NAME¶
pstoedit - a tool converting PostScript and PDF files into various vector
graphic formats
SYNOPSIS¶
FROM THE COMMAND SHELL¶
pstoedit [
-v -help]
pstoedit [
-include name of a PostScript file to be included] [
-df font name] [
-nomaptoisolatin1] [
-dis] [
-pngimage filename - for debugging purpose mainly. Write result of
processing also to a PNG file.] [
-q] [
-nq] [
-nc] [
-nsp] [
-mergelines] [
-filledrecttostroke] [
-mergetext] [
-dt] [
-adt] [
-ndt] [
-dgbm]
[
-correctdefinefont] [
-pti] [
-pta] [
-xscale
number] [
-yscale number] [
-xshift number] [
-yshift number] [
-centered] [
-minlinewidth
number] [
-pagenumberformat page number format
specification] [
-split] [
-v] [
-usebbfrominput] [
-ssp] [
-uchar character] [
-nb] [
-page
page number] [
-flat flatness factor] [
-sclip] [
-ups] [
-rgb] [
-useagl] [
-noclip] [
-t2fontsast1] [
-keep] [
-debugfonthandling] [
-gstest] [
-nfr] [
-glyphs] [
-useoldnormalization] [
-rotate angle (0-360)] [
-fontmap name of font map file for pstoedit] [
-pagesize page format] [
-help] [
-gs path to
the ghostscript executable/DLL ] [
-bo] [
-psarg argument
string] [
-pslanguagelevel PostScript Language Level to be used
1,2, or 3]
-f "format[:options]" [
-gsregbase GhostScript base registry path] [ inputfile
[outputfile] ]
FROM GSVIEW¶
Pstoedit can be called from within gsview via "
Edit | Convert to vector
format"
FROM PROGRAMS THAT SUPPORT THE ALDUS GRAPHIC IMPORT FILTER INTERFACE¶
pstoedit can also be used as PostScript and PDF graphic import filter for
several programs including MS-Office, PaintShop-Pro and PhotoLine. See
http://www.pstoedit.net/importps/ for more details.
DESCRIPTION¶
RELEASE LEVEL¶
This manpage documents release 3.62 of pstoedit.
USE¶
pstoedit converts PostScript and PDF files to various vector graphic formats.
The resulting files can be edited or imported into various drawing packages.
Type
pstoedit -help
to get a list of supported output formats. Pstoedit comes with a large set of
format drivers integrated in the binary. Additional drivers can be installed
as plugins and are available via
http://www.pstoedit.net/plugins/. Just
copy the plugins to the same directory where the pstoedit binary is installed
or - under Unix like systems only - alternatively into the lib directory
parallel to the bin directory where pstoedit is installed.
However, unless you also get a license key for the plugins, the additional
drivers will slightly distort the resulting graphics. See the documentation
provided with the plugins for further details.
PRINCIPLE OF CONVERSION¶
pstoedit works by redefining the some basic painting operators of PostScript,
e.g.
stroke or
show (bitmaps drawn by the image operator are not
supported by all output formats.) After redefining these operators, the
PostScript or PDF file that needs to be converted is processed by a PostScript
interpreter, e.g., Ghostscript (
gs(1)). You normally need to have a
PostScript interpreter installed in order to use this program. However, you
can perform some "back end only" processing of files following the
conventions of the pstoedit intermediate formate by specifying the
-bo
option. See "Available formats and their specific options" below.
The output that is written by the interpreter due to the redefinition of the
drawing operators is a sort of 'flat' PostScript file that contains only
simple operations like moveto, lineto, show, etc. You can look at this file
using the
-f debug option.
This output is read by end-processing functions of pstoedit and triggers the
drawing functions in the selected output format driver sometime called also
"backend".
NOTES¶
If you want to process PDF files directly, your PostScript interpreter must
provide this feature, as does Ghostscript. Aladdin Ghostscript is recommended
for processing PDF and PostScript files.
OPTIONS¶
GENERAL OPTIONS¶
- [-include name of a PostScript file to be included]
-
This options allows to specify an additional PostScript file that will be
executed just before the normal input is read. This is helpful for
including specific page settings or for disabling potentially unsafe
PostScript operators, e.g., file, renamefile, or deletefile.
- [-xscale number]
-
scale by a factor in x-direction
- [-yscale number]
-
scale by a factor in y-direction
- [-xshift number]
-
shift image in x-direction
- [-yshift number]
-
shift image in y-direction
- [-centered]
-
center image before scaling or shifting
- [-minlinewidth number]
-
minimal line width. All lines thinner than this will be drawn in this line
width - especially zero-width lines
- [-pagenumberformat page number format specification]
-
format specification for page numbers in file name if -split is used. The
specification is used to create the page number using sprintf.The
specification shall not include the leading
- [-split]
-
Create a new file for each page of the input. For this the output filename
must contain a %d which is replaced with the current page number. This
option is automatically switched on for output formats that don't support
multiple pages within one file, e.g. fig or gnuplot.
- [-usebbfrominput]
-
If specified, pstoedit uses the BoundingBox as is (hopefully) found in the
input file instead of one that is calculated by its own.
- [-page page number]
-
Select a single page from a multi page PostScript or PDF file.
- [-rgb]
-
Since version 3.30 pstoedit uses the CMYK colors internally. The -rgb
option turns on the old behavior to use RGB values.
- [-useagl]
-
use Adobe Glyph List instead of the IsoLatin1 table (this is
experimental)
- [-noclip]
-
don't use clipping (relevant only if output format supports clipping at
all)
- [-rotate angle (0-360)]
-
Rotage image by angle.
- [-pagesize page format]
-
set page size for output medium. This option sets the page size for the
output medium. Currently this is just used by the libplot output format
driver, but might be used by other output format drivers in future. The
page size is specified in terms of the usual page size names, e.g. letter
or a4.
