# Epspdf and epspdftk

A multiplatform GUI- and command-line converter for [e]ps and pdf.

Siep Kroonenberg,
`siepo at cybercomm dot nl`

Current online version of this page

Legacy Ruby-based versions

## Table of Contents

- Features
- Prerequisites
- Installation
- Files
- Releases

## Features

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

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

Ghostscript can convert PostScript to pdf. However, few people are prepared to deal with the ghostscript command-line. Several command-line utilities try to help out, e.g. epstopdf, a2ping, and the convert utility from ImageMagick. But many users simply want a GUI.

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

A lot more can be done with multistep conversions: grayscaling, page selection, computing a tight boundingbox. People who depend on PSTricks will appreciate the option to go from pdf to PostScript.

Where it makes sense, epspdf uses additional software for a better outcome.

The command-line program epspdf is written in texlua, which is already part of recent versions of MikTeX and TeX Live. Versions prior to 0.6 were written in Ruby. Epspdftk, its GUI companion, is written in in Tcl/Tk.

Starting with the 2008 edition, TeX Live includes epspdf in some form as an optional package, complete with wrapper scripts epspdf and epspdftk which can be called from the command-line without further ado.

There is also a third-party LaTeX package epspdfconversion which uses epspdf for on-the-fly conversion of eps graphics to pdf, with options to control grayscaling and boundingbox generation. See CTAN or your TeX distribution.

## Prerequisites

These are the required and optional prerequisites, which will be checked for when epspdf starts:

- A recent TeX installation, either TeX Live or MikTeX. If this is not an option, get a legacy version of epspdf instead.
- Ghostscript
- Optional: pdftops from the xpdf suite or from the Poppler utilities. Pdftops may do a better job of preserving scalable fonts when converting from pdf to ps.
- Tcl/Tk for the GUI interface. Versions 8.4 and 8.5 have been tested. A single-file TclKit runtime is sufficient. Recent Windows precompiled tclkit binaries are available.
- Optional: viewers for PostScript and pdf

On Windows, both MikTeX and TeX Live already include a copy of Ghostscript. TeX Live for Windows also includes pdftops.

If you have MiKTeX and a copy of pdftops.exe, then you can point epspdf to this file from within the GUI. You need to do this only once.

## Installation

If you have a sufficiently recent standalone TeX Live, just install the package. Otherwise:

### Unix/Linux

Unpack the archive somewhere and create symlinks to epspdf.tlu and epspdftk.tcl in a directory on your searchpath.

### Windows setup program

This is a conventional Windows installer. If it does not find texlua.exe on the searchpath then it gives a warning and a chance to abort. It creates a shortcut to the epspdftk GUI and it also creates an uninstaller.

It installs epspdftk in the form of a so-called starpack, which consists of the epspdftk script and a Tcl/Tk runtime, wrapped into a single file. The command-line script epspdf.tlu remains a separate file.

This installer has been created with NSIS.

### Windows zipfile

Download the epspdf zip file, unpack it somewhere and create a batchfile epspdf.bat such as

    texlua "<path_to_epspdf.tlu>" %*

for epspdf.tlu, and a batchfile epspdftk.bat

    wish85 "<path_to_epspdftk.tcl>" %1

for epspdftk.tcl. The wish executable might also be named wish[.exe] or wish84[.exe]. The first command-line parameter will be interpreted as startup directory for the file browser. Make sure that wish85 and these batchfiles are on your searchpath.

Epspdf[tk] has been tested with Windows XP, Windows 7 and Windows 8.

## Files

- epspdf.0.6.0.tgz preferred for Unix and Mac OS X
- epspdf.0.6.0.zip preferred for Windows if you don't want to use the installer below
- epspdf.0.6.0.exe Windows setup program which installs epspdf with a buit-in Tcl/Tk runtime.

## Releases

- 0.6.0 Current version. Command-line component rewritten in texlua.
- Legacy Ruby-based versions

Last revised: February 7, 2013