pstoedit man page on Debian

Man page or keyword search:  
man Server   8174 pages
apropos Keyword Search (all sections)
Output format
Debian logo
[printable version]

PSTOEDIT(1)		       Conversion Tools			   PSTOEDIT(1)

NAME
       pstoedit - a tool converting PostScript and PDF files into various vec‐
       tor 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]  [-q]  [-nq]  [-nc]	 [-nsp]	 [-mergelines]
       [-filledrecttostroke] [-mergetext] [-dt] [-adt] [-ndt] [-correctdefine‐
       font]  [-pti] [-pta] [-xscale number] [-yscale number] [-xshift number]
       [-yshift number] [-centered]  [-split]  [-v]  [-usebbfrominput]	[-ssp]
       [-uchar	character]  [-nb]  [-page page number] [-flat flatness factor]
       [-sclip]	 [-ups]	 [-rgb]	 [-useagl]  [-noclip]  [-t2fontsast1]  [-keep]
       [-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] -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 3.50 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	 addi‐
       tional  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 Post‐
       Script,	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 pro‐
       gram. However, you can perform some "back end only" processing of files
       following the conventions of the pstoedit intermediate formate by spec‐
       ifying 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  con‐
       tains  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	 trig‐
       gers  the  drawing functions in the selected output format driver some‐
       time 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

       [-split]
	       Create a new file for each page of the input. For this the out‐
	      put  filename  must contain a %d which is replaced with the cur‐
	      rent 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 - over‐
	      writes 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  out‐
	      file.

       [-psarg argument string]
	       The  string given with this option is passed directly to Ghost‐
	      script 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.) You can  switch  Ghostscript  into
	      PostScript Level 1 only mode by -psarg "level1.ps".  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. 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.

       -f "format[:options]"
	       target  output format recognized by pstoedit.  Since other for‐
	      mat 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, ver‐
	      sion 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	gener‐
	      ated  by	dvips(1).   In such a case pstoedit uses a replacement
	      font. The default for this is Courier. Another font can be spec‐
	      ified  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.

       [-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. gnu‐
	      plot(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".

       [-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 define‐
	      font 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  pro‐
	      duce  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	 "pre‐
	      cision 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 encod‐
	      ing 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  normaliza‐
	      tion  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 fol‐
	      lowing 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"	 nota‐
       tion.

       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  dis‐
       tribution.

   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	 Post‐
	      Script 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 intermedi‐
	      ate format - normally useful for trouble shooting and  debugging
	      only.

       [-keep]
	       keep  the  intermediate	files produced by pstoedit - for debug
	      purposes only

       [-gstest]
	       perform a basic test for the interworking with GhostScript

   DRAWING RELATED OPTIONS
       [-nc]
	       no curves.  Normally pstoedit tries to  keep  curves  from  the
	      input and transfers them to the output if the output format sup‐
	      ports 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 poly‐
	      gons 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 Post‐
	      Script output. pstoedit is able to recombine these, if they fol‐
	      low  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 produc‐
	      ing 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	 some‐
	      time  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 Post‐
	      Script pathes containing sub pathes, i.e. pathes with intermedi‐
	      ate  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 Post‐
	      Script 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 dif‐
	      ferent from the input due to clipping. In addition, this	"simu‐
	      lated  clipping"	is  not	 exactly  the same as defined in Post‐
	      Script. There might be lines drawn  at  the  double  size.  Also
	      clipping	of  text  is not supported unless you also use the -dt
	      option.

   INPUT AND OUTFILE FILE ARGUMENTS
       [ 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 stan‐
       dard  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

AVAILABLE FORMATS AND THEIR SPECIFIC OPTIONS
       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 dou‐
       ble-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

   gs - any device that GhostScript provides - use gs:format, e.g. gs:pdfwrite
       No driver specific options

   ps2ai - Adobe Illustrator via ps2ai.ps of GhostScript
       No driver specific options

   gmfa - ASCII GNU metafile
       [plotformat string]
	       plotutil format to generate

   gmfb - binary GNU metafile
       [plotformat string]
	       plotutil format to generate

   plot - GNU libplot output types, e.g. plot:type X
       [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 deter‐
       mined 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
       [-pen]
	       plotter is pen plotter

