path: root/Master/texmf-dist/scripts/epspdf/epspdf.help

Epspdf and epsdftk
******************

This manual is for epspdf, version 0.5.1.

Copyright (C) 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010 Siep Kroonenberg.

     Copying and distribution of this file, with or without
     modification, are permitted in any medium without royalty provided
     the copyright notice and this notice are preserved.  This file is
     offered as-is, without any warranty.

1 Usage
*******

1.1 Overview
============

Epspdftk converts files between eps, pdf and general PostScript. The
main screen lets you open a file, select some options and convert the
file.

When opening a file, epspdf tries to find out file type and, in the
case of a pdf file, the number of pages. This information is displayed
in the box in the upper part of the screen.



1.2 Viewing
===========

The View button at the bottom of the screen calls an appropriate
external viewer.

Windows and OS X: Epspdftk simply tries to use the default Open command.

Under Linux the PostScript- and pdf viewers are configurable; see *note
The configuration screen::.

The View button is grayed if epspdf thinks that there is no previewer
for the current file.

1.3 Conversion options
======================

Grayscaling: Simple color figures can be converted to grayscale.
Bitmapped data won't be converted. If grayscaling doesn't work even on
non-bitmapped data, select the "Try harder to grayscale" option. This
may cause an extra pdf-PostScript roundtrip, but grayscaling may still
fail.

Compute tight boundingbox: This option is only available if a single
page is converted.

Page selection: The only possibilities are selecting a single page or
selecting all pages. When converting to eps you are restricted to a
single page.

For general PostScript files, there is no quick way to determine the
number of pages, so the program may not check beforehand whether you
picked an existing page. If you don't like that, convert the entire
document to pdf first - which will be done behind the scenes anyhow.

Specifying options such as grayscaling or page selection may require
several roundtrips between PostScript or eps and pdf.

1.4 Converting
==============

The Convert and save... button calls up a file save dialog. After a
successful conversion, the result becomes the new current file, so you
can judge the result by pressing the View button again.

1.5 The configuration screen
============================

 Epspdftk also has a configuration screen. The settings here are
preserved between sessions.

1.5.1 Configuring viewers
-------------------------

Under Unix, the preferred PostScript- and pdf viewers can be configured
in this screen. Epspdf looks for a number of PostScript- and pdf
viewers, from which you can select one, but you can also enter one
manually.

For Windows and Mac OS X, there is no such configuration option. Epspdf
will use the program associated with the file type, which can be
configured outside epspdf.

1.5.2 Options for converting to pdf
-----------------------------------

Double-check the setting "Target use" under "Conversion to pdf". Choose
"prepress" for pdfs which are target for commercial printing. This
option will try to embed all fonts, among other things. Often,
printshops insist on this. With luck, Ghostscript fonts and system
fonts will be used for fonts which were not originally embedded.

On the other hand, you may prefer "screen" if file size is a concern.
See also the Ghostscript documentation, in particular Use.htm and
Ps2pdf.htm.

1.5.3 Options for converting to PostScript
------------------------------------------

For conversion the other way you may opt not to use pdftops even if it
is available. In this case, the conversion will be done by Ghostscript.
Characters may be converted to drawn shapes or little bitmaps so this
is not recommended if the file uses fonts.

Under Windows, this is also the place to point the program to the
location of pdftops.exe.

1.5.4 Hires BoundingBox
-----------------------

Uncheck the option "Use hires boundingbox if possible" if your
conversions come out slightly clipped. It has two effects:
   * When converting to pdf, it uses the standard rather than the hires
     boundingbox for page dimensions

   * When computing a boundingbox, it adds a small safety margin of 1pt
     to the standard boundingbox, except where it would make any
     boundingbox coordinate negative.

2 Command-line usage
********************

epspdf.rb is the backend of epspdftk, but it can also be used
standalone. It shares configuration settings with epspdftk.tcl.

