[Tex/LaTex] Tight bounding box for EPS

epspsfrag

This is a follow-up of the question https://tex.stackexchange.com/questions/14402/eps-file-with-tight-bb-psfrag-labels.

I have this file named model.eps (see further below on how to get the file) and I am replacing the labels on the figure using psfrag commands. If I compile the file test3.tex using latex > dvips > ps2pdf, the resulting file is well-cropped and is the same as the size of the file model.eps. I am using the standalone package.

However I would like an EPS file instead of a PDF file. With dvips I can get a PS file. I tried the command:

dvips -D7200 -E test3.dvi -o test3.ps

making sure to use the -E switch in order to get a tight bounding box.

The resulting PS file (test3.ps) is not properly tight bounded on the left as you can see.

What am I doing wrong and how can I correct this fault?

All the files are in the folder tightbounding here at
http://petitlien.fr/my_test_file.

Thank you for any suggestions…

—-
Update

Running epstool:

E:\new>epstool --bbox --copy test3.ps outfile.eps

DSC Information

At line 9033:
                     <xapGImg:image>/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAgEASABIAAD/7QAsUGhvdG9zaG9w
IDMuMAA4QklNA+0AAAAAABAASAAAAAEA&#xA;AQBIAAAAAQAB/+4ADkFkb2JlAGTAAAAAAf/bAIQABgQ
EBAUEBgUFBgkGBQYJCwgGBggLDAoKCwoK&#xA;DBAMDAwMDAwQDA4PEA8ODBMTFBQTExwbGxscHx8fHx
8fHx8fHwEHBwcNDA0YE

Lines in DSC documents must be shorter than 255 characters.

"C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.01\bin\gswin32c.exe"  -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=bbox
 -c "<</PageSize [9400 9400] /PageOffset [3000 3000]>> setpagedevice" -f "c:\doc
ume~1\yogcal\locals~1\temp\gsviewa01924"
GPL Ghostscript 9.01 (2011-02-07)
Copyright (C) 2010 Artifex Software, Inc.  All rights reserved.
This software comes with NO WARRANTY: see the file PUBLIC for details.
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 0 0
%%HiResBoundingBox: 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000
OK

I'm getting the bounding box as 0 0 0 0. Why?

Best Answer

install the program epstool, available for Windows and Linux and then run

epstool --bbox --copy infile.eps outfile.eps

then outfile.eps should have a correct bounding box.

Related Solutions

[Tex/LaTex] How to fix EPS with incorrect bounding box

This seems to be because EPS (and PDF) uses PostScript points (=1/72in, called bp (big points) in TeX), not the normal TeX points (1pt=1/72.27in). The EPS contains its size (bounding box) as integers, so rounding the size upwards. You can try and add the hi-resolution bounding box header which contains the size as floating point numbers. However, it depends on the used tool which of the two are used.

You can get these headers calculated by Ghostscript using:

gs -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -q -sDEVICE=bbox file.eps

which prints the required EPS headers:

%%BoundingBox: 0 0 34 31
%%HiResBoundingBox: 0.000000 0.000000 33.317999 30.005999

You can then simply replace the original headers with the updated one. There might be tools which do this for you (e.g. eps2eps) but these might actually change the font settings etc. I wrote my own Perl script called fixbb once which does nothing else then calling gs like above and replacing the headers. (But I'm just seeing know that it doesn't add the HiResBoundingBox header if it wasn't use before.)

As workaround you could make sure that your diagrams are drawn using bp not pt, at least the outer rectangle.

BTW: I would use \documentclass[border=0pt]{standalone} instead. This saves you some steps (e.g. page style is already set to be empty, ...). However, I still get a white border at the right and top.

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

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

It can be used for an input file with any paper size.
Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PDF -> cropping -> EPS.
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

It can be used only for an input file with tight paper size.
Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PDF -> EPS.
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

It is almost the same as the batchB.bat but with fewer switches to speed up the compilation.
It can be used only for an input file with tight paper size.
Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PDF -> EPS.
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

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.
It can be used only for an input file with tight paper size.
Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PDF -> EPS.
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

It can be used for an input file with any paper size.
Steps: TEX -> DVI -> EPS -> bounding box correction -> PDF.
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

It can be used for an input file with any paper size.
Steps: TEX -> DVI -> PS -> EPS -> bounding box correction -> PDF.
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).
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.