Include pdf through includegraphics breaks pstricks/auto-pst-pdf

auto-pst-pdfincludegraphicspstricks

EDIT: problem was coming from a borked installation of texlive on Opensuse (some packages were not updated, so texlive was a mix of 2017 and 2021).

It seems newer versions of pstricks and/or (pdf)latex break when including a pdf via includegraphics and using pstricks code, unless the includegraphics is hidden inside a \ifpdf … \fi block. This had always worked until I updated texlive recently.

Here is a minimal example:

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{ifpdf}
\usepackage{pst-all}
\usepackage[on]{auto-pst-pdf}
\begin{document}

%\ifpdf
\includegraphics[height=3.5cm]{some_pdf_file.pdf}
%\fi

\begin{postscript}
\begin{pspicture}(0,0)(18,10)
\pspolygon[fillstyle=solid,fillcolor=lightgray,linewidth=0](0,3)(0,0)(3,0)(3,3)
\end{pspicture}
\end{postscript}
\end{document}

compiling this with pdflatex –shell-escape produces the following error:

Error: /undefined in obj
Operand stack:
   1   0
Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   1974   1   3   %oparray_pop   1973   1   3   %oparray_pop   1961   1   3   %oparray_pop   1817   1   3   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   %errorexec_pop   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:736/1123(ro)(G)--   --dict:0/20(G)--   --dict:191/200(L)--   --dict:97/300(L)--   --dict:45/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Current file position is 146540
GPL Ghostscript 9.52: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1
system returned with code 256
PDFCROP 1.40, 2020/06/06 - Copyright (c) 2002-2020 by Heiko Oberdiek, Oberdiek Package Support Group.

!!! Warning: Empty Bounding Box is returned by Ghostscript!
!!!   Page 1: 0 0 0 0
!!! Either there is a problem with the page or with Ghostscript.
!!! Recovery is tried by embedding the page in its original size.

whereas the error disappears after uncommenting the \ifpdf and \fi .

Best Answer

I have no problem with

\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{pst-all}
\usepackage[pspdf={-dNOSAFER -dALLOWPSTRANSPARENCY}]{auto-pst-pdf}
\begin{document}

\includegraphics[height=3.5cm]{tiger.pdf}

\begin{pspicture}(0,0)(18,10)
\pspolygon[fillstyle=solid,fillcolor=lightgray,linewidth=0](0,3)(0,0)(3,0)(3,3)
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}

However, running it with lualatex (needs an up-do-date TeX distribution) makes life easier ....

\RequirePackage{pdfmanagement-testphase}% needed for transparency
\DeclareDocumentMetadata{}
\documentclass[10pt]{article}
\usepackage{pst-all,graphicx}
\begin{document}

\includegraphics[height=3.5cm]{tiger.pdf}

\begin{pspicture}(0,0)(3,3)
\pspolygon[fillstyle=solid,fillcolor=lightgray,linewidth=0](0,3)(0,0)(3,0)(3,3)
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] auto-pst-pdf Problem

If you want all PSTricks code to be imported from within the TeX main input file, then it will be better using xelatex than using pdflatex +auto-pst-pdf. There are many limitations of using pdflatex + auto-pst-pdf. I will list the details in the next edit.

If you want some PSTricks code to be imported in the TeX main input file and the remaining PSTricks code to be converted to PDF images, then use xelatex + preview package.

If your PSTricks code

makes use of \label as in the following example:

\begin{equation}\label{eq:Einstein}
\rnode{A}{E}=mc^\rnode{B}{2}
\ncbar[angle=90]{A}{B}
\end{equation}

or imports an image of type PNG, PDF, JPG as in the following example:

\newsavebox\IBox
\savebox\IBox{\includegraphics{image.jpg}}
\pspicture(\wd\IBox,\ht\IBox)
\rput[bl](0,0){\usebox\IBox}
\endpspicture

or works together with animate package as in the following example:

\animateinline[palindrome,autoplay]{10}
\multiframe{11}{r=1+-0.1}{%
\pspicture(2,2)
\pscircle*[linecolor=red,opacity=0.5](1,1){\r}
\endpspicture}
\endanimateinline

then pdflatex -enable-write18 + auto-pst-pdf cannot be used to produce the correct result.

The solution: use xelatex instead but it runs very very slowly if you compile the whole input files. To speed up the compilation, you should divide the your input file into several sub-files. Put each of "independent" PSTricks fragment into a separate input file and compile it to produce a single PDF output.

Note: An independent PSTricks fragment is a PSTricks code that does not belong to the 3 cases mentioned above.

An example of an "independent" PSTricks fragment:

% frame.tex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{pstricks}

% preview must come after any pstricks package!
\usepackage[active,tightpage]{preview}
\PreviewBorder=0pt\relax

% Either
\PreviewEnvironment{pspicture}
% or
%\PreviewEnvironment{pspicture*}

\begin{document}
\begin{pspicture}(1,1)
\psframe(1,1)
\end{pspicture}
\end{document}

Compile it with xelatex (slower than the snail) or latex-dvips-ps2pdf (faster than the light) and you will get frame.pdf.

Later, you can import the frame.pdf from within your main input file as follows:

% main.tex
\documentclass{article}
\usepackage{graphicx}
\begin{document}
\includegraphics{frame.pdf}\newpage


    \animateinline[palindrome,autoplay]{10}
    \multiframe{11}{r=1+-0.1}{%
    \pspicture(2,2)
    \pscircle*[linecolor=red,opacity=0.5](1,1){\r}
    \endpspicture}
    \endanimateinline

\end{document}

Once again, compile the main input file using xelatex only. But compilation becomes faster! Note: latex-dvips-ps2pdf cannot import PDF images, that is why you have to use xelatex only!

NOTE: The main input file must NOT load preview package if you load animate package. Practically, you never need to load preview in the main input file, only sub-files need preview.

[Tex/LaTex] Using [pdf]{pstricks} with beamer doesn’t work, but auto-pst-pdf does, why

with [pdf] the package auto-pst-pdf is loaded with \AtBeginDocument. This doesn't work with Beamer. However, I've forgotten why I used the late loading of the package with \AtBeginDocument. I'll see if I can fix it.

Edit: With current TeXLive from tomorrow it works now (or pstricks.sty from http://texnik.dante.de/tex/latex/pstricks/) . Don't know if this is also true for MikTeX

Best Answer

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] auto-pst-pdf Problem

[Tex/LaTex] Using [pdf]{pstricks} with beamer doesn’t work, but auto-pst-pdf does, why

Related Question