[Tex/LaTex] Creating standalone eps files and using batch files to automate the process

conversionepspdf

I have been looking at these posts

How to fix EPS with incorrect bounding box?

Cannot determine size of graphic in * (no BoundingBox)

How to convert PDF to EPS?

How to produce EPS instead of PS using latex.exe followed by dvips?

in order to understand how to create a standalone pdf from an eps figure and how to get an eps file also from an eps in which the psfrag labels have not yet been replaced. The above posts have been most useful.

My eps figures are usually done with Adobe Illustrator (AI) and then I use psfrag to replace whatever original labels in the AI figure to whatever I need with laTeX fonts. It works perfectly.

The issue with having such a workflow is that the original eps file from AI doesn't have the correct labels yet. This means that I cannot send someone this eps file from AI. Based on the above-mentioned posts, I have created a workflow that appears good to me in order to generate an independent eps file with all psfrag labels correctly inserted. My objective is to still have all fonts embedded in the final eps file. Here is my workflow with reference to the file jeffcott.eps that I have stored here:

http://petitlien.fr/epspicture

(A). Check the bounding box of jeffcott.eps

gswin32c -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -q -sDEVICE=bbox jeffcott.eps
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 373 190
%%HiResBoundingBox: 0.000000 0.000211 372.617989 189.934025

(B). Convert to standalone pdf

\documentclass[convert]{standalone}
\usepackage[hiresbb,dvips]{graphicx}
\usepackage[dvips]{color}
\usepackage{psfrag}
\begin{document}
\psfrag{A}{$m$}
\psfrag{B}{$k,c$}
\psfrag{Y}{inner stator bore}
\includegraphics{E:/jeffcott.eps}
\end{document}

(C). Create an eps file from the above resulting pdf file

pdfcrop --hires "standpdf.pdf" "standpdf-temp.pdf"

Next issue the pdftops command:

pdftops -level3 -eps standpdf-temp.pdf standpdf.eps

Now, standpdf.eps is created but Ghostscript warns that it cannot find its bbox. The problem is that the lines %%BoundingBox and %%HiResBoundingBox appear quite far away from the top header lines. I have two solutions:

I: Move these two lines corresponding to the bbox just after the first header line

II: Use ps2eps

ps2eps -f --fixps standpdf.eps

The file standpdf.eps.eps is created by ps2eps and Ghostscript can load the file without any complaint.

Checking the bbox gives:

 gswin32c -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -q -sDEVICE=bbox standpdf.eps.eps
 %%BoundingBox: 0 0 373 190
 %%HiResBoundingBox: 0.000000 0.000352 372.617989 189.935994

However when I open the file standpdf.eps.eps in a text editor, I can see the bbox as

 %%BoundingBox: 0 1 372 190
 %%HiResBoundingBox: 0.000000 1.000000 372.000000 190.000000

My questions:

  1. As you can see from part (c) above, Ghostscript doesn't always read the correct bbox of the eps file. Why is this so?

  2. Is it right to use the command ps2eps on an eps file. I have tried to use epstool but it seems that this tool can only copy a bbox from one file to another, and not fix it.

  3. I would like to create a batch file on a Windows machine to automate the task in parts (B) and (C) and deleting the temporary file standpdf-temp.pdf along the way. I have looked at the batch files listed in some of the posts mentioned at the beginning of this post, but they do not work.

  4. As a step further to Question 3, I would like to create a batch file that will process all the pdf files in a folder and create the corresponding eps files. How to do this?

  5. And a related question: Where to learn about creating batch files for Windows? I haven't found any comprehensive source of information yet.

Update:

The batch files provided by xport work fine. There is one small bug however. Looking at BatchF.bat, after processing with ps2eps, the lines that come afterwards do not get processed at all. Ps2eps throws control back to the command prompt but the batch file stops there. How to fix that?

Since this post is getting long, I have created a new post:

How to automate a job of changing tags in a bunch of EPS images and convert them to PDF

Thank you.

Best Answer

I will provide you with 6 batch files. Each takes a (La)TeX input file name without extension. It will compile a single (La)TeX input file to produce an output in both PDF and EPS. In development phase, you may compile the same (La)TeX input file with each of the 6 batch files, and investigate which one suits you best. Each of the 6 batch files processes a single (La)TeX input file using different steps internally. The description will be clearer later in the next explanation.

In the production phase, you should have decided which one among them will be applied on a bunch of (La)TeX input files you have. Since applying the batch file on a bunch of (La)TeX input files is very tedious job, I provide you with an additional batch file to automate the process. Thus there are 7 batch files in total.

