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 in mind. For TeX and its derivatives, 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 many users simply want a GUI.
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 converting text back to PostScript. 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 Tcl/Tk. Versions prior to 0.5 were written in Ruby/Tk.
Starting with the 2008 edition, TeX Live includes epspdf as an optional package, complete with wrapper scripts epspdf and epspdftk which can be called from the command-line without further ado.
There is also a third-party LaTeX package epspdfconversion which uses epspdf for on-the-fly conversion of eps graphics to pdf, with options to control grayscaling and boundingbox generation. See CTAN or your TeX distribution.
These are the required and optional prerequisites, which will be checked for when epspdf starts:
You may not have to install all of these yourself.
On a current Linux distribution you can almost certainly install everything from your distribution's package repositories. As to PostScript- and pdf viewers: epspdf tests for several popular viewers, but the configuration screen also lets you specify viewers manually.
Note. Version 0.5.x has not been tested with Tiger.
Ruby and Tcl/Tk are already part of the operating system. Ghostscript is included in MacTeX, but is also available via e.g. MacPorts. You can get pdftops from MacPorts as part of either Poppler or xpdf. Another source is http://users.phg-online.de/tk/MOSXS/.
If you want to compile xpdf yourself, which is not hard, you can ignore warnings about X, Motif or FreeType not being found since these missing libraries won't affect the compilation of pdftops.
By itself, Windows lacks any of the prerequisites of epspdf. However, a TeX installation may fill some of the gaps, and there is a special Windows installer which takes care of the Ruby- and Tcl/Tk requirements. See the table below:
| TeX distribution | Installer | Zipfile |
|---|---|---|
| (1) MikTeX and TeX Live ≥ 2008 include a hidden Ghostscript which is always installed, and which epspdf knows how to find. Caveat: although older versions of TeX Live include a Ghostscript installer, it is not impossible to install an older TeX Live without Ghostscript, in which case you have to provide a Ghostscript yourself. | ||
| (2) With TeX Live ≥ 2008, you are better off installing the TeX Live package, which also gives you wrappers for epspdf and epspdftk for use on the command-line and for on-the-fly conversions. You still need to install Ruby and Tcl/Tk. | ||
| TeX Live(1) | No additional requirements | Ruby, Tcl/Tk(2) |
| MiKTeX | Pdftops (optional) | Pdftops (optional); Ruby, Tcl/Tk(optional) |
| Other/None | Ghostscript, pdftops (optional) | Ghostscript; pdftops(optional), Ruby, Tcl/Tk (optional) |
First make sure that the prerequisites are met. Then:
Use TeX Live's package manager tlmgr for installation.
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.
The setup program has been created with NSIS
.Download the epspdf zip file, unpack it somewhere and create a batchfile epspdf.bat such as
ruby "<path_to_epspdf.rb>" %*
for epspdf.rb, and a batchfile epspdftk.bat
wish85 "<path_to_epspdftk.tcl>" %1
for epspdftk.tcl. The wish executable might also be named wish[.exe] or wish84[.exe]. The first command-line parameter will be interpreted as startup directory for the file browser. Make sure that wish85, ruby and these batchfiles are on your searchpath.
Epspdf[tk] has been tested with Windows 2000, Windows XP and Windows 7.
Download the tar.gz archive and unpack it in some directory. If you plan to use epspdf.rb from the command-line, 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.
Although you can install as for Unix/Linux, there is also a
compressed disk image epspdf.x.x.x.dmg.gz which wraps epspdftk into
a Max OS X app
. Double-click once to expand, a second time to
mount, then drag epspdftk.app to the Applications folder.
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 programs for PostScript and pdf.
Supported PostScript viewers include evince, gv and okular. These are also listed as pdf viewers. Additional pdf viewers are xpdf, kpdf, epdfview and acroread/Adobe Reader. You can also specify a previewer manually in the configuration screen; see the user manual..
Epspdftk uses the default pdf viewer under OS X, usually Preview or Adobe Reader.
app
View with...button; support for MikTeX's built-in Ghostscript; streamlined Ruby subset, with Tcl/Tk compiled from source.
Last revised: May 9, 2010