Anybody know how to get Ghostscript to convert an EPS file to a PDF file 
with the correct size?

I have an EPS file of a diagram that's about three inches square, but 
when I ask Ghostscript to convert it to PDF, I get an A4 page, which 
obviously isn't what I want.

Any ideas?

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Ah, PostScript. Yes, people mostly use it to print stuff on monochrome 
laser printers. But when you actually dig into it, it actually supports 
some pretty crazy stuff.

CIE colour specifications.

Spot colours.

Seperations.

Trappings.

Automatic tray selection.

You can even select whether the paper comes out face-down or face-up.

Obviously, very few devices *support* this stuff... (I would imagine you 
only care spot colours and trappings if you're doing industrial-grade 
printing.) But it's pretty crazy that it's in there, all the same.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 schrieb:

> Obviously, very few devices *support* this stuff... (I would imagine you 
> only care spot colours and trappings if you're doing industrial-grade 
> printing.) But it's pretty crazy that it's in there, all the same.

Given that industrial-grade printing is where it originally came from, 
it's not too surprising after all :-)

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>> Obviously, very few devices *support* this stuff... (I would imagine 
>> you only care spot colours and trappings if you're doing 
>> industrial-grade printing.) But it's pretty crazy that it's in there, 
>> all the same.
> 
> Given that industrial-grade printing is where it originally came from, 
> it's not too surprising after all :-)

Well, you say that, but it seems hard to imagine that the ordinary 
everyday PostScript technology that we all use is the same stuff as they 
use in industrial-grade printing applications. You'd think they would 
use some highly-specialised top-secret proprietry system that costs 
several billion dollars or something...

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Well, you say that, but it seems hard to imagine that the ordinary 
> everyday PostScript technology that we all use is the same stuff as they 
> use in industrial-grade printing applications. 

No. That was rather the whole point of inventing Postscript: to make the 
authors do the work of generating the camera-ready copy, and let the 
printers make even more money by only doing the fully-automated stuff but 
still charging the same amount of money.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   I ordered stamps from Zazzle that read "Place Stamp Here".

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>> Well, you say that, but it seems hard to imagine that the ordinary 
>> everyday PostScript technology that we all use is the same stuff as 
>> they use in industrial-grade printing applications. 
> 
> No. That was rather the whole point of inventing Postscript: to make the 
> authors do the work of generating the camera-ready copy, and let the 
> printers make even more money by only doing the fully-automated stuff 
> but still charging the same amount of money.

Ah, I see... ;-)

(In fairness, rasterising PostScript is a pretty heavy-metal task.)

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 schrieb:
>>> Obviously, very few devices *support* this stuff... (I would imagine 
>>> you only care spot colours and trappings if you're doing 
>>> industrial-grade printing.) But it's pretty crazy that it's in there, 
>>> all the same.
>>
>> Given that industrial-grade printing is where it originally came from, 
>> it's not too surprising after all :-)
> 
> Well, you say that, but it seems hard to imagine that the ordinary 
> everyday PostScript technology that we all use is the same stuff as they 
> use in industrial-grade printing applications. You'd think they would 
> use some highly-specialised top-secret proprietry system that costs 
> several billion dollars or something...

Yes. And some day a manufacturer of computers with a notoriously high 
price tag on them came and asked whether they could license the software 
to install it on the first office laser printers.

And guess what - the company that originally developed that 
highly-specialised system decided that yes, they wanted the extra income.

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Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> Anybody know how to get Ghostscript to convert an EPS file to a PDF file 
> with the correct size?
> 
> I have an EPS file of a diagram that's about three inches square, but 
> when I ask Ghostscript to convert it to PDF, I get an A4 page, which 
> obviously isn't what I want.
> 
> Any ideas?
> 

You could try asymptote to convert an .eps
to a .pdf of the same dimensions,
just create a one-line text file "x.asy" like:
==============8<==============
label(graphic("epsfile.eps"));
==============8<==============
and run
asy -f pdf x.asy

to get x.pdf

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Wee, isn't this fun?

I just tried making a PostScript file which prints out all 35 standard 
PS1 core fonts. I asked Ghostscript to convert this to PDF. I then 
printed the PDF file, and also sent the original PS to the laser printer.

Guess what? The fonts aren't quite the same. ;-)

First of all, Acrobat appears to have shrunk the PDF version by about 
5%. (This is probably something to do with the printer's printable 
margins or some such.) I reprinted with scaling turned off, and now the 
two pages match much more closely. (The bottom edge is still different 
though...)

Even then, there are differences. Most conspicuously:

- The font known as /ZapfChancery-MediumItalic is significantly wider in 
the printer's native font verses Ghostscript's font.

- The font known as /ZapfDingbats is the same size, but the symbols are 
not quite the same. (E.g., the character "i" is a 6-pointed star with 
rounded points. But in the Ghostscript font, it's rotated about 5 
degrees, whereas in the printer font it's exactly on-axis. The "g" is 
completely different; Ghostscript has a 12-pointed star, while the laer 
printer has an 8-pointed star, with alternating point thickness.)

Beyond that, the two printouts are extremely similar. However, there 
appear to be a number of very, very tiny differences:

- The "e" in the Avant Garde fonts. The horizontal bar appears to be 
very slightly lower in the printer font, and the gap between it and the 
curly tail is infintesimally narrower as a result.

- In /Bookman-Light, the "k" and "m" actually touch in the Ghostscript 
font, but there is a tiny gap in the printer font.

- In the various Courier fonts, the serif at the top of the "C" is very 
slightly bent in the printer font, but perfectly straight in the 
Ghostscript font.

- /Courier-Bold seems to have a very slightly heavier weight in the 
printer font. (Not by much though.)

- The "-" character in the Courier family is longer in the printer font 
then the Ghostscript font.

- In the Helvetica family, the edge of the tail in "e" is exactly 
horizontal in the printer font, but angled in the Ghostscript font. 
(Also for "c".)

- In /NewCenturySchlbk-Romain, the seriefs on the "u" are different. 
They're wedge-shaped, but on the printer the TOP of the wedge is angled, 
but the Ghostscript font has the BOTTOM of the wedge angled. A few other 
letters exhibit this difference.

These and other tiny differences lead me to conclude that the fonts are 
not the same.

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Invisible wrote:

> - The "e" in the Avant Garde fonts. The horizontal bar appears to be 
> very slightly lower in the printer font, and the gap between it and the 
> curly tail is infintesimally narrower as a result.
> 
> - In /Bookman-Light, the "k" and "m" actually touch in the Ghostscript 
> font, but there is a tiny gap in the printer font.
> 
> - In the various Courier fonts, the serif at the top of the "C" is very 
> slightly bent in the printer font, but perfectly straight in the 
> Ghostscript font.
> 
> - /Courier-Bold seems to have a very slightly heavier weight in the 
> printer font. (Not by much though.)
> 
> - The "-" character in the Courier family is longer in the printer font 
> then the Ghostscript font.
> 
> - In the Helvetica family, the edge of the tail in "e" is exactly 
> horizontal in the printer font, but angled in the Ghostscript font. 
> (Also for "c".)
> 
> - In /NewCenturySchlbk-Romain, the seriefs on the "u" are different. 
> They're wedge-shaped, but on the printer the TOP of the wedge is angled, 
> but the Ghostscript font has the BOTTOM of the wedge angled. A few other 
> letters exhibit this difference.

...OK, wow. Jesus Christ I need a better job! O_O

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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