no)hires
77 Use HiResBoundingBox in the input file, if present (default: yes)
78 --(no)exact
80 Use ExactBoundingBox in the input file, if present (default: no)
81 --(no)keepoldmediabox
83 keep only old, [0 0]-based MediaBox in PDF (default: no)
84 --bboxfrom=adsc|compute-gs|guess|pagesize
86 Method for determining the BoundingBox (default: guess)
87 --(no)below
89 Allow page content below and left of the origin (default: no)
90 Options for graphics and fonts
92 --(no)compress
93 use compression (default: best)
94 --(no)antialias
96 render shades at outlines. Possible values: (=scale3yes =no =yes)
97 (default: scale3no)
98 --(no)lossy
100 allow lossy image filters (EPS->PDF) (default: yes)
101 --papersize=unchanged|force-unknown|600bpx5cm
103 (default: default) (bp)
104 --threshold=
106 min color for 1 in 8->1 bit conv (default: 128)
107 Options for debugging and changing internals
109 --(no)tmpunlink
110 Unlink temporary files (default: yes). Use --notmpunklink if you want to
111 inspect intermediate files.
112 --gs-cmd=path
114 path to Ghostscript program (default: gs or gswin32c)
115 --gs-ccmd=path
117 path to Ghostscript for BoundingBox calculation (default: gs or gswin32c)
118 --gsextra=GS_ARGS
120 Pass extra arguments to gs
121 --extra=
123 Pass extra arguments to external program (i.e pdftops)
124
126 · If your EPS contains a wrong bounding box, you can fix it by running
127 "a2ping.pl -v --bboxfrom=compute-gs thefile.eps --"
128 · You can specify - as inputfile to get stdin and as outputfile to get
130 stdout. This works even for PDF files (which must be seekable), because
131 a2ping copies them to a temporary file automatically.
132 · If inputfile and outputfile are the same, a2ping copies the inputfile to a
134 temporary location first. However, this usage is recommended only if there
135 is a backup of the file to be restored in case a2ping doesn't produce the
136 desired result.
137 · If you specify -- as outputfile, it will be the same as inputfile.
139 · a2ping respects --Duplex for FileFormat PCL5, even though GS doesn't.
141 · If you have an incompatible PS that GS can read but your printer cannot
143 print, just run "a2ping.pl foo.ps PDF: - | a2ping.pl - PS: foo.ps"
144 · If you have a PS coming from Win32 (often with extension ".prn"), run it
146 through a2ping. It will remove the resolution changes and the progress text
147 printed to the terminal (which confuses gv(1) and makes some filters in the
148 print queue emit incorrect output).
149 · a2ping does antialiasing (--antialias=scale3no) of glyphs and curves when
151 emitting a sampled image (FileFormats such as PGM and PPM). This improves
152 readability of the glyphs. =yes instructs GS to do internal antialiasing,
153 but it usually doesn't improve much. =scale3no turns off GS internal
154 antialiasing, but makes it render everything 3x3 as big, and then scales it
155 back down. =scale3no turns on both 3x3 scaling and GS internal
156 antialiasing, which results in thicker lines and worse quality in general.
157 · When creating a PBM file, antialiasing usually doesn't improve the quality,
159 so it is switched off by default. But if you set --antialias=scale3no or
160 --antialias=scale3yes, GS will render a PGM file, and the value of
161 --threshold determines the minimum intensity for white in the final PBM.
162 · If you need a bigger sampled output file, specify a larger --Resolution.
164 The default is --Resolution=72. If your sampled output file is going to be
165 really big, you should specify --AntiAlias=yes instead of the default
166 --AntiAlias=scale3no to speed up conversion.
167 · To make sure fonts are included in a PDF file generated from eps, use
169 --gsextra='-dEmbedAllFonts=true -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer'.
170
172 · Doesn't depend on the filename or extension of the input file.
173 · Conversion from EPS to PDF: fixes glitches etc., calls gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite
175 · Conversion from EPS to EPS: fixes various glitches, moves (llx,lly) to
177 (0,0), removes binary junk from the beginning of the EPS etc.
178 · Conversion from PDF to PDF: keeps the file intact
180 · Conversion from PDF to EPS: calls pdftops -eps (of the xpdf package)
182 · Conversion from PS to EPS: keeps 1st page only, removes setpagedevice etc.
184
186 The author of a2ping is Peter Szabo <pts@fazekas.hu>.
187 a2ping is inspired by and historically based on the epstopdf Perl script
189 modified by Thomas Esser, Sept. 1998, but his modifications have been removed
190 from a2ping, and also a2ping and epstopdf do not share common code anymore.
191 epstopdf is written by Sebastian Rahtz, for Elsevier Science. epstopdf
192 contained extra tricks from Hans Hagen's texutil.
193 a2ping contains contributions from several people, see the file HISTORY.txt
195 for details. Thank you all for contributing!
196a2ping 2019-11-28 A2PING(1)