- [-help]
-
show the help information
- [-gs path to the ghostscript executable/DLL ]
-
tells pstoedit which ghostscript executable/DLL to use - overwrites the
internal search heuristic
- [-bo]
-
You can run backend processing only (without the PostScript interpreter
frontend) by first running pstoedit -f dump infile
dumpfile and then running pstoedit -f format
-bo dumpfile outfile.
- [-psarg argument string]
-
The string given with this option is passed directly to Ghostscript when
Ghostscript is called to process the PostScript file for pstoedit. For
example: -psarg "-r300x300". This
causes the resolution to be changed to 300x300 dpi. (With older versions
of GhostScript, changing the resolution this way has an effect only if the
-dis option is given.) If you want to pass multiple options to
Ghostscript you can use multiple -psarg options -psarg opt1
-psarg opt2 -psarg opt2. See the GhostScript manual for
other possible options.
- [-pslanguagelevel PostScript Language Level to be used 1,2, or
3]
-
PostScript Language Level to be used 1,2, or 3 You can switch Ghostscript
into PostScript Level 1 only mode by -pslanguagelevel 1. This can
be useful for example if the PostScript file to be converted uses some
Level 2 specific custom color models that are not supported by pstoedit.
However, this requires that the PostScript program checks for the
PostScript level supported by the interpreter and "acts"
accordingly. The default language level is 3.
- -f "format[:options]"
-
target output format recognized by pstoedit. Since other format drivers can
be loaded dynamically, type pstoedit -help to get a full list of formats.
See "Available formats and their specific options " below for an
explanation of the [ :options] to -f format. If the format
option is not given, pstoedit tries to guess the target format from the
suffix of the output filename. However, in a lot of cases, this is not a
unique mapping and hence pstoedit demands the -f option.
- [-gsregbase GhostScript base registry path]
-
registry path to use as a base path when searching GhostScript interpreter
This option provides means to specify a registry key under HKLM/Software
where to search for GS interpreter key, version and GS_DLL / GS_LIB
values. Example: "-gsregbase MyCompany" means that
HKLM/Software/MyCompany/GPL GhostScript would be searched instead of
HKLM/Software/GPL GhostScript.
TEXT AND FONT HANDLING RELATED OPTIONS¶
- [-df font name]
-
Sometimes fonts embedded in a PostScript program do not have a fontname.
For example, this happens in PostScript files generated by
dvips(1). In such a case pstoedit uses a replacement font. The
default for this is Courier. Another font can be specified using the
-df option. -df Helvetica causes all unnamed fonts to be
replaced by Helvetica.
- [-nomaptoisolatin1]
-
Normally pstoedit maps all character codes to the ones defined by the
ISO-Latin1 encoding. If you specify -nomaptoisolatin1 then the
encoding from the input PostScript is passed unchanged to the output. This
may result in strange text output but on the other hand may be the only
way to get some fonts converted appropriately. Try what fits best to your
concrete case.
- [-pngimage filename - for debugging purpose mainly. Write result
of processing also to a PNG file.]
-
for debugging purpose mainly. Write result of processing also to a PNG
file
- [-dt]
-
Draw text - Text is drawn as polygons. This might produce a large output
file. This option is automatically switched on if the selected output
format does not support text, e.g. gnuplot(1).
- [-adt]
-
Automatic Draw text - This option turns on the -dt option
selectively for fonts that seem to be no normal text fonts, e.g.
Symbol..
- [-ndt]
-
Never Draw text - fully disable the heuristics used by pstoedit to decide
when to "draw" text instead of showing it as text. This may
produce incorrect results, but in some cases it might nevertheless be
useful. "Use at own risk".
- [-dgbm]
-
experimental - draw also bitmaps generated by fonts/glyphs
- [-correctdefinefont]
-
Some PostScript files, e.g. such as generated by ChemDraw, use the
PostScript definefont operator in way that is incompatible with pstoedit's
assumptions. The new font is defined by copying an old font without
changing the FontName of the new font. When this option is applied, some
"patches" are done after a definefont in order to make it again
compatible with pstoedit's assumptions. This option is not enabled per
default, since it may break other PostScript file. It is tested only with
ChemDraw generated files.
- [-pti]
-
Precision text - Normally a text string is drawn as it occurs in the input
file. However, in some situations, this might produce wrongly positioned
characters. This is due to limitiations in most output formats of
pstoedit. They cannot represent text with arbitray inter-letter spacing
which is easily possible in PDF and PostScript. With -pta, each
character of a text string is placed separately. With -pti, this is
done only in cases when there is a non zero inter-letter spacing. The
downside of "precision text" is a bigger file size and hard to
edit text.
- [-pta]
-
see -pti
- [-uchar character]
-
Sometimes pstoedit cannot map a character from the encoding used by the
PostScript file to the font encoding of the target format. In this case
pstoedit replaces the input character by a special character in order to
show all the places that couldn't be mapped correctly. The default for
this is a "#". Using the -uchar option it is possible to
specify another character to be used instead. If you want to use a space,
use -uchar " ".
- [-t2fontsast1]
-
Handle type 2 fonts same as type 1. Type 2 fonts sometimes occur as
embedded fonts within PDF files. In the default mode, text using such
fonts is drawn as polygons since pstoedit assumes that such a font is not
available on the users machine. If this option is set, pstoedit assumes
that the internal encoding follows the same as for a standard font and
generates normal text output. This assumption may not be true in all
cases. But it is nearly impossible for pstoedit to verify this assumption
- it would have to do a sort of OCR.
