NAME
pstopnm - convert a PostScript file into a portable anymap
SYNOPSIS
pstopnm [-stdout] [-forceplain] [-help] [-llx s] [-lly s] [-landscape]
[-portrait] [-nocrop] [-pbm |-pgm |-ppm] [-urx s] [-ury s] [-verbose]
[-xborder n] [-xmax n] [-xsize f] [-yborder f] [-ymax n] [-ysize n]
psfile[.ps]
DESCRIPTION
Reads a PostScript file as input. Produces PBM, PGM, or PPM files as
output. This program simply uses GhostScript to render a PostScript
file with its PNM device drivers. If you don’t have GhostScript
installed (invoked by a gs command), or the version you have installed
was not built with the relevant PNM device drivers, pstopnm will fail.
You can see if you have the proper environment by issuing the command
gs --help . If it responds and lists under "Available Devices" pbm,
pbmraw, pgm, pgmraw, pnm, pnmraw, ppm, or ppmraw, you’re in business.
pstopnm does not use the Netpbm libraries to generate the output files,
so may not be entirely consistent with most Netpbm programs.
psfile[.ps] is the name of the input file. .pstopnm will add the ps to
the end of the name you specify if no file exists by the exact name you
specify, but one with added does. Use - to indicate Standard Input.
If you use the -stdout option, pstopnm outputs images of all the pages
as a multi-image file to Standard Output. Otherwise, pstopnm creates
one file for each page in the Postscript document. The files are named
as follows: If the input file is named psfile.ps, the name of the files
will be psfile001.ppm, psfile002.ppm, etc. The filetype suffix is
.ppm, .pgm, or .pbm, depending on which kind of output you choose with
your invocation options. If the input file name does not end in .ps,
the whole file name is used in the output file name. For example, if
the input file is named psfile.old, the output file name is
psfile.old001.ppm, etc.
Note that the output file selection is inconsistent with most Netpbm
programs, because it does not default to Standard Output. This is for
historical reasons, based on the fact that the Netpbm formats did not
always provide for a sequence of images in a single file.
Each output file contains the image of a rectangular part of the page
to which it pertains. The selected area will always be centered in the
output file, and may have borders around it. The image area to be
extracted from the PostScript file and rendered into a portable anymap
is defined by four numbers, the lower left corner and the upper right
corner x and y coordinates. These coordinates are usually specified by
the BoundingBox comment in the PostScript file header, but they can be
overridden by the user by specifying one or more of the following
options: -llx, -lly, -urx, and -ury. The presence and thickness of a
border to be left around the image area is controlled by the use of the
options -xborder and -yborder. If pstopnm does not find BoundingBox
parameters in the input, and you don’t specify image area coordinates
on the command line, pstopnm uses default values. If your input is
from Standard Input, pstopnm does not use the BoundingBox parameters
(due to the technical difficulty of extracting that information and
still feeding the file to Ghostscript), so you either have to specify
the image area coordinates or take the default.
Unless you specify both output file width and height, via the -xsize
and -ysize options, pstopnm maps the document into the output image by
preserving its aspect ratio.
It has been reported that on some Postscript Version 1 input,
Ghostscript, and therefore pstopnm, produces no output. To solve this
problem, you can convert the file to Postscript Version 3 with the
program ps2ps. It is reported that the program pstops does not work.
OPTIONS
-forceplain
forces the output file to be in plain (text) format. Otherwise,
it is in raw (binary) format. See pbm(1), etc.
-llx bx
selects bx as the lower left corner x coordinate (in inches).
-lly by
selects by as the lower left corner y coordinate (in inches).
-landscape
renders the image in landscape mode.
-portrait
renders the image in portrait mode.
-nocrop
does not crop the output image dimensions to match the
PostScript image area dimensions.
-pbm -pgm -ppm
selects the format of the output file. By default, all files
are rendered as portable pixmaps (ppm format).
-stdout
causes output to go to Standard Output instead of to regular
files, one per page (see description of output files above).
Use pnmsplit to extract individual pages from Standard Output.
-urx tx
selects tx as the upper right corner x coordinate (in inches).
-ury ty
selects ty as the upper right corner y coordinate (in inches).
-verbose
prints processing information to stdout.
-xborder frac
specifies that the border width along the Y axis should be frac
times the document width as specified by the bounding box
comment in the PostScript file header. The default value is
0.1.
-xmax xs
specifies that the maximum output image width should have a size
less or equal to xs pixels (default: 612).
-xsize xsize
specifies that the output image width must be exactly xs pixels.
-yborder frac
specifies that the border width along the X axis should be frac
times the document width as specified by the bounding box
comment in the PostScript file header. The default value is
0.1.
-ymax ys
specifies that the maximum output image height should have a
size less or equal to ys pixels (default: 792).
-ysize ys
specifies that the output image height must be exactly ys
pixels.
BUGS
The program will produce incorrect results with PostScript files that
initialize the current transformation matrix. In these cases, page
translation and rotation will not have any effect. To render these
files, probably the best bet is to use the following options:
pstopnm -xborder 0 -yborder 0 -portrait -nocrop file.ps
Additional options may be needed if the document is supposed to be
rendered on a medium different from letter-size paper.
SEE ALSO
gs(1), pstofits(1), pnmtops(1), psidtopgm(1), pbmtolps(1),
pbmtoepsi(1), pnmsplit(1)
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1992 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
PostScript is a Trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
AUTHOR
Alberto Accomazzi, WIPL, Center for Astrophysics.
28 June 2000 pstopnm(1)