It is strongly recommended to invoke epspdf.rb via a wrapper script
epspdf or epspdf.bat on the search path, e.g.
     #!/bin/sh
     PATH_TO_EPSPDF/epspdf.rb "$@"
for Unix/Linux/OS X, or
     "PATH_TO_RUBY.EXE" "PATH_TO_EPSPDF.RB" %*
for Windows. It is the responsibility of the caller to provide double
quotes.

The TeX Live package for epspdf already includes a wrapper.

Basic usage:

     epspdf [OPTIONS] INFILE OUTFILE

2.1 Option summary
==================

Typing  `epspdf --help' gives you the following summary:
     $ epspdf --help
     Epspdf version 0.5.1
     Copyright (C) 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010 Siep Kroonenberg
     Convert between [e]ps and pdf formats
     Usage: epspdf.rb [options] infile [outfile]

     Default for outfile is file.pdf if infile is file.eps or file.ps
     Default for outfile is file.eps if infile is file.pdf

         -g, --gray, --grey               Convert to grayscale;
                                          success not guaranteed
         -G, --GRAY, --GREY               Try harder to convert to grayscale
         -p, --pagenumber=PAGENUMBER      Page to be converted or selected
         -b, --bbox, --BoundingBox        Compute tight boundingbox
         -n, --no-hires                   Don't use hires boundingbox
         -r, --hires                      Use hires boundingbox
         -T, --target=TARGET              Target use of pdf; one of
                                          default, printer, prepress, screen, ebook
         -N, --pdfversion=PDFVERSION      Pdf version to be generated
         -I                               Ignore pdftops even if available
                                          (default: use if available)
         -U                               Use pdftops if available
                                          (overrides previous -I setting)
         -C, --custom=CUSTOMOPTIONS       Custom options for conversion to pdf,
                                          view Use.htm and ps2pdf.htm from
                                          the Ghostscript documentation set
         -P, --psoptions=PSOPTIONS        Options for pdftops; default -level3,
                                          don't include -eps or page number options;
                                          these will be generated by the program
         -i, --info                       Info: display detected filetype
         -s                               Save (some) settings
         -d                               Debug: don't remove temp files
             --gui[=ACTION]               Do not use; reserved for GUI

         -v, --version                    Prints version info
         -h, --help                       Show this message

3 Notes on PostScript and pdf
*****************************

3.1 Bitmapped and vector
========================

Pictures can be described either in terms of pixels, or more abstractly,
in terms of geometric shapes, fonts and text.

Bitmapped or pixel-based graphics are appropriate for photographs and
screenshots, but less so for diagrams and spreadsheet-generated
graphics.

A file in PostScript- or pdf format can contain both types of graphic
data.

Vector graphics can be freely scaled without losing sharpness or
becoming pixellated.  If bitmapped graphics are enlarged too much,
individual pixels become apparent. With low-resolution bitmaps this
happens sooner than with high-resolution bitmaps, but high-resolution
bitmaps have (much) larger file sizes, and take longer to process.

So avoid converting vector to bitmap. However, converting from bitmap to
vector is also best avoided, since it is very hard to do well.

Epspdf normally avoids conversion from vector to bitmap and never
converts the other way. With the screen- and ebook "Target use" option,
included bitmaps tend to be downsampled, i.e. reduced to a lower
resolution.

3.2 Font embedding
==================

When converting to pdf, Ghostscript handles font embedding differently
depending on the "Target use" option. For prepress, it embeds even the
standard fonts, including Times etc. Ghostscript has copies of these
fonts in case the PostScript file doesn't have them. For screen, it
doesn't embed standard fonts.

You can embed fonts after the fact by converting pdf to eps or ps, and
back to pdf, with target use set to "prepress". However, don't try this
unless you have pdftops.

If target use is set to "screen", then standard fonts will be removed
instead of added. This option may also cause downsampling of bitmaps.

3.3 Eps preview headers
=======================

Preview headers are quietly stripped from eps files. These preview
headers are used by e.g. desktop-publishing software to represent eps
files on screen without having to interpret the PostScript code itself.
Epspdf currently has no option to preserve or add them.

