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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?>

<!DOCTYPE html
   PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN"
   "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd" >

<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">

<head>

<link rel="stylesheet" href="default.css" type="text/css"/>

<title>Epspdf and epspdftk</title>

</head><body>

<div id="pagehead">

<h1>Epspdf and epspdftk</h1>

<p>A multiplatform GUI- and command-line converter
for [e]ps and pdf.</p>

<p><i>Siep Kroonenberg,<br/><tt>siepo at cybercomm
dot nl</tt></i></p>

</div>

<p id="logo"><img src="images/epspdf.png" alt=""/></p>

<p><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/">Current online version of
this page</a></p>

<h2>Table of Contents</h2>

<ul>
<li><a href="#features">Features</a></li>
<li><a href="#prerequisites">Prerequisites</a></li>
<li><a href="#install">Installation</a></li>
<li><a href="#preview">Preview programs</a></li>
<li><a href="#files">Files</a></li>
<li><a href="#releases">Releases</a></li>
<li><a href="epspdf.pdf">User Manual</a></li>
</ul>

<h2><a name="features"/>Features</h2>

<ul>
<li>Distiller</li>
<li>Works both for documents and for graphics</li>
<li>Single-page selection</li>
<li>Also converts from pdf back to PostScript and eps</li>
<li>Removal of preview headers from eps files</li>
<li>Cropping extra whitespace</li>
<li>Grayscaling (sometimes)</li>
<li>GUI- and command-line version</li>
<li>GUI-configurable preferences</li>
<li>Multiplatform: works unchanged on Windows, Unix/Linux and Mac OS
X</li>
<li>Support for TeX Live and MiKTeX</li>
</ul>

<p>Epspdf has been created with TeX in mind. For TeX and its
derivatives, eps and pdf are the preferred graphics formats.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Epspdftk adds a GUI, with buttons to select options and with
dialogs for opening and saving files.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h2><a name="prerequisites"/>Prerequisites</h2>

<p>These are the required and optional prerequisites, which will be
checked for when epspdf starts:</p>
<ul>
<li>Ghostscript</li>
<li>pdftops from the xpdf suite, strongly recommended for better
  pdf to PostScript conversions</li>
<li>Ruby 1.8.<i>x</i> or 1.9.<i>x</i></li>
<li>Tcl/Tk is only required for the GUI interface. Versions 8.4
  and 8.5 have been tested.</li>
<li>Optional: viewers for PostScript and pdf</li>
</ul>

<p>You may not have to install all of these yourself.</p>

<h3>Linux</h3>

<p>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.</p>

<h3>Mac OS X</h3>

<p><b>Note.</b> Version 0.5.x has not been tested with Tiger.</p>

<p>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 <a
href="http://users.phg-online.de/tk/MOSXS/">http://users.phg-online.de/tk/MOSXS/</a>.</p>

<p>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.</p>

<h3>Windows (Windows 2000 and later)</h3>

<p>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:</p>

<table id="prereq">

  <thead><tr><th class="fcol">TeX
  distribution</th><th>Installer</th><th>Zipfile</th></tr></thead>

  <tfoot>
  <tr><td colspan="3"><b><a name="tlnote"
  class="fineprint"> (1)</a></b> MikTeX and TeX Live &ge; 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.</td></tr>

  <tr><td colspan="3"><b><a name="tlzipnote"
  class="fineprint"> (2)</a></b> With TeX Live &ge; 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.</td></tr>
  </tfoot>

  <tr><th class="fcol">TeX Live<a href="#tlnote">(1)</a></th><td>No additional
  requirements</td> <td>Ruby, Tcl/Tk<a href="#tlzipnote">(2)</a></td></tr>

  <tr><th class="fcol">MiKTeX</th><td>Pdftops (optional)</td> <td>Pdftops
  (optional); Ruby, Tcl/Tk(optional)</td></tr>

  <tr><th class="fcol">Other/None</th><td>Ghostscript, pdftops (optional)</td>
  <td>Ghostscript; pdftops(optional), Ruby, Tcl/Tk
  (optional)</td></tr>

</table>

<h3>URLs for the prerequisites</h3>

<dl>

<dt>Ghostscript and GSview (<a
 href="http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/">http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/</a>)</dt>
 <dd>Contains sources and Windows binaries. The Windows binaries
 come with standard GUI Windows setup programs.</dd>

<dt>XPDF (<a
 href="http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/">http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/</a>)</dt>
 <dd> Sources and Windows binaries. The Windows binaries are
 packaged into a zipfile, which has to be manually unpacked. The
 Configure screen of epspdftk lets you browse for the chosen
 location. You have to do this only once. </dd>