BatchA.bat

rem batchA.bat
rem echo off
latex -interaction=nonstopmode %1
dvips -R -t unknown %1
ps2pdf -dAutoRotatePages#/None -dCompatibilityLevel#1.5 -dPDFSETTINGS#/prepress %1.ps %1-temp.pdf
pdfcrop --restricted --hires %1-temp %1.pdf
pdftops -level3 -eps %1.pdf
rem acrord32 %1.pdf
del %1.log
del %1.aux
del %1.dvi
del %1.ps
del %1-temp.pdf
  1. It can be used for an input file with any paper size.
  2. Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PDF -> cropping -> EPS.
  3. pdfcrop takes a significant amount of time to do cropping. If you don't need cropping, don't use this batch file.

BatchB.bat

rem batchB.bat
echo off
latex -interaction=nonstopmode %1
dvips -R -t unknown %1
ps2pdf -dAutoRotatePages#/None -dCompatibilityLevel#1.5 -dPDFSETTINGS#/prepress %1.ps
pdftops -level3 -eps %1.pdf
rem acrord32 %1.pdf
del %1.log
del %1.aux
del %1.dvi
del %1.ps
  1. It can be used only for an input file with tight paper size.
  2. Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PDF -> EPS.
  3. It runs faster than batchA.bat because no cropping with pdfcrop. The drawback is you must specify the paper size tightly.

BatchC.bat

rem batchC.bat
echo off
latex %1
dvips -t unknown %1
gswin32c -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=%1.pdf %1.ps
pdftops -eps %1.pdf
rem acrord32 %1.pdf
del %1.log
del %1.aux
del %1.dvi
del %1.ps
  1. It is almost the same as the batchB.bat but with fewer switches to speed up the compilation.
  2. It can be used only for an input file with tight paper size.
  3. Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PDF -> EPS.
  4. It runs faster than batchA.bat because no cropping with pdfcrop. The drawback is you must specify the paper size tightly.

BatchD.bat

rem batchD.bat
echo off
tex %1
dvips -t unknown %1
gswin32c -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -sOutputFile=%1.pdf %1.ps
pdftops -eps %1.pdf
rem acrord32 %1.pdf
del %1.log
del %1.aux
del %1.dvi
del %1.ps
  1. It is almost the same as the batchC.bat but using tex.exe instead of latex.exe. The input file must be in plain TeX format. I hope it becomes faster than methodC.bat, but it has not been tested yet as I have many troubles to convert the input file from LaTeX to plain TeX. Benchmarking will be done soon.
  2. It can be used only for an input file with tight paper size.
  3. Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PDF -> EPS.
  4. It runs faster than batchA.bat because no cropping with pdfcrop. The drawback is you must specify the paper size tightly.

BatchE.bat

rem batchE.bat
rem echo off
latex -interaction=nonstopmode %1
dvips -R -t unknown -E %1 -o %1-temp.eps
epstool --copy --bbox %1-temp.eps %1.eps
epstopdf --hires %1.eps
rem acrord32 %1.pdf
del %1.log
del %1.aux
del %1.dvi
del %1-temp.eps
  1. It can be used for an input file with any paper size.
  2. Steps: TEX -> DVI -> EPS -> bounding box correction -> PDF.
  3. The file size of the resulting EPS is larger than that of one produced by each of the first 4 batch files (a,b,c,d).

BatchF.bat

rem batchF.bat
echo off
latex -interaction=nonstopmode %1
dvips -R -t unknown %1 -o %1-temp.ps
ps2eps %1-temp.ps
epstool --copy --bbox %1-temp.eps %1.eps
epstopdf --hires %1.eps
rem acrord32 %1.pdf
del %1.log
del %1.aux
del %1.dvi
del %1-temp.ps
del %1-temp.eps
  1. It can be used for an input file with any paper size.
  2. Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PS -> EPS -> bounding box correction -> PDF.
  3. The file size of the resulting EPS is larger than that of one produced by each of the first four batch files (a,b,c,d).
  4. I forgot the benchmark result when comparing batchE.bat and batchF.bat.

Automate.bat

rem automate.bat
rem it takes a single character from {a,b,c,d,e,f}.
rem the options are case-insensitive.
rem for example: automate a
rem another example: automate F
echo off
for %%x in (*.tex) do batch%1.bat %%~nx
pause

If you have any problem, drop a comment.

Update in response to your misuse.

Each of {batchA.bat,batchB.bat,batchC.bat,batchD.bat,batchE.bat,batchF.bat} takes one input file name without extension. For example, if you want to use batchE.bat for helloworld.tex, then you must type batchE helloworld and hit enter.

If you want to use batchE.bat for a bunch of input files that exists in the same directory in which all batch files exist, then you type automate E and hit enter.

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