       [-pencolors number]
	       number of pen colors available

       [-filltype string]
	       select fill type e.g. FT 1

       [-rot90]
	       rotate hpgl by 90 degrees

       [-rot180]
	       rotate hpgl by 180 degrees

       [-rot270]
	       rotate hpgl by 270 degrees

   pic - PIC format for troff et.al.
       [-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

   asy - Asymptote Format
       No driver specific options

   dxf - CAD exchange format
       [-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 approxi‐
	      mation 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)

   dxf_s - CAD exchange format with splines
       [-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 approxi‐
	      mation 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)

   fig - .fig format for xfig
       The  xfig  format  driver supports special fontnames, which may be pro‐
       duced by using a fontmap file. The following types of  names  are  sup‐
       ported :
       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)

   xfig - .fig format for xfig
       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)

   gnuplot - gnuplot format
       No driver specific options

   gschem - gschem format
       See also: http://www.geda.seul.org/tools/gschem/

       No driver specific options

   idraw - Interviews draw format (EPS)
       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

   kil - .kil format for Kontour
       No driver specific options

   latex2e - LaTeX2e picture format
       [-integers]
	       round all coordinates to the nearest integer

   lwo - LightWave 3D Object Format
       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

   noixml - Nemetschek NOI XML format
       Nemetschek Object Interface XML format

       [-r string]
	       Allplan resource file

       [-bsl number]
	       Bezier Split Level (default 3)

   pcbi - engrave data - insulate/PCB format
       See  http://home.vr-web.de/~hans-juergen-jahn/software/devpcb.html  for
       more details.

       No driver specific options

   pcb - pcb format
       See    also:	http://pcb.sourceforge.net     and     http://www.pen‐
       guin.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

   pcbfill - pcb format with fills
       See also: http://pcb.sourceforge.net

       No driver specific options

   pdf - Adobe's Portable Document Format
       No driver specific options

   rib - RenderMan Interface Bytestream
       No driver specific options

   rpl - Real3D Programming Language Format
       No driver specific options

   sample - sample driver: if you don't want to see this, uncomment the corre‐
       sponding line in makefile and make again
       this is a long description for the sample driver

       [-sampleoption integer]
	       just an example

   sk - Sketch Format
       No driver specific options

   svm - StarView/OpenOffice.org metafile
       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

   tgif - Tgif .obj format
       [-ta]
	       text as attribute

   tk - tk and/or tk applet source code
       [-R]
	       swap HW

       [-I]
	       no impress

       [-n string]
	       tagnames

   wmf - Windows metafile
       [-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 never‐
	      theless not split and still looks fine.

       [-winbb]
	       let the Windows API calculate the Bounding Box (Windows only)

       [-OO]
	       generate OpenOffice compatible EMF file

   emf - Enhanced Windows metafile
       [-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	never‐
	      theless 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	Ghost‐
       Script  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. Any‐
       one 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	 Post‐
       Script'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

   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 mem‐
	      ory capacity.

       *      Some PostScript constructs are not supported directly  by	 "pic‐
	      ture", but can be handled by external packages. If a figure uses
	      color, the top-level document  will  need	 to  do	 a  "\usepack‐
	      age{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 portabil‐
	      ity; 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 sur‐
	      rounding document (with help from the hyperref package).

   CREATING A NEW OUTPUT FORMAT DRIVER
       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 for‐
       mat 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 envi‐
       ronment 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 addi‐
       tional 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 envi‐
       ronment 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  suc‐
       cessfully 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 origi‐
       nal 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 oth‐
       ers 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 replace‐
	      ment font. This is done for each text fragment  displayed.  Spe‐
	      cial  character  encoding	 support is limited in this case. If a
	      character cannot be mapped into the target format, pstoedit dis‐
	      plays 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	 clip‐
	      ping  (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	 acti‐
	      vated	from	 a     html-document.	  See	  the	  con‐
	      trib/java/java1/readme_java1.txt		   or		  con‐
	      trib/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

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.

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 dia‐
	      grams and updated the structure and content of this manpage fol‐
	      lowing release 2.5.

       *      David  B.	 Rosen	rosen_AT_unr.edu provided ideas and some Post‐
	      Script 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 for‐
	      mat driver.

       *      Christoph	 Jaeschke provided the OS/2 metafile (MET) output for‐
	      mat 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 for‐
	      mat 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 output format driver.

       *      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 for‐
	      mat 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  bir‐
	      rell_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  Rus‐
	      sell  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 attri‐
       bution 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 addi‐
       tional plugins.

       Aladdin Ghostscript is a redistributable software  package  with	 copy‐
       right 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 respon‐
       sible  for  its	use  for  any  purpose,	 or  for the results generated
       thereby.

       Restrictions such as the foregoing may apply in other countries accord‐
       ing to international conventions and agreements.

Conversion Tools		  August 2009			   PSTOEDIT(1)
[top]

List of man pages available for Debian

Copyright (c) for man pages and the logo by the respective OS vendor.

For those who want to learn more, the polarhome community provides shell access and support.

[legal] [privacy] [GNU] [policy] [cookies] [netiquette] [sponsors] [FAQ]
Tweet
Polarhome, production since 1999.
Member of Polarhome portal.
Based on Fawad Halim's script.
....................................................................
Vote for polarhome
Free Shell Accounts :: the biggest list on the net