- [-nfr]
-
In normal mode pstoedit replaces bitmap fonts with a font as defined by the
-df option. This is done, because most output formats can't handle
such fonts. This behavior can be switched off using the -nfr option
but then it strongly depends on the application reading the the generated
file whether the file is usable and correctly interpreted or not. Any
problems are then out of control of pstoedit.
- [-glyphs]
-
pass glyph names to the output format driver. So far no output format
driver really uses the glyph names, so this does not have any effect at
the moment. It is a preparation for future work.
- [-useoldnormalization]
-
Just use this option in case the new heuristic introduced in 3.5 doesn't
produce correct results - however, this normalization of font encoding
will always be a best-effort approach since there is no real general
solution to it with reasonable effort
- [-fontmap name of font map file for pstoedit]
-
The font map is a simple text file containing lines in the following
format:
document_font_name target_font_name
Lines beginning with % are considerd comments
If a font name contains spaces, use the "font name with spaces"
notation.
If a target_font_name starts with /, it is regarded as alias to a former entry.
Each font name found in the document is checked against this mapping and if
there is a corresponding entry, the new name is used for the output.
If the
-fontmap option is not specified, pstoedit automatically looks for
the file
drivername.fmp in the installation directory and uses that
file as a default fontmap file if available. The installation directory is:
- *
- Windows: The same directory where the pstoedit executable is located
- *
- Unix:
< The directory where the pstoedit executably is located>
/../lib/
The mpost.fmp in the misc directory of the pstoedit distibution is a sample map
file with mappings from over 5000 PostScript font names to their
TeXequivalents. This is useful because MetaPost is frequently used with
TeX/LaTeX and those programs don't use standard font names. This file and the
MetaPost output format driver are provided by Scott Pakin (
scott+ps2ed_AT_pakin.org). Another example is wemf.fmp to be used under
Windows. See the misc directory of the pstoedit source distribution. After
loading the implicit (based on driver name) or explicit (based on the -fontmap
option) font map file, a system specific map file is searched and loaded from
the installation directory (unix.fmp or windows.fmp). This file can be used to
redirect certain fonts to system specific names using the /AliasName notation
described above.
DEBUG OPTIONS¶
- [-dis]
-
Open a display during processing by Ghostscript. Some files only work
correctly this way.
- [-q]
-
quiet mode - do not write startup message
- [-nq]
-
No exit from the PostScript interpreter. Normally Ghostscript exits after
processing the pstoedit input-file. For debugging it can be useful to
avoid this. If you do, you will have to type quit at the GS> prompt to
exit from Ghostscript.
- [-v]
-
Switch on verbose mode. Some additional information is shown during
processing.
- [-nb]
-
Since version 3.10 pstoedit uses the -dDELAYBIND option when calling
GhostScript. Previously the -dNOBIND option was used instead but that
sometimes caused problems if a user's PostScript file overloaded standard
PostScript operator with totally new semantic, e.g. lt for lineto instead
of the standard meaning of "less than". Using -nb the old
style can be activated again in case the -dDELAYBIND gives different
results as before. In such a case please also contact the author.
- [-ups]
-
write text as plain string instead of hex string in intermediate format -
normally useful for trouble shooting and debugging only.
- [-keep]
-
keep the intermediate files produced by pstoedit - for debug purposes
only
- [-debugfonthandling]
-
writes verbose messages related to internal font processing - for debug
purposes only
- [-gstest]
-
perform a basic test for the interworking with GhostScript
- [-nc]
-
no curves. Normally pstoedit tries to keep curves from the input and
transfers them to the output if the output format supports curves. If the
output format does not support curves, then pstoedit replaces curves by a
series of lines (see also -flat option). However, in some cases the
user might wish to have this behavior also for output formats that
originally support curves. This can be forced via the -nc
option.
- [-nsp]
-
normally subpathes are used if the output format support them. This option
turns off subpathes.
- [-mergelines]
-
Some output formats permit the representation of filled polygons with edges
that are in a different color than the fill color. Since PostScript does
not support this by the standard drawing primitives directly, drawing
programs typically generate two objects (the outline and the filled
polygon) into the PostScript output. pstoedit is able to recombine these,
if they follow each other directly and you specify -mergelines.
However, this merging is not supported by all output formats due to
restrictions in the target format.
- [-filledrecttostroke]
-
Rectangles filled with a solid color can be converted to a stroked line
with a width that corresponds to the width of the rectangle. This is of
primary interest for output formats which do not support filled polygons
at all. But it is restricted to rectangles only, i.e. it is not supported
for general polygons
- [-mergetext]
-
In order to produce nice looking text output, programs producing PostScript
files often split words into smaller pieces which are then placed
individually on adjacent positions. However, such split text is hard to
edit later on and hence it is sometime better to recombine these pieces
again to form a word (or even sequence of words). For this pstoedit
implements some heuristics about what text pieces are to be considered
parts of a split word. This is based on the geometrical proximity of the
different parts and seems to work quite well so far. But there are
certainly cases where this simple heuristic fails. So please check the
results carefully.
- [-ssp]
-
simulate sub paths. Several output formats don't support PostScript pathes
containing sub pathes, i.e. pathes with intermediate movetos. In the
normal case, each subpath is treated as an independent path for such
output formats. This can lead to bad looking results. The most common case
where this happens is if you use the -dt option and show some text
with letters like e, o, or b, i.e. letter that have a "hole".
When the -ssp option is set, pstoedit tries to eliminate these
problems. However, this option is CPU time intensive!
- [-flat flatness factor]
-
If the output format does not support curves in the way PostScript does or
if the -nc option is specified, all curves are approximated by
lines. Using the -flat option one can control this approximation.
This parameter is directly converted to a PostScript setflat
command. Higher numbers, e.g. 10 give rougher, lower numbers, e.g. 0.1
finer approximations.