<dt>XPDF, Mac OS X binaries (<a
  href="http://users.phg-online.de/tk/MOSXS/">http://users.phg-online.de/tk/MOSXS/</a>)</dt>
  <dd>These are universal binaries.</dd>

<dt>TeX Live (<a
  href="http://www.tug.org/texlive/">http://www.tug.org/texlive/</a>)</dt>
  <dd>TeX Live &ge; 2008 includes pdftops, Ghostscript and
  optionally epspdf.</dd>

<dt>MacTeX (<a
  href="http://www.tug.org/mactex/">http://www.tug.org/mactex/</a>)</dt>
  <dd>MacTeX is based on TeX Live. Its set of add-ons includes
  Ghostscript, and can be downloaded separately.</dd>

<dt>The MacPorts Project (<a
  href="http://www.macports.org/">http://www.macports.org/</a>)</dt>
  <dd>MacTeX has Poppler- and xpdf packages either of which include
  pdftops.</dd>

<dt>Ruby one-click installer for Windows (<a
  href="http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyinstaller/">
  http://rubyforge.org/projects/rubyinstaller/</a>)</dt>

<dt>Ruby source code (<a
  href="http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/">http://www.ruby-lang.org/en/downloads/</a>)</dt><dd>For
  those people who prefer to roll their own...</dd>

<dt>Tcl Developer Xchange (<a href="http://www.tcl.tk/">http://www.tcl.tk/</a>)</dt>

<dt>ActiveTcl from ActiveState (<a
  href="http://activestate.com/Products/ActiveTcl/">
  http://activestate.com/Products/ActiveTcl/</a></dt>
</dl>


<h2><a name="install"/>Installation</h2>

<p>First make sure that the prerequisites are met. Then:</p>

<h3>TeX Live &ge; 2008</h3>

<p>Use TeX Live's package manager tlmgr for installation.</p>

<h3>Windows setup program</h3>

<p>Download the <a href="epspdf.0.5.2.exe">epspdftk setup
program.</a> 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.</p>

<p>The setup program has been created
with <a href="http://nsis.sourceforge.net/">NSIS</a>.</p>

<h3>Windows zipfile</h3>

<p>Download the <a href="epspdf.0.5.2.zip">epspdf zip file</a>,
unpack it somewhere and create a batchfile epspdf.bat such as</p>

<pre>
ruby "&lt;path_to_epspdf.rb&gt;" %*
</pre>

<p>for epspdf.rb, and a batchfile epspdftk.bat</p>

<pre>
wish85 "&lt;path_to_epspdftk.tcl&gt;" %1
</pre>

<p>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.</p>

<p>Epspdf[tk] has been tested with Windows 2000, Windows XP and
Windows 7.</p>

<h3>Unix/Linux</h3>

<p>Download the <a href="epspdf.0.5.2.tgz">tar.gz archive</a> and
unpack it in some directory. If you plan to use epspdf.rb from the
command-line, create a symlink to <tt>epspdf.rb</tt> somewhere on
your searchpath.</p>

<p>You can do the same for epspdftk. The first command-line
parameter will be interpreted as startup directory for the file
browser.</p>

<h3>Mac OS X</h3>

<p>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 <q>app</q>. Double-click once to expand, a second time to
mount, then drag epspdftk.app to the Applications folder.</p>

<p>Epspdf mostly duplicates functionality of Preview. But having an
alternate conversion engine means that you can have another shot at
problem files.</p>

<h2><a name="preview"/>Preview programs</h2>

<h3>Windows</h3>

<p>Epspdftk will use the default Windows programs for PostScript and
pdf.</p>

<h3>Unix/Linux</h3>

<p>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 <a
href="epspdf.pdf"> user manual.</a>.</p>

<h3>Mac OS X</h3>

<p>Epspdftk uses the default pdf viewer under OS X, usually Preview
or Adobe Reader.</p>

<h2><a name="files"/>Files</h2>

<ul>
<li><a href="epspdf.0.5.2.tgz">epspdf.0.5.2.tgz</a> preferred for Unix
and Mac OS X</li>

<li><a href="epspdf.0.5.2.zip">epspdf.0.5.2.zip</a> preferred for
Windows if you don't want to use the installer below</li>

<li><a href="epspdf.0.5.2.exe">epspdf.0.5.2.exe</a> Windows setup
  program, including Ruby subset. The epspdftk script has been
  packaged with a basic Tcl/Tk into a single exe file (starpack).</li>

<li><a href="epspdftk.0.5.2.dmg.gz">epspdftk.0.5.2.dmg.gz</a>
  compressed disk image with epspdftk wrapped into a Mac OS X <q>app</q></li>
</ul>