3.4 Bounding- and other boxes
=============================

A PostScript file may have a page size and a boundingbox defined. A pdf
file may have a mediabox, a trimbox and various other boxes. Ghostscript
by itself normally converts the PostScript page - which is anchored at
(0,0) - to the pdf mediabox.

When epspdf or a similar program converts eps to pdf, it adds code to
move the bottom left corner of the graphic to (0,0) and to set the page
to the size of the graphic. Anything outside the boundingbox should be
cut off.

Both Ghostscript and pdftops have some parameters for setting or using
these boxes; consult Ps2pdf.htm from the Ghostscript documentation and
"pdftops -help" or "man pdftops".

3.5 Orientation
===============

There appears to be no reliable way to set orientation for PostScript-
and pdf files. This may result part of a graphic being cut off after
conversion or even everything falling outside the page / mediabox /
boundingbox. It may help to change the extension from ".eps" to ".ps"
before converting to pdf. In this case, let epspdf generate a new
boundingbox.

3.6 Exporting PostScript from Windows programs
==============================================

Often, the only way to get EPS or PostScript from a Windows program is
by "printing" to a PostScript file. From some programs, you can print a
selection. A suitable driver which comes with Windows is Generic / MS
Publisher Imagesetter. Pay attention to the printer properties: choose
"Outline" for font downloading and avoid the "Optimize for speed"
setting for PostScript Output Option. Try e.g. "Archive" instead. These
options can be found under the Advanced button.

 Other possibilities are the TpX and wmf2eps programs, which both have
options to write clipboard contents to an emf file. Wmf2eps uses a
printer driver in the background. For faithful conversion, pick
wmf2eps; for subsequent editing, choose TpX. Both programs are
available from `http://www.tug.org/ctan.html'.

4 Bitmapped graphics for LaTeX and pdflatex
*******************************************

pdflatex can use graphics in .png format (best for screenshots) and .jpg
format (best for photographs) directly. However, for LaTeX you are
stuck with .eps format. Tips for converting to .eps:

4.1 Linux
=========

_sam2p_
     This command-line bitmap-to-PostScript/pdf conversion utility is
     available from `http://code.google.com/p/sam2p/' and may already be
     packaged for your distribution. It produces very small files:
     `sam2p image.png image.eps'

_ImageMagick/convert_
     `convert' from the ImageMagick package is a command-line utility:
     `convert image.png image.eps'

_The GIMP_
     This is the premier open source image editing program. It is often
     pre-installed on Linux, and is also available for other platforms.
     The GIMP can save in eps format.

4.2 Mac OS X
============

Mac OS X's built-in Preview application can read most bitmapped formats
and save them as .pdf, which epspdf can convert to .eps.

4.3 Windows
===========

Windows is not a particularly friendly environment for PostScript and
pdf. A couple of command-line utilities try to fill the gap, _e.g._
     sam2p image.png image.eps
or
     bmeps -c image.png image.eps
sam2p is distributed with TeX Live (Windows only), bmeps both with TeX
Live and with MikTeX. Without the `-c' option, bmeps produces a
grayscale image. It produces larger files than sam2p.

4.3.1 GUI use of sam2p and bmeps
--------------------------------

Create a batchfile `bitmap2eps.bat' with contents
sam2p "%~1" "%~dpn1.eps"
 (TeX Live) or
bmeps -c "%~1" "%~dpn1.eps"
 (MikTeX) and place it _e.g._ on your desktop. Now if you drop a
bitmapped graphic on this batchfile then you will get an eps file with
the same name as the original, but with extension `.eps'.

You can also right-click on a bitmap, choose _Open With..._ and browse
to this file bitmap2eps.bat, resulting in conversion to .eps. The next
time you do this with a file of the same type, bitmap2eps.bat will
already be in the list of possible programs for opening the file.

5 Troubleshooting
*****************

5.1 Grayscaling fails
=====================

See above, under *note Grayscaling: gray. Epspdf is limited by what can
be done by the backend tools, i.e. Ghostscript and pdftops. In
particular, epspdf cannot grayscale bitmapped data.