- [-sclip]
-
simulate clipping. Most output formats of pstoedit don't have native
support for clipping. For that pstoedit offers an option to perform the
clipping of the graphics directly without passing the clippath to the
output driver. However, this results in curves being replaced by a lot of
line segments and thus larger output files. So use this option only if
your output looks different from the input due to clipping. In addition,
this "simulated clipping" is not exactly the same as defined in
PostScript. There might be lines drawn at the double size. Also clipping
of text is not supported unless you also use the -dt option.
[ inputfile [outputfile] ]
If neither an input nor an output file is given as argument, pstoedit works as
filter reading from standard input and writing to standard output. The special
filename "-" can also be used. It represents standard input if it is
the first on the command line and standard output if it is the second. So
"pstoedit - output.xxx" reads from standard input and writes to
output.xxx
pstoedit allows passing individual options to a output format driver. This is
done by appending all options to the format specified after the
-f
option. The format specifier and its options must be separated by a colon (:).
If more than one option needs to be passed to the output format driver, the
whole argument to
-f must be enclosed within double-quote characters,
thus:
-f "format[:option option ...]"
To see which options are supported by a specific format, type:
pstoedit -f
format:-help
The following description of the different formats supported by pstoedit is
extracted from the source code of the individual drivers.
psf - Flattened PostScript (no curves)¶
No driver specific options
ps - Simplified PostScript with curves¶
No driver specific options
debug - for test purposes¶
No driver specific options
dump - for test purposes (same as debug)¶
No driver specific options
No driver specific options
ps2ai - Adobe Illustrator via ps2ai.ps of GhostScript¶
No driver specific options
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
plot-cgm - cgm via GNU libplot¶
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
plot-ai - ai via GNU libplot¶
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
plot-svg - svg via GNU libplot¶
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
plot-ps - ps via GNU libplot¶
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
plot-fig - fig via GNU libplot¶
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
plot-pcl - pcl via GNU libplot¶
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
plot-hpgl - hpgl via GNU libplot¶
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
plot-tek - tek via GNU libplot¶
- [-plotformat string]
-
plotutil format to generate
magick - MAGICK driver¶
This driver uses the C++ API of ImageMagick or GraphicsMagick to finally produce
different output formats. The output format is determined automatically by
Image/GraphicsMagick based on the suffix of the output filename. So an output
file test.png will force the creation of an image in PNG format.
No driver specific options
swf - SWF driver:¶
- [-cubic]
-
cubic ???
- [-trace]
-
trace ???
xaml - eXtensible Application Markup Language¶
- [-localdtd]
-
use local DTD
- [-standalone]
-
create stand-alone type svg
- [-withdtd]
-
write DTD
- [-withgrouping]
-
write also ordinary save/restores as SVG group
- [-nogroupedpath]
-
do not write a group around pathes
- [-noviewbox]
-
don't write a view box
- [-texmode]
-
TeX Mode
- [-imagetofile]
-
write raster images to separate files instead of embedding them
- [-notextrendering]
-
do not write textrendering attribute
- [-border number]
-
additional border to draw around bare bounding box (in percent of width and
height)
- [-title string]
-
text to use as title for the generated document
wemfnss - Wogls version of EMF - no subpathes¶
- [-df]
-
write info about font processing
- [-dumpfontmap]
-
write info about font mapping
- [-size:psbbox]
-
use the bounding box as calculated by the PostScript frontent as size
- [-size:fullpage]
-
set the size to the size of a full page
- [-size:automatic]
-
let windows calculate the bounding box (default)
- [-keepimages]
-
debug option - keep the embedded bitmaps as external files
- [-useoldpolydraw]
-
do not use Windows PolyDraw but an emulation of it - sometimes needed for
certain programs reading the EMF files
- [-OO]
-
generate OpenOffice compatible EMF file
hpgl - HPGL code¶
- [-penplotter]
-
plotter is pen plotter (i.e. no support for specific line widths)
- [-pencolorsfromfile]
-
read pen colors from file drvhpgl.pencolors in pstoedit data directory
- [-pencolors number]
-
maximum number of pen colors to be used by pstoedit (default 0) -
- [-filltype string]
-
select fill type e.g. FT 1
- [-hpgl2]
-
Use HPGL/2 instead of HPGL/1
- [-rot90]
-
rotate hpgl by 90 degrees
- [-rot180]
-
rotate hpgl by 180 degrees
- [-rot270]
-
rotate hpgl by 270 degrees
pcl - PCL code¶
- [-penplotter]
-
plotter is pen plotter (i.e. no support for specific line widths)
- [-pencolorsfromfile]
-
read pen colors from file drvhpgl.pencolors in pstoedit data directory
- [-pencolors number]
-
maximum number of pen colors to be used by pstoedit (default 0) -
- [-filltype string]
-
select fill type e.g. FT 1
- [-hpgl2]
-
Use HPGL/2 instead of HPGL/1
- [-rot90]
-
rotate hpgl by 90 degrees
- [-rot180]
-
rotate hpgl by 180 degrees
- [-rot270]
-
rotate hpgl by 270 degrees
- [-troff]
-
troff mode (default is groff)
- [-landscape]
-
landscape output
- [-portrait]
-
portrait output
- [-keepfont]
-
print unrecognized literally
- [-text]
-
try not to make pictures from running text
- [-debug]
-
enable debug output
No driver specific options
cairo - cairo driver¶
generates compilable c code for rendering with cairo
- [-pango]
-
use pango for font rendering
- [-funcname string]
-
sets the base name for the generated functions and variables. e.g.
myfig
- [-header string]
-
sets the output file name for the generated C header file. e.g.
