pstoedit
pstoedit translates PostScript and PDF graphics into other vector formats.
Currently pstoedit can generate the following formats:
- Tgif .obj format (for tgif version >= 3)
- (Frame)Maker Intermediate Format
- .fig format for xfig
- pdf - Adobe's Portable Document Format
- gnuplot format
- Flattened PostScript
- OS/2 meta files (under OS/2 only)
- Windows meta files (WMF) (under DOS/Windows only)
- DXF - CAD exchange format
- CGM Format binary and textual
- LWO - LightWave 3D
- RIB - RenderMan
- RPL - Real3D
- Java applet
- Idraw format
Implementing support for other formats should be very easy.
The architecture of pstoedit consists of a PostScript frontend which
needs to call a PostScript interpreter like Ghostscript and the
individual backends which are pugged into a kind of framework.
This framework can be used independently from the PostScript frontend
from any other program. The framework provides a uniform interface to
all different backends.
You need a C++ compiler to install and GhostScript to run pstoedit.
pstoedit should run on all Un*x like systems and has also been ported
to OS/2, DOS/Windows, and RiscOS.
You can download pstoedit (source code) from:
You can more information from
New or changed in 2.60:
New backend for idraw contributed by Scott Pakin
Internal redesign in order to support the usage of the drivers from
other programs, not just from pstoedit.
Full implementation of kshow, xshow, yshow, xyshow
Added -psargs option and removed -rnnxnn option
Added -include option
Fixed the linecap and linejoin problem for MIF
Port to RiscOS done by Rob Warner
winp2eap.def missing in distribution
Fixed a problem with .ps files that redefined showpage themselves
Fixed some problems related to the 'string' operator. Some
PostScript programs used to redefine 'string'.
Fixed a portabiltiy problem for DecAlpha
Fixed some OS/2 compilation problems
Fixed some DEC compilation problems
Fixed a problem that caused pstoedit to 'draw' each character when running gs3.5x
Added support for Frame-specific encoding of special characters
Fixed an encoding bug for PDF (minus was defined twice)
New or changed in 2.50:
- New backend for WMF, contributed by Jens Weber (wr@lzh1.lzh.de)
- Windows GUI, contributed by Jens Weber (wr@lzh1.lzh.de)
- direct handling of .pdf files (as input) (Thanks to ghostscript
and the -dNOBIND option !!)
- fixed a bug caused by ignoring the textmatrix
- changed the pdf output so that xpdf accepts it
- Fonts not supported by the selected backend, are now "drawn"
automatically, as if the option -dt was given for them.
- implemented the different show's for pdf
- handling of reencoded fonts.
- support for dashed lines (so far for cgm, xfig, and pdf only)
- added workaround for bug in libg++ on some linux systems
(Thanks to derekn@vw.ece.cmu.edu (Derek B. Noonburg)
and rd@berlepsch.wohnheim.uni-ulm.de (Rainer Dorsch)
for taking care of this linux specific problem and the workaround)
- fixed a bug with ordering of text and lines
- replaced usage of tmpnam by tempnam so the user can
control the place where temp files are allocated.
(via TMPDIR under *nix, TMP or TEMP under DOS/Win)
- Bold was not treated correctly in MIF backend
- Gnuplot backend could not be called
- zero length text caused problems with some backends
- ^M caused problems with some backends.
- handling filenames containing \
- fixed compile errors with some compilers in drvjava.cc
- added support for linecaps in PDF backend
New or changed in 2.41:
- changed makefile for DOS
- fixed problem in pdf backend with '\' characters
- fixed a problem with linewidth (all backends)
- three new backends from Glenn Lewis
- LWO (LightWave 3D)
- RIB (RenderMan)
- RPL (Real3D)
- Piet van Oostrum fixed two problems in the pdf backend.
- Added -f "pdf:-e encoding" as a temporary fix to the problem of
different font encodings. See also pstoedit.man.
- Added some heuristic to calculate the MediaBox for PDF.
- Removed writing of comments to PDF because of problems with xpdf.
- Integrated some new features of the cd1.2 library for the CGM backend.
- Added a backend to generate a Java(tm) applet
- Some changes to compile without warnings
New or changed in 2.40:
- a GNUplot backend contributed by Carsten Hammer
- a first DXF backend contributed by Carsten Hammer
( a more complete version will be available
in one of the next release. If you have urgent
need for it contact Wolfgang.Glunz@mchp.siemens.de )
- a OS/2 Metafile backend contributed by Christoph Jaeschke
- a PDF backend
- no shell script anymore. Pure C++ programm.
- also runs on DOS, OS/2.
- tgif backend extended to support rotated text.
(needs tgif version >= 3.0 pl 7 )
- some bug fixes
Wolfgang Glunz email: Wolfgang.Glunz@mchp.siemens.de