A multiplatform GUI- and command-line converter for [e]ps and pdf.
Siep Kroonenberg,
siepo at cybercomm
dot nl
Current online version of this page
Epspdf has been created with TeX users in mind. For them, eps and pdf are the preferred graphics formats.
Ghostscript can convert PostScript to pdf. However, few people are prepared to deal with the ghostscript command-line. Several command-line utilities try to help out, e.g. epstopdf, a2ping, and the convert utility from ImageMagick. But for most users this is still not good enough.
Epspdftk adds a GUI, with buttons to select options and with dialogs for opening and saving files.
A lot more can be done if you can round-trip between PostScript and pdf. Although Ghostscript can go from pdf to PostScript, pdftops does a much better job. This opens several new possibilities: grayscaling and computing a better boundingbox for either eps- or pdf graphics, and page selection from multipage PostScript- and pdf documents. Epspdf will use pdftops if it can find it, and silently does whatever back-and-forth conversions are necessary.
The command-line program epspdf is written in Ruby. Epspdftk, its GUI companion, in Ruby/Tk.
Download Ghostscript and GSview from the Ghostscript site. Ghostscript and GSview each come with a standard Windows setup program.
You can get pdftops as part of the xpdf suite from the xpdf site. Download the zipfile with Windows binaries and unpack it in a location of your choice. The Configure screen of epspdftk lets you browse for this location. You only have to do this once. Xpdf itself is not in this zip file.
The necessary Ruby components are already included in the setup program.
For Ghostscript, GSview and the xpdf suite, see above.
You can get a one-click Ruby installer from Rubyforge. For Ruby version 1.8.4 and later you have to download and install Tcl/Tk separately, in the form of ActiveTcl. If you are only interested in the command-line version then you can leave out ActiveTcl.
You need Ghostscript, preferably xpdf/pdftops, Ruby (version at least 1.8) and for GUI use also Ruby/Tk. These will almost certainly be available as packages from your distribution.
Ghostscript and xpdf are available via the Fink Project, in the Text section.
If you don't (want to) use Fink, you can download and install Gerben Wierda's i-Installer from the i-Installer Home Page and then use the i-Installer to download and install the Ghostscript i-package.
There is a package for the xpdf suite at http://users.phg-online.de/tk/MOSXS/. Or you can compile it yourself. You can download the source from the xpdf site. For compilation, you need to have XCode installed, but nothing else, I think, at least not under Tiger. You can safely omit the xpdf- and pdftoppm components if configure says that they will not be compiled because of missing libraries.
Ruby 1.8.2 and Ruby/Tk are part of Mac OS X Tiger. X11 needs to be installed, although Ruby/Tk is not an X11 application. For earlier versions of Mac OS X, you are on your own.
Download the epspdftk setup program. You can run it in the usual way, by double-clicking. The setup program will create entries in your start menu for epspdftk and for the user manual.
Download the epspdf zip file, unpack it somewhere and create a shortcut for epspdftk.rbw. If you plan to use the command-line version, put a batchfile in a directory on your path with the line
"<path_to_ruby.exe>" "<path_to_epspdf.rb>" %1 %2 %3 %4 %5 %6 %7 %8 %9
Epspdf[tk] has been tested with Windows 2000 and Windows XP.
Download the tar.gz archive and unpack it in some directory. All files should be in the same directory; that is how they find each other. If you plan to use epspdf.rb from the command-line, then you may want to create a shell script epspdf such as
#!/bin/sh <path_to_epspdf>/epspdf.rb $*
and put it somewhere on your path.
You can do the same for epspdftk. The first command-line parameter will be interpreted as startup directory for the file browser.
Install as for Unix/Linux. Here, too, all files should be in the same directory.
You can try to start epspdftk.rb from the dock or by doubleclicking. If that doesn't work out, give the epspdf.app applet a try. After unpacking, move the file epspdf.app to the same directory as the .rb files. The zipfile also includes this file in text format (epspdf.applescript).
Epspdf mostly duplicates functionality of Preview. But having an alternate conversion engine means that you can have another shot at problem files.
Epspdftk will use the default Windows viewers for PostScript and pdf. Without GSview, you probably won't be able to view PostScript files.
Supported PostScript viewers include evince, gv, ggv and kghostview. These are also listed as pdf viewers. Additional pdf viewers are xpdf, gpdf and acroread/Adobe Reader. If you think that I omitted a PostScript- or pdf viewer, let me know and I'll probably add it in the next release.
Epspdftk will always use Preview as viewer under OS X.
Last revised: November 20, 2006