myfig.h
cfdg - Context Free Design Grammar¶
Context Free Design Grammar, usable by Context Free Art
(
http://www.contextfreeart.org/)
No driver specific options
- [-polyaslines]
-
use LINE instead of POLYLINE in DXF
- [-mm]
-
use mm coordinates instead of points in DXF (mm=pt/72*25.4)
- [-ctl]
-
map colors to layers
- [-splineaspolyline]
-
approximate splines with PolyLines (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineasnurb]
-
experimental (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineasbspline]
-
experimental (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineassinglespline]
-
experimental (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineasmultispline]
-
experimental (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineasbezier]
-
use Bezier splines in DXF format (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineprecision number]
-
number of samples to take from spline curve when doing approximation with
-splineaspolyline or -splineasmultispline - should be >= 2 (default
5)
- [-dumplayernames]
-
dump all layer names found to standard output
- [-layers string]
-
layers to be shown (comma separated list of layer names, no space)
- [-layerfilter string]
-
layers to be hidden (comma separated list of layer names, no space)
- [-polyaslines]
-
use LINE instead of POLYLINE in DXF
- [-mm]
-
use mm coordinates instead of points in DXF (mm=pt/72*25.4)
- [-ctl]
-
map colors to layers
- [-splineaspolyline]
-
approximate splines with PolyLines (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineasnurb]
-
experimental (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineasbspline]
-
experimental (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineassinglespline]
-
experimental (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineasmultispline]
-
experimental (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineasbezier]
-
use Bezier splines in DXF format (only for -f dxf_s)
- [-splineprecision number]
-
number of samples to take from spline curve when doing approximation with
-splineaspolyline or -splineasmultispline - should be >= 2 (default
5)
- [-dumplayernames]
-
dump all layer names found to standard output
- [-layers string]
-
layers to be shown (comma separated list of layer names, no space)
- [-layerfilter string]
-
layers to be hidden (comma separated list of layer names, no space)
The xfig format driver supports special fontnames, which may be produced by
using a fontmap file. The following types of names are supported :
General notation:
"Postscript Font Name" ((LaTeX|PostScript|empty)(::special)::)XFigFontName
Examples:
Helvetica LaTeX::SansSerif
Courier LaTeX::special::Typewriter
GillSans "AvantGarde Demi"
Albertus PostScript::special::"New Century Schoolbook Italic"
Symbol ::special::Symbol (same as Postscript::special::Symbol)
See also the file examplefigmap.fmp in the misc directory of the pstoedit source
distribution for an example font map file for xfig. Please note that the
Fontname has to be among those supported by xfig. See -
http://www.xfig.org/userman/fig-format.html for a list of legal font
names
- [-startdepth number]
-
Set the initial depth (default 999)
- [-metric]
-
Switch to centimeter display (default inches)
- [-usecorrectfontsize]
-
don't scale fonts for xfig. Use this if you also use this option with
xfig
- [-depth number]
-
Set the page depth in inches (default 11)
See fig format for more details.
- [-startdepth number]
-
Set the initial depth (default 999)
- [-metric]
-
Switch to centimeter display (default inches)
- [-usecorrectfontsize]
-
don't scale fonts for xfig. Use this if you also use this option with
xfig
- [-depth number]
-
Set the page depth in inches (default 11)
Test only
- [-startdepth number]
-
Set the initial depth (default 999)
- [-metric]
-
Switch to centimeter display (default inches)
- [-usecorrectfontsize]
-
don't scale fonts for xfig. Use this if you also use this option with
xfig
- [-depth number]
-
Set the page depth in inches (default 11)
See also:
http://linuxcnc.org/
No driver specific options
No driver specific options
See also:
http://www.geda.seul.org/tools/gschem/
No driver specific options
No driver specific options
java1 - java 1 applet source code¶
- [java class name string]
-
name of java class to generate
java2 - java 2 source code¶
- [java class name string]
-
name of java class to generate
No driver specific options
- [-integers]
-
round all coordinates to the nearest integer
No driver specific options
mma - Mathematica Graphics¶
- [-eofillfills]
-
Filling is used for eofill (default is not to fill)
mpost - MetaPost Format¶
No driver specific options
Nemetschek Object Interface XML format
- [-r string]
-
Allplan resource file
- [-bsl number]
-
Bezier Split Level (default 3)
See
http://home.vr-web.de/~hans-juergen-jahn/software/devpcb.html for
more details.
No driver specific options
See also:
http://pcb.sourceforge.net and
http://www.penguin.cz/~utx/pstoedit-pcb/
- [-grid missing arg name]
-
attempt to snap relevant output to grid (mils) and put failed objects to a
different layer
- [-snapdist missing arg name]
-
grid snap distance ratio (0 < snapdist <= 0.5, default 0.1)
- [-tshiftx missing arg name]
-
additional x shift measured in target units (mils)
- [-tshifty missing arg name]
-
additional y shift measured in target units (mils)
- [-grid missing arg name]
-
attempt to snap relevant output to grid (mils) and put failed objects to a
different layer
- [-mm]
-
Switch to metric units (mm)
- [-stdnames]
-
use standard layer names instead of descriptive names
- [-forcepoly]
-
force all objects to be interpreted as polygons
See also:
http://pcb.sourceforge.net
No driver specific options
No driver specific options
This is the format used internally by Microsoft PowerPoint. LibreOffice can also
read/write PowerPoint files albeit with some lack of functionality.
- [-colors string]
-
"original" to retain original colors (default), "theme"
to convert randomly to theme colors, or "theme-lum" also to vary
luminance
- [-fonts string]
-
use "windows" fonts (default), "native" fonts, or
convert to the "theme" font
- [-embed string]
-
embed fonts, specified as a comma-separated list of EOT-format font
files
rib - RenderMan Interface Bytestream¶
No driver specific options
No driver specific options
this is a long description for the sample driver
- [-sampleoption integer]
-
just an example
No driver specific options
StarView/OpenOffice.org metafile, readable from OpenOffice.org 1.0/StarOffice
6.0 and above.
