Friday, October 12, 2007

Converting PDF images to EPS

I've had to convert PDF images to EPS quite often over the past few days, and I've developed a foolproof if intricate process to do this conversion. It is especially good for if you only want to convert a small section of a document (i.e. a figure), because if you want to convert the entire document, Ghostview/Ghostscript can do it for you in one step.

Here is my process:
1. Open document in Adobe Reader. Use the Snapshot Tool to select desired area.
2. Open Paint. Paste from clipboard. Save as jpg.
3. Use jpeg2ps to convert to EPS.
4. If necessary, use Ghostview/Ghostscript to resize bounding box. (Select "PS to EPS" under File menu)

If your jpg image is too large, part of it might get cut off in the jpeg2ps conversion. If this happens, resize your jpg image so that it's smaller.

If you know of an easier way to do this, I'd be interested to hear about it. Also please share other document/latex tips you might have.

3 comments:

Ann said...

I have a really good LaTex reference book: a guide to LaTex, by Helmut Kopka. If anyone needs to borrow it, it's in the bookshelf on my desk. Please send me an email or leave me a note if you do.

S S said...

I've used Gimp in the past, it's a very comprehensive image editing program.

Ann said...

In the new versions of pdf, you can also print just a figure as a whole page by selecting the figure with the figure select tool, then choosing "print" with the figure still selected. You should be able to print just the figure to another pdf file, then use ghostscript to convert the whole pdf file to eps.