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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] <inputfile> [[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 doesn't 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 doesn't  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 doesn't.

    * 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 doesn't 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 doesn't 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
  * Doesn't 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] <pts AT fazekas.hu>.

  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 Hagen's 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 <infile.eps> <outfile.eps|pdf>
   * 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 doesn't 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 Kuster)

   * various improvements for tetex2 and tetex3 compatibility
   * various other improvements
   * POD documentation enhancements (font embedding tricks) by Frank Kuster



perl v5.8.8                                 2007-06-29                                  A2PING(1)

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