- [-m]
-
map to Arial
- [-nf]
-
emulate narrow fonts
text - text in different forms¶
- [-height number]
-
page height in terms of characters
- [-width number]
-
page width in terms of characters
- [-dump]
-
dump text pieces
- [-ta]
-
text as attribute
tk - tk and/or tk applet source code¶
- [-R]
-
swap HW
- [-I]
-
no impress
- [-n string]
-
tagnames
this is a long description for the VTKe driver
- [-VTKeoption integer]
-
just an example
- [-m]
-
map to Arial
- [-nf]
-
emulate narrow fonts
- [-drawbb]
-
draw bounding box
- [-p]
-
prune line ends
- [-nfw]
-
Newer versions of Windows (2000, XP, Vista) will not accept WMF/EMF files
generated when this option is set and the input contains Text. But if this
option is not set, then the WMF/EMF driver will estimate interletter
spacing of text using a very coarse heuristic. This may result in ugly
looking output. On the other hand, OpenOffice can still read EMF/WMF files
where pstoedit delegates the calculation of the inter letter spacing to
the program reading the WMF/EMF file. So if the generated WMF/EMF file
shall never be processed under Windows, use this option. If WMF/EMF files
with high precision text need to be generated under *nix the only option
is to use the -pta option of pstoedit. However that causes every text to
be split into single characters which makes the text hard to edit
afterwards. Hence the -nfw options provides a sort of compromise between
portability and nice to edit but still nice looking text. Again - this
option has no meaning when pstoedit is executed under Windows anyway. In
that case the output is portable but nevertheless not split and still
looks fine.
- [-winbb]
-
let the Windows API calculate the Bounding Box (Windows only)
- [-OO]
-
generate OpenOffice compatible EMF file
- [-m]
-
map to Arial
- [-nf]
-
emulate narrow fonts
- [-drawbb]
-
draw bounding box
- [-p]
-
prune line ends
- [-nfw]
-
Newer versions of Windows (2000, XP, Vista) will not accept WMF/EMF files
generated when this option is set and the input contains Text. But if this
option is not set, then the WMF/EMF driver will estimate interletter
spacing of text using a very coarse heuristic. This may result in ugly
looking output. On the other hand, OpenOffice can still read EMF/WMF files
where pstoedit delegates the calculation of the inter letter spacing to
the program reading the WMF/EMF file. So if the generated WMF/EMF file
shall never be processed under Windows, use this option. If WMF/EMF files
with high precision text need to be generated under *nix the only option
is to use the -pta option of pstoedit. However that causes every text to
be split into single characters which makes the text hard to edit
afterwards. Hence the -nfw options provides a sort of compromise between
portability and nice to edit but still nice looking text. Again - this
option has no meaning when pstoedit is executed under Windows anyway. In
that case the output is portable but nevertheless not split and still
looks fine.
- [-winbb]
-
let the Windows API calculate the Bounding Box (Windows only)
- [-OO]
-
generate OpenOffice compatible EMF file
NOTES¶
AUTOTRACE¶
pstoedit cooperates with autotrace. Autotrace can now produce a dump file for
further processing by pstoedit using the
-bo (backend only) option.
Autotrace is a program written by a group around Martin Weber and can be found
at
http://sourceforge.net/projects/autotrace/.
PS2AI¶
The ps2ai output format driver is not a native pstoedit output format driver. It
does not use the pstoedit postcript flattener, instead it uses the PostScript
program ps2ai.ps which is installed in the GhostScript distribution directory.
It is included to provide the same "look-and-feel" for the
conversion to AI. The additional benefit is that this conversion is now
available also via the "convert-to-vector" menu of Gsview. However,
lot's of files don't convert nicely or at all using ps2ai.ps. So a native
pstoedit driver would be much better. Anyone out there to take this? The AI
format is usable for example by Mayura Draw (
http://www.mayura.com).
Also a driver to the Mayura native format would be nice.
An alternative to the ps2ai based driver is available via the -f plot:ai format
if the libplot(ter) is installed.
You should use a version of GhostScript greater than or equal to 6.00 for using
the ps2ai output format driver.
METAPOST¶
Note that, as far as Scott knows, MetaPost does not support PostScript's eofill.
The metapost output format driver just converts eofill to fill, and issues a
warning if verbose is set. Fortunately, very few PostScript programs rely on
the even-odd fill rule, even though many specify it.
For more on MetaPost see:
http://cm.bell-labs.com/who/hobby/MetaPost.html
CONTEXT FREE - CFDG¶
The driver for the CFDG format (drvcfdg) defines one shape per page of
PostScript, but only the first shape is actually rendered (unless the user
edits the generated CFDG code, of course). CFDG doesn't support multi-page
output, so this probably a reasonable thing to do.
For more on Context Free see:
http://www.contextfreeart.org/
LATEX2E¶
- *
- LaTeX2e's picture environment is not very powerful. As a result, many
elementary PostScript constructs are ignored -- fills, line thicknesses
(besides "thick" and "thin"), and dash patterns, to
name a few. Furthermore, complex pictures may overrun TeX's memory
capacity.
- *
- Some PostScript constructs are not supported directly by
"picture", but can be handled by external packages. If a figure
uses color, the top-level document will need to do a
"\usepackage{color}". And if a figure contains rotated text, the
top-level document will need to do a
"\usepackage{rotating}".
- *
- All lengths, coordinates, and font sizes output by the output format
driver are in terms of \unitlength, so scaling a figure is simply a matter
of doing a "\setlength{\unitlength}{...}".
