ps2epsi(1)

NAME
ps2epsi - generate conforming postscript

SYNOPSIS
ps2epsi infile.ps [ outfile.ps ] (Unix)
ps2epsi infile.ps outfile.epi
        (MS-DOS)

DESCRIPTION
ps2epsi is a utility, based on Ghostscript, which takes as input a postscript file and generates a new output file which conforms to Adobe's Encapsulated Postscript Interchange or EPSI format. This is a special form of encapsulated postscript (EPS) which adds a bitmap version of the final displayed page (in the form of postscript comments) to the beginning of the file. This bitmap can be used by programs which understand EPSI (usually word processors or DTP programs) to give a preview version of the postscript on screen. The displayed quality is often not very good (eg. low resolution, no colours), but the final printed version uses the real postscript, and thus has the normal postscript quality.

OPTIONS
None.

UNIX USAGE
Using the supplied shell script, the command is:
    ps2epsi infile.ps [ outfile.epsi ]
where infile.ps is the input file and outfile.epsi is the output EPSI file. If the output filename is omitted, it will be generated from the input filename. If a standard extension (.ps, .cps, .eps or .epsf) is used, it will be replaced with the output extension .epsi.

MSDOS USAGE
Using the supplied batch file, the command is simply:
    ps2epsi infile.ps outfile.epi
where infile.ps is the original postscript file, and outfile.epi is the name of the output file.

LIMITATIONS
Successful encapsulation of arbitrary postscript files cannot be guaranteed, as there are certain restrictions in what is permitted in a postscript file for it to be properly encapsulated. ps2epsi does a little extra work to try to help encapsulation, and it automatically calculates the bounding box (required for all encapsulated postscript files), so, most of the time, it does a pretty good job. There are bound to be cases, however, where the encapsulation will not work, because of the content of the original postscript file.

FRAMEMAKER
The Framemaker DTP system is one application which understands EPSI files, and ps2epsi has been tested on a number of postscript diagrams from a variety of sources, using Framemaker 3.0 on a Sun. Framemaker on other platforms should be able to use these files, although I have not been able to test this.

FILES
ps2epsi.bat	- MSDOS batch file
ps2epsi		- Unix shell script
ps2epsi.ps	- the Ghostscript program which does the work

SEE ALSO
gs(1)

AUTHOR
George Cameron <george@bio-medical-physics.aberdeen.ac.uk>