What are good ways to convert EPS to PDF?

Question

I'd like to try to use pdfLaTeX to generate PDFs but my images are all in EPS. I would also like for the images to remain scalable.

I have tried using ImageMagik's convert:

convert file.eps file.pdf

but the result does not look good and the image becomes grainy after a few zooms.

I try epstopdf file.eps, but get the following error message:

Error: /undefined in II*
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   1878   1   3   %oparray_pop   1877   1   3   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   1861   1   3   %oparray_pop   1755   1   3   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   %errorexec_pop   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:1160/1684(ro)(G)--   --dict:1/20(G)--   --dict:89/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: 2
GPL Ghostscript 8.71: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

which doesn't really tell me anything.

Anyone know any other ways to convert EPS to PDF? (I have about 200 images, so command-line is better)

Answer 1

epstopdf, of course, which is what the epstopdf package relies on. (If you used the package there would be no need to convert.)

Or is that what you meant by eps2pdf? I've never noticed any problems with it.

I suppose you could also try Inkscape; I think it does have some batch functions, perhaps even command-line options for conversion, even though it is principally a GUI app.

EDIT: Judging by the inkscape manual, you could just do:

inkscape --export-pdf=output.pdf input.eps

EDIT2: Actually, you might need to use SVG input for inkscape export on the command-line; I'll look into this a bit more. You could do it through the GUI, though.

Answer 2

You can use ps2pdf with options to suppress resampling and lossily compressing images -dAutoFilterColorImages=false and -dColorImageFilter=/FlateEncode. (On windows, replace the = by #).

ps2pdf may not keep the same bounding box, unlike epstopdf, but you can fix that either by copying the logic from epstopdf (eg, edit epstopdf.pl to add those options to the ghostscript command line) or you can redo the clipping by using pdfcrop.

Answer 3

I always use the following batch file

echo off
latex %1
del %1.log
del %1.aux
dvips %1 -E -o %1-crop.eps
del %1.dvi
epstool --copy --bbox %1-crop.eps %1.eps
del %1-crop.eps
epstopdf --hires %1.eps

in my job to compile an example:

% gridoff.tex
\documentclass{minimal}
\usepackage{pstricks}

\pagestyle{empty}
\begin{document}

\begin{pspicture}[showgrid=false](3,3)
\pscircle(1.5,1.5){1}
\rput[tr](3,3){3}
\end{pspicture}

\end{document}

It runs without problem. The important parts that you need are

epstool --copy --bbox input.eps output.eps
epstopdf --hires output.eps

The first invokes GhostScript to append high resolution bounding box. The last converts EPS to PDF with high resolution bounding box.