<h3>Older releases</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdftk.0.4.3.dmg.gz">epspdftk.0.4.3.dmg.gz</a>;
  GUI doesn't work on Snow Leopard</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.4.3.tgz">epspdf.0.4.3.tgz</a>
for Unix and Mac OS X</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.4.3.zip">epspdf.0.4.3.zip</a>
for Windows</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.4.3.exe">epspdf.0.4.3.exe</a>
Windows setup program</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdftk.0.4.2.dmg.gz">epspdftk.0.4.2.dmg.gz</a>;
  tested on Tiger and Leopard</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.3.0.tgz">epspdf.0.3.0.tgz</a>
for Unix and Mac OS X</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.3.0.zip">epspdf.0.3.0.zip</a>
for Windows</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.3.0.exe">epspdf.0.3.0.exe</a>
Windows setup program</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.2.12.tgz">epspdf.0.2.12.tgz</a>
for Unix, including Mac OS X</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.2.12.zip">epspdf.0.2.12.zip</a>
for Windows</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.2.12.exe">epspdf.0.2.12.exe</a>
Windows setup program</li>
<li><a href="http:/tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.2.01.tgz">epspdf.0.2.01.tgz</a>
for Unix
 and Mac OS X</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.2.01.zip">epspdf.0.2.01.zip</a>
for Windows</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf.0.2.exe">epspdf.0.2.exe</a>,
Windows setup program</li>
<li><a href="http://tex.aanhet.net/epspdf/epspdf_app.0.2.01.zip">epspdf_app.0.2.01.zip</a>
Mac OS X applet for starting epspdftk.rb</li>
</ul>

<h2><a name="releases"/>Releases</h2>

<dl><dt>0.5.2</dt><dd>Current version. Under Unix, wrapper scripts
    can now be replaced with simple symlinks.</dd>

<dt>0.5.1</dt><dd>Bug fix for boundingbox atend.</dd>

<dt>0.5</dt><dd>Ruby/Tk GUI replaced with Tcl/Tk GUI. Starpack
  wrapper for Windows setup version.</dd>

<dt>0.4.3</dt><dd>Fixes for compatibility with Ruby 1.9 and, under
  Windows, for newer Ghostscript versions. Documentation
  updates.</dd>

<dt>0.4.2</dt><dd>More liberal documentation
  license. Slight documentation updates.</dd>

<dt>0.4.1</dt><dd>Documentation: added section on
  bitmaps. Windows setup program: added missing Tcl/Tk
  licenses. Mac: double-clickable epspdftk.app with included
  epspdftk replaces double-clickable epspdf.app add-on.</dd>

<dt>0.4.0</dt><dd>Optionally uses hires boundingbox. Faster startup
  due to simpler testing of prerequisites. Grayscaling: support for
  HSB color model, although I yet have to encounter a PostScript
  file using this. Manual converted to texinfo format. Windows: new
  <q>View with...</q> button; support for MikTeX's built-in
  Ghostscript; streamlined Ruby subset, with Tcl/Tk compiled from
  source.</dd>

<dt>0.3.0</dt><dd>Under Windows, now recognizes whether it is
  embedded in TeX Live 2008 and then can use ghostscript/pdftops
  from TeX Live. Also added TeX Live wrapper scripts. Uninstaller
  for Windows setup program. Bug fixes: now accepts non-numerical
  version strings for pdftops. No longer checks for viewers under
  Mac OS X.</dd>

<dt>0.2.12</dt><dd>Bug fixes: log rotation now works. Under Windows,
  sometimes boundingboxes couldn't be calculated. This was caused by
  double quotes within backquotes. This is now avoided by using
  short filenames within backquotes. Minor changes in user
  guide.</dd>

<dt>0.2.11</dt><dd> Minor fixes. Changes in documentation.</dd>

<dt>0.2.10</dt><dd>A computed boundingbox is now expanded by one
  point in all directions. This should prevent too-tight
  cropping. There is no interface for changing this amount; it can
  only be changed by hand-editing the bb_spread option in the
  .epspdfrc file or in the HKCU\software\epspdf registry key.</dd>
  <dd>The File Open dialog remembers the last directory visited
  (between calls, not between program sessions).</dd><dd>Changes in
  documentation.</dd>

<dt>0.2.01</dt><dd>Fixes to the Applescript applet epspdf.app for
  starting up epspdftk under Mac OS X. It picks up the terminal
  search path and no longer requires correct settings in
  $HOME/.MacOSX/environment.plist. Epspdf.app is now packaged
  separately, under Mac OS X, and now has an intact resource
  fork. It has been removed from the other archives.</dd>

<dt>0.2</dt><dd>Original release</dd>
</dl>

<hr/>

<p class="fineprint">Last revised: May 9, 2010</p>
</body></html>