5.2 Part of the graphic gets cut off
====================================

Things to try:
   * If the PostScript file was generated with the Windows PostScript
     driver, experiment with the PostScript Output option. Don't choose
     Optimize for Speed.

   * Replace the extension with ".ps" and let epspdf generate a
     boundingbox.

   * Boundingbox calculations may be slightly inaccurate where text is
     involved. If just a sliver is cut off, let epspdf ignore the
     high-resolutuion boundingbox. Command-line option: "-n" or
     "-no-hires".

5.3 Fonts look ugly
===================

If Ghostscript has to do the conversion from pdf to ps then text will
not remain text, but will be replaced by drawn shapes or bitmaps. Try
to get hold of the xpdf suite, which includes pdftops.

5.4 Epspdftk quit unexpectedly (Mac OS X applet)
================================================

This sometimes happens to me when I start epspdftk from the AppleScript
applet. Unfortunately, I have no idea where this comes from.

Try the "Reopen" button in the popup dialog. If this repeatedly fails,
install the regular Unix edition instead and run it from the
command-line.

5.5 Resources for troubleshooting
=================================

Logfile. The GUI has a button for viewing log output. This same output
is also written to a file `epspdf.log'. For Linux/Unix/Mac OS X this is
in a subdirectory .epspdf of your home directory; for Windows it is in
a subdirectory epspdf of `%APPDATA%'. This APPDATA directory may be
`c:\Documents and Settings\YOUR USER NAME\Application Data' or
`c:\Users\YOUR USER NAME\AppData\Roaming'. Otherwise, open a command
prompt and type `echo %APPDATA%', which will produce this information.

The logfile lists all epspdf calls and all Ghostscript- and pdftops
calls plus error information. "EPCallError" is probably a program
error. 'EPSystemError" is more likely caused by a faulty file, but may
be a program error as well.

Temporary files. The temporary files may give clues as well. Uncheck
the button "Remove temp files", or for the command-line version, give a
-d parameter to keep the temporary files. Check the log(file) as to
which temporary files have been created.

Ghostscript- and pdftops documentation. For Ghostscript, the most
important files are Ps2pdf.htm and Use.htm. For pdftops, type `pdftops
-h'. For Unix, there is also a man page, and for Windows there is a
file pdftops.txt in the distribution zip.

6 Change history
****************

6.1 Version 0.5
===============

The GUI has been rewritten in Tcl/Tk, removing the dependence on the
Ruby/Tk interface library.

The Windows installer now installs a small Ruby subset and the standard
epspdf distribution, but with epspdftk.tcl replaced with a starpack: a
single executable containing `epspdftk.tcl' and a Tcl/Tk runtime. See
`http://wiki.tcl.tk/52'.

Epspdf now uses its own subdirectory for both the logfile and the
configuration file. For Linux/Unix/Mac OS X this is `$HOME/.epspdf',
for Windows it is `%APPDATA%\epspdf'.  On all supported platforms,
settings are stored in the file `config' in this directory. Under
Windows, the registry is no longer used for this.

A button has been added to view log output.

There is a second new button "Remove temp files", which is normally
checked, causing temporary files to be deleted after each conversion.
Unchecking this button may be useful for troubleshooting. In previous
versions, temporary files were deleted at the end of the entire
epspdftk session but that has become less practical now that the GUI and
epspdf itself have become two separate programs.

The "Open with..." option for Windows has been dropped for technical
reasons.

The "-version" option now prints the version string instead of setting
the desired pdf version.

The "-info" option now also prints the number of pages for pdf files.

6.2 Version 0.4
===============

Hi-res boundingboxes are now supported. By default, conversion from eps
to pdf now uses the hires boundingbox as "page" to determine the page
dimensions of the pdf file. Other conversions preserve or generate a
hires boundingbox.

Under Windows, the new version looks for an installed TeX and will use
its private Ghostscript if it cannot find a separately installed
Ghostscript. TeX Live's pdftops, being on the searchpath, will be used
unless epspdf finds another copy first.

There is now a "-v" (lowercase) option to print the version string.