A2PING(1) User Contributed Perl Documentation A2PING(1) NAME a2ping -- convert between PS, EPS and PDF and other page description formats SYNOPSIS a2ping [--]help a2ping [--]doc a2ping [options] [[outformat:] outputfile] DESCRIPTION a2ping is a UNIX command line utility written in Perl that converts many raster image and vector graphics formats to EPS or PDF and other page description formats. Accepted input file formats are: PS (PostScript), EPS, PDF, PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PNM, BMP, GIF, LBM, XPM, PCX, TGA. Accepted output for mats are: EPS, PCL5, PDF, PDF1, PBM, PGM, PPM, PS, markedEPS, markedPS, PNG, XWD, BMP, TIFF, JPEG, GIF, XPM. a2ping delegates the low-level work to Ghostscript (GS), pdftops and sam2p. a2ping fixes many glitches during the EPS to EPS conversion, so its output is often more compatible and better embeddable than its input. Without the "--below" option, it is guarenteed to start at the 0,0 coordi nate. "--below", "--hires" and "-v" are recommended options. The page size is set exactly corresponding to the BoundingBox. This means that when Ghostscript renders it, the result needs no cropping, and the PDF MediaBox is correct. If the bounding box is not right, of course, you have problems. If you feed crap in, you get crap. But you can supply the --bboxfrom=compute-gs option to make GS recompute the bounding box. The name of the input file doesnt matter -- a2ping detects the file format based on the first few bytes of the file. The name of the output file matters if outformat is missing from the command line: then the extension of the out put file determines the FileFormat (outformat). EXTERNAL PROGRAMS The internal file format of a2ping is PS/EPS. Everything read is first con verted to PS or EPS, then processed by a2ping, then converted to the output format. To analyse the bounding box and other properties of non-EPS PS files (and EPS files with option --bboxfrom other than =guess), GS is used. Converting PS to EPS involves this analysis. To write PDF files, GS is used. To read PDF files, pdftops from the xpdf package is used. Sampled input formats are PNG, JPEG, TIFF, PNM, BMP, GIF, LBM, XPM, PCX and TGA. To read sampled input formats, sam2p is used. sam2p is a raster image converter written in C++ by the author of a2ping. Extra output formats are PNG, XWD, BMP, TIFF, JPEG, GIF and XPM. To write extra output formats, sam2p and GS are used. PNM output formats are PGM, PGM and PPM. To write PNM output formats, GS is used. OPTIONS General Options -h, --help Show a summary of the usage --doc Show the man page -v, --(no)verbose Show progress and debug messages (default: no) Options for the Bounding box --(no)hires Use HiResBoundingBox in the input file, if present (default: yes) --(no)exact Use ExactBoundingBox in the input file, if present (default: no) --(no)keepoldmediabox keep only old, [0 0]-based MediaBox in PDF (default: no) --bboxfrom=adsc|compute-gs|guess|pagesize Method for determining the BoundingBox (default: guess) --(no)below Allow page content below and left of the origin (default: no) Options for graphics and fonts --(no)compress use compression (default: best) --(no)antialias render shades at outlines. Possible values: (=scale3yes =no =yes) (default: scale3no) --(no)lossy allow lossy image filters (EPS->PDF) (default: yes) --papersize=unchanged|force-unknown|600bpx5cm (default: default) (bp) --threshold= min color for 1 in 8->1 bit conv (default: 128) Options for debugging and changing internals --(no)tmpunlink Unlink temporary files (default: yes). Use --notmpunklink if you want to inspect intermediate files. --gs-cmd=path path to Ghostscript program (default: gs or gswin32c) --gs-ccmd=path path to Ghostscript for BoundingBox calculation (default: gs or gswin32c) --gsextra=GS_ARGS Pass extra arguments to gs --extra= Pass extra arguments to external program (i.e pdftops) TIPS AND TRICKS * If your EPS contains a wrong bounding box, you can fix it by running "a2ping -v --bboxfrom=compute-gs thefile.eps --" * You can specify - as inputfile to get stdin and as outputfile to get std out. This works even for PDF files (which must be seekable), because a2ping copies them to a temporary file automatically. * If inputfile and outputfile are the same, a2ping copies the inputfile to a temporary location first. However, this usage is recommended only if there is a backup of the file to be restored in case a2ping doesnt pro duce the desired result. * If you specify -- as outputfile, it will be the same as inputfile. * a2ping respects --Duplex for FileFormat PCL5, even though GS doesnt. * If you have an incompatible PS that GS can read but your printer cannot print, just run "a2ping foo.ps PDF: - | a2ping - PS: foo.ps" * If you have a PS coming from Win32 (often with extension ".prn"), run it through a2ping. It will remove the resolution changes and the progress text printed to the terminal (which confuses gv(1) and makes some filters in the print queue emit incorrect output). * a2ping does antialiasing (--antialias=scale3no) of glyphs and curves when emitting a sampled image (FileFormats such as PGM and PPM). This improves readability of the glyphs. =yes instructs GS to do internal antialiasing, but it usually doesnt improve