- *
- The output format driver currently supports one output format driver
specific option, "integers", which rounds all lengths,
coordinates, and font sizes to the nearest integer. This makes
hand-editing the picture a little nicer.
- *
- Why is this output format driver useful? One answer is portability; any
LaTeX2e system can handle the picture environment, even if it can't handle
PostScript graphics. (pdfLaTeX comes to mind here.) A second answer is
that pictures can be edited easily to contain any arbitrary LaTeX2e code.
For instance, the text in a figure can be modified to contain complex
mathematics, non-Latin alphabets, bibliographic citations, or -- the real
reason Scott wrote the LaTeX2e output format driver -- hyperlinks to the
surrounding document (with help from the hyperref package).
To implement a new output format driver you can start from drvsampl.cpp and
drvsampl.h. See also comments in drvbase.h and drvfuncs.h for an explanation
of methods that should be implemented for a new output format driver.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES¶
A default PostScript interpreter to be called by pstoedit is specified at
compile time. You can overwrite the default by setting the GS environment
variable to the name of a suitable PostScript interpreter.
You can check which name of a PostScript interpreter was compiled into pstoedit
using:
pstoedit -help -v.
See the GhostScript manual for descriptions of environment variables used by
Ghostscript most importantly GS_FONTPATH and GS_LIB; other environment
variables also affect output to display, print, and additional filtering and
processing. See the related documentation.
pstoedit allocates temporary files using the function
tempnam(3). Thus
the location for temporary files might be controllable by other environment
variables used by this function. See the
tempnam(3) manpage for
descriptions of environment variables used. On UNIX like system this is
probably the TMPDIR variable, on DOS/WINDOWS either TMP or TEMP.
TROUBLE SHOOTING¶
If you have problems with pstoedit first try whether Ghostscript successfully
displays your file. If yes, then try
pstoedit -f ps
infile.ps testfile.ps and check whether
testfile.ps still
displays correctly using Ghostscript. If this file doesn't look correctly then
there seems to be a problem with pstoedit's PostScript frontend. If this file
looks good but the output for a specific format is wrong, the problem is
probably in the output format driver for the specific format. In either case
send bug fixes and reports to the author.
A common problem with PostScript files is that the PostScript file redefines one
of the standard PostScript operators inconsistently. There is no effect of
this if you just print the file since the original PostScript
"program" uses these new operator in the new meaning and does not
use the original ones anymoew. However, when run under the control of
pstoedit, these operators are expected to work with the original semantics.
So far I've seen redefinitions for:
- *
- lt - "less-then" to mean "draw a line to"
- *
- string - "create a string object" to mean "draw a
string"
- *
- length - "get the length of e.g. a string" to a "float
constant"
I've included work-arounds for the ones mentioned above, but some others could
show up in addition to those.
RESTRICTIONS¶
- *
- Non-standard fonts (e.g. TeXbitmap fonts) are mapped to a default font
which can be changed using the -df option. pstoedit chooses the
size of the replacement font such that the width of the string in the
original font is the same as in the replacement font. This is done for
each text fragment displayed. Special character encoding support is
limited in this case. If a character cannot be mapped into the target
format, pstoedit displays a '#' instead. See also the -uchar option.
- *
- pstoedit supports bitmap graphics only for some output format
drivers.
- *
- Some output format drivers, e.g. the Gnuplot output format driver or the
3D output format driver (rpl, lwo, rib) do not support text.
- *
- For most output format drivers pstoedit does not support clipping (mainly
due to limitations in the target format). You can try to use the
-sclip option to simulate clipping. However, this doesn't work in
all cases as expected.
- *
- Special note about the Java output format drivers (java1 and java2). The
java output format drivers generate a java source file that needs other
files in order to be compiled and usable. These other files are Java
classes (one applet and support classes) that allow to step through the
individual pages of a converted PostScript document. This applet can
easily be activated from a html-document. See the
contrib/java/java1/readme_java1.txt or contrib/java/java2/readme_java2.htm
file for more details.
FAQS¶
- 1.
- Why do letters like O or B get strange if converted to tgif/xfig using the
-dt option?
This is because most output format drivers don't support composite paths with
intermediate gaps (moveto's) and second don't support very well the (eo)fill
operators of PostScript (winding rule). For such objects pstoedit breaks them
into smaller objects whenever such a gap is found. This results in the
"hole" beeing filled with black color instead of beeing transparent.
Since version 3.11 you can try the
-ssp option in combination with the
xfig output format driver.
- 2.
- Why does pstoedit produce ugly results from PostScript files generated by
dvips?
TeX documents usually use bitmap fonts. Such fonts cannot be used as native font
in other format. So pstoedit replaces the TeX font with another native font.
Of course, the replacement font will in most cases produce another look,
especially if mathematical symbols are used. Try to use PostScript fonts
instead of the bitmap fonts when generating a PostScript file from TeX or
LaTeX.
AUTHOR¶
Wolfgang Glunz,
wglunz35_AT_pstoedit.net,
http://de.linkedin.com/in/wolfgangglunz
CANONICAL ARCHIVE SITE¶
http://www.pstoedit.net/pstoedit/
At this site you also find more information about pstoedit and related programs
and hints how to subscribe to a mailing list in order to get informed about
new releases and bug-fixes.
If you like pstoedit - please express so also at Facebook
http://www.facebook.com/pages/pstoedit/260606183958062.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS¶
- *
- Klaus Steinberger Klaus.Steinberger_AT_physik.uni-muenchen.de wrote
the initial version of this manpage.
- *
- Lar Kaufman revised the increasingly complex command syntax diagrams and
updated the structure and content of this manpage following release
2.5.
- *
- David B. Rosen rosen_AT_unr.edu provided ideas and some PostScript
code from his ps2aplot program.
