ps2epsi uses gs(1) to process a PostScript(tm) file and
generate as output a new file which conforms to Adobe's Encapsulated
PostScript Interchange (EPSI) format. EPSI is a special form of
encapsulated PostScript (EPS) which adds to the beginning of the file in
the form of PostScript comments a bitmapped version of the final displayed
page. Programs which understand EPSI (usually word processors or DTP
programs) can use this bitmap to give a preview version on screen of the
PostScript. The displayed quality is often not very good (e.g., low
resolution, no colours), but the final printed version uses the real
PostScript, and thus has the normal PostScript quality.
USAGE
On Unix systems invoke ps2epsi like this:
ps2epsiinfile.ps [ outfile.epsi ]
where "infile.ps" is the input file and "outfile.epsi" is the resulting
EPSI file. If the output filename is omitted, it is generated from the
input filename. When a standard extension (".ps", ".cps", ".eps" or
".epsf") is used, it is replaced with the output extension ".epsi". On
DOS systems the command is:
ps2epsiinfile.ps outfile.epi
where "infile.ps" is the original PostScript file, and "outfile.epi"
is the name of the output file.
LIMITATIONS
Not every PostScript file can be encapsulated successfully, because there
are restrictions on what PostScript constructs a correct encapsulated file
may contain. 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 certain to be cases, however, where the encapsulation
does not work because of the content of the original PostScript file.
COMPATIBILITY
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 workstation.
Framemaker on other platforms should be able to use these files, although I
have not been able to test this.
FILES
ps2epsi
Unix shell script
ps2epsi.bat
DOS batch file
ps2epsi.ps
the Ghostscript program which does the work
SEE ALSO
gs (1)
VERSION
This document was last revised for Ghostscript version 8.15.
However, the content may be obsolete, or inconsistent with ps2epsi.txt.