much. =scale3no turns off GS internal antialiasing, but makes it render everything 3x3 as big, and then scales it back down. =scale3no turns on both 3x3 scaling and GS internal antialiasing, which results in thicker lines and worse quality in general. * When creating a PBM file, antialiasing usually doesnt improve the qual ity, so it is switched off by default. But if you set --antialias=scale3no or --antialias=scale3yes, GS will render a PGM file, and the value of --threshold determines the minimum intensity for white in the final PBM. * If you need a bigger sampled output file, specify a larger --Resolution. The default is --Resolution=72. If your sampled output file is going to be really big, you should specify --AntiAlias=yes instead of the default --AntiAlias=scale3no to speed up conversion. * To make sure fonts are included in a PDF file generated from eps, use --gsextra=-dEmbedAllFonts=true -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer. MISC * Doesnt depend on the filename or extension of the input file. * Conversion from EPS to PDF: fixes glitches etc., calls gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite * Conversion from EPS to EPS: fixes various glitches, moves (llx,lly) to (0,0), removes binary junk from the beginning of the EPS etc. * Conversion from PDF to PDF: keeps the file intact * Conversion from PDF to EPS: calls pdftops -eps (of the xpdf package) * Conversion from PS to EPS: keeps 1st page only, removes setpagedevice etc. AUTHORS The author of a2ping is P[e]ter Szab[o] . a2ping is inspired by and historically based on the epstopdf Perl script mod ified by Thomas Esser, Sept. 1998, but his modifications have been removed from a2ping, and also a2ping and epstopdf do not share common code anymore. epstopdf is written by Sebastian Rahtz, for Elsevier Science. epstopdf con tained extra tricks from Hans Hagens texutil. a2ping contains contributions from several people, see the HISTORY for details. Thank you all for contributing! HISTORY 1999/05/06 v2.5 (Heiko Oberdiek) * New options: --hires, --exact, --filter, --help. * Many cosmetics: title, usage, ... * New code for debug, warning, error * Detecting of cygwin perl * Scanning for %%{Hires,Exact,}BoundingBox. * Scanning only the header in order not to get a wrong BoundingBox of an included file. * (atend) supported. * uses strict; (earlier error detecting). * changed first comment from %!PS to %!; * corrected (atend) pattern: \s*\(atend\) * using of $bbxpat in all BoundingBox cases, correct the first white space to ...Box:\s*$bb... * corrected first line (one line instead of two before if 0;; 2000/11/05 v2.6 (Heiko Oberdiek) * %%HiresBoundingBox corrected to %%HiResBoundingBox 2001/03/05 v2.7 (Heiko Oberdiek) * Newline before grestore for the case that there is no whitespace at the end of the eps file. 2003/02/02 (P[e]ter Szab[o]) * option --below * removes DOS EPSF binary junk correctly * adds all 3 BoundingBox DSC comments * reads all 3 BoundingBox DSC comments, and picks the best * forces BoundingBox to be an integer * adds %%EndComments and proper %!PS-Adobe-?-? EPSF-?.? header * adds %%Pages: * adds invocation syntax: a2ping * can convert PDF to EPS (by calling pdftops(1)) and PDF to PDF * emulates work for PDF input 2003/04/16 (P[e]ter Szab[o]) * added PS and sam2p support, renamed to a2ping * sam2p and pdftops if $InputFilename eq -; * remove PJL UEL header from the beginning * works for PS non-EPS files for input * input support for PNG JPEG TIFF PNM BMP GIF LBM XPM PCX TGA via sam2p * removes ^L (form feed) from end of EPS file * -x=-c:rle to add sam2p options 2003/04/26 (P[e]ter Szab[o]) * omit the unnecessary setpagedevice calls when creating normal eps * --noverbose --nocompress supported differently * no more option defaults :-( * justlib2 * multi-page output with PS:, PDF:, PCL5: * after a2ping -pa4, file out.pcl says: HP PCL printer data - A4 page size, instead of US letter * justlib2-ified doesnt depend on Getopt::Long anymore * fully supports filtering (stdin and/or stdout), PDF and PCL5 output to pipe (!$$ll_zero) * adds DSC %%DocumentMedia: plain 612 792 0 () () * BoundingBox precedence for EPS input: --PageSize, %%*BoundingBox, setpagedevice. Precedence for other inputs: --PageSize, setpagedevice, %%*BoundingBox 2003/09/25 (P[e]ter Szab[o]) * --bboxfrom=adsc: %%BoundingBox overrides -sDEVICE=bbox * improved bbox discovery * many bugfixes * MetaPost EPS input fixes for prologues:=0; * a2ping -v --papersize=50,60 --bboxfrom=compute-gs t.ps t2.ps * consistent bbox, --PageSize, /PageSize handling * consistent --Resolution and --Duplex handling 2003/12/02 (P[e]ter Szab[o]) * --bboxfrom=compute-gs option to fix PS -> EPS bbox (gs -sDEVICE=bbox), tuzv.eps 2004/02/10 v2.77p fixed (P[e]ter Szab[o]) * the compute-pipe routine is now run unless --bboxfrom=guess with EPS * added --gsextra= * added --antialias= * added FileFormat PBM, PGM, PPM * separated FileFormat features to FL_* constants * added --doc * there is no default FileFormat (PDF) anymore 2007/03/07 (P[e]ter Szab[o] and Frank Kster) * various improvements for tetex2 and tetex3 compatibility * various other improvements * POD documentation enhancements (font embedding tricks) by Frank Kster perl v5.8.8 2007-06-29 A2PING(1)