- *
- Ian MacPhedran Ian_MacPhedran_AT_engr.USask.CA provided the xfig
output format driver.
- *
- Carsten Hammer chammer_AT_hermes.hrz.uni-bielefeld.de provided the
gnuplot output format driver and the initial DXF output format
driver.
- *
- Christoph Jaeschke provided the OS/2 metafile (MET) output format driver.
Thomas Hoffmann thoffman_AT_zappa.sax.de did some further updates
on the OS/2 part.
- *
- Jens Weber rz47b7_AT_PostAG.DE provided the Windows metafile (WMF)
output format driver, and a graphical user interface (GUI).
- *
- G. Edward Johnson lorax_AT_nist.gov provided the CGM Draw library
used in the CGM output format driver.
- *
- Gerhard Kircher kircher_AT_edvz.tuwien.ac.at provided some bug
fixes.
- *
- Bill Cheng bill.cheng_AT_acm.org provided help with the tgif format
and some changes to tgif to make the output format driver easier to
implement. http://bourbon.usc.edu:8001/
- *
- Reini Urban rurban_AT_sbox.tu-graz.ac.at provided input for the
extended DXF output format driver.( http://autocad.xarch.at/)
- *
- Glenn M. Lewis glenn_AT_gmlewis.com provided RenderMan (RIB),
Real3D (RPL), and LightWave 3D (LWO) output format drivers. (
http://www.gmlewis.com/)
- *
- Piet van Oostrum piet_AT_cs.ruu.nl made several bug fixes.
- *
- Lutz Vieweg lkv_AT_mania.robin.de provided several bug fixes and
suggestions for improvements.
- *
- Derek B. Noonburg derekn_AT_vw.ece.cmu.edu and Rainer Dorsch
rd_AT_berlepsch.wohnheim.uni-ulm.de isolated and resolved a
Linux-specific core dump problem.
- *
- Rob Warner rcw2_AT_ukc.ac.uk made pstoedit compile under
RiscOS.
- *
- Patrick Gosling jpmg_AT_eng.cam.ac.uk made some suggestions
regarding the usage of pstoedit in Ghostscript's SAFER mode.
- *
- Scott Pakin scott+ps2ed_AT_pakin.org for the Idraw output format
driver and the autoconf support.
- *
- Peter Katzmann p.katzmann_AT_thiesen.com for the HPGL output format
driver.
- *
- Chris Cox ccox_AT_airmail.net contributed the Tcl/Tk output format
driver.
- *
- Thorsten Behrens Thorsten_Behrens_AT_public.uni-hamburg.de and
Bjoern Petersen for reworking the WMF output format driver.
- *
- Leszek Piotrowicz leszek_AT_sopot.rodan.pl implemented the image
support for the xfig driver and a JAVA based GUI.
- *
- Egil Kvaleberg egil_AT_kvaleberg.no contributed the pic output
format driver.
- *
- Kai-Uwe Sattler kus_AT_iti.cs.uni-magdeburg.de implemented the
output format driver for Kontour.
- *
- Scott Pakin, scott+ps2ed_AT_pakin.org provided the MetaPost and
LaTeX2e and PowerPoint output format driver.
- *
- The PowerPoint driver uses the libzip library -
http://www.nih.at/libzip. Under Windows, this library is linked
into the provided binary statically. Thanks to the whole libzip team.
- *
- Burkhard Plaum plaum_AT_IPF.Uni-Stuttgart.de added support for
complex filled paths for the xfig output format driver.
- *
- Bernhard Herzog herzog_AT_online.de contributed the output format
driver for sketch ( http://www.skencil.org/ )
- *
- Rolf Niepraschk (niepraschk_AT_ptb.de) converted the HTML man page
to LaTeX. This allows to generate the UNIX style and the HTML manual from
this base format.
- *
- Several others sent smaller bug fixed and bug reports. Sorry if I don't
mention them all here.
- *
- Gisbert W. Selke (gisbert_AT_tapirsoft.de) for the Java 2 output
format driver.
- *
- Robert S. Maier (rsm_AT_math.arizona.edu) for many improvements on
the libplot output format driver and for libplot itself.
- *
- The authors of pstotext (mcjones_AT_pa.dec.com and
birrell_AT_pa.dec.com) for giving me the permission to use their
simple PostScript code for performing rotation.
- *
- Daniel Gehriger gehriger_AT_linkcad.com for his help concerning the
handling of Splines in the DXF format.
- *
- Allen Barnett libemf_AT_lignumcomputing.com for his work on the
libEMF which allows to create WMF/EMF files under *nix systems.
- *
- Dave dave_AT_opaque.net for providing the libming which is a
multiplatform library for generating SWF files.
- *
- Masatake Yamoto for the introduction of autoconf, automake and libtool
into pstoedit
- *
- Bob Friesenhahn for his help and the building of the Magick++ API to
ImageMagick.
- *
- But most important: Peter Deutsch ghost_AT_aladdin.com and Russell
Lang gsview_AT_ghostgum.com.au for their help and answers regarding
GhostScript and gsview.
LEGAL NOTICES¶
Trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective owners.
Some code incorporated in the pstoedit package is subject to copyright or other
intellectual property rights or restrictions including attribution rights. See
the notes in individual files.
pstoedit is controlled under the Free Software Foundation GNU Public License
(GPL). However, this does not apply to importps and the additional plugins.
Aladdin Ghostscript is a redistributable software package with copyright
restrictions controlled by Aladdin Software.
pstoedit has no other relation to Ghostscript besides calling it in a
subprocess.
The authors, contributors, and distributors of pstoedit are not responsible for
its use for any purpose, or for the results generated thereby.
Restrictions such as the foregoing may apply in other countries according to
international conventions and agreements.