pstopnm(1)pstopnm(1)NAMEpstopnm - convert a PostScript file into a portable anymap
SYNOPSISpstopnm [-stdout] [-forceplain] [-help] [-llx s] [-lly s]
[-landscape] [-portrait] [-nocrop] [-pbm |-pgm |-ppm]
[-urx s] [-ury s] [-verbose] [-xborder n] [-xmax n]
[-xsize f] [-yborder f] [-ymax n] [-ysize n] psfile[.ps]
DESCRIPTION
Reads a PostScript file as input. Produces PBM, PGM, or
PPM files as output. This program simply uses GhostScript
to render a PostScript file with its PNM device drivers.
If you don't have GhostScript installed (invoked by a gs
command), or the version you have installed was not built
with the relevant PNM device drivers, pstopnm will fail.
You can see if you have the proper environment by issuing
the command gs --help . If it responds and lists under
"Available Devices" pbm, pbmraw, pgm, pgmraw, pnm, pnmraw,
ppm, or ppmraw, you're in business.
pstopnm does not use the Netpbm libraries to generate the
output files, so may not be entirely consistent with most
Netpbm programs.
psfile[.ps] is the name of the input file. .pstopnm will
add the ps to the end of the name you specify if no file
exists by the exact name you specify, but one with added
does. Use - to indicate Standard Input.
If you use the -stdout option, pstopnm outputs images of
all the pages as a multi-image file to Standard Output.
Otherwise, pstopnm creates one file for each page in the
Postscript document. The files are named as follows: If
the input file is named psfile.ps, the name of the files
will be psfile001.ppm, psfile002.ppm, etc. The filetype
suffix is .ppm, .pgm, or .pbm, depending on which kind of
output you choose with your invocation options. If the
input file name does not end in .ps, the whole file name
is used in the output file name. For example, if the
input file is named psfile.old, the output file name is
psfile.old001.ppm, etc.
Note that the output file selection is inconsistent with
most Netpbm programs, because it does not default to Stan
dard Output. This is for historical reasons, based on the
fact that the Netpbm formats did not always provide for a
sequence of images in a single file.
Each output file contains the image of a rectangular part
of the page to which it pertains. The selected area will
always be centered in the output file, and may have bor
ders around it. The image area to be extracted from the
PostScript file and rendered into a portable anymap is
defined by four numbers, the lower left corner and the
upper right corner x and y coordinates. These coordinates
are usually specified by the BoundingBox comment in the
PostScript file header, but they can be overridden by the
user by specifying one or more of the following options:
-llx, -lly, -urx, and -ury. The presence and thickness of
a border to be left around the image area is controlled by
the use of the options -xborder and -yborder. If pstopnm
does not find BoundingBox parameters in the input, and you
don't specify image area coordinates on the command line,
pstopnm uses default values. If your input is from Stan
dard Input, pstopnm does not use the BoundingBox parame
ters (due to the technical difficulty of extracting that
information and still feeding the file to Ghostscript), so
you either have to specify the image area coordinates or
take the default.
Unless you specify both output file width and height, via
the -xsize and -ysize options, pstopnm maps the document
into the output image by preserving its aspect ratio.
It has been reported that on some Postscript Version 1
input, Ghostscript, and therefore pstopnm, produces no
output. To solve this problem, you can convert the file
to Postscript Version 3 with the program ps2ps. It is
reported that the program pstops does not work.
OPTIONS-forceplain
forces the output file to be in plain (text) for
mat. Otherwise, it is in raw (binary) format. See
pbm(1), etc.
-llx bx
selects bx as the lower left corner x coordinate
(in inches).
-lly by
selects by as the lower left corner y coordinate
(in inches).
-landscape
renders the image in landscape mode.
-portrait
renders the image in portrait mode.
-nocrop
does not crop the output image dimensions to match
the PostScript image area dimensions.
-pbm -pgm -ppm
selects the format of the output file. By default,
all files are rendered as portable pixmaps (ppm
format).
-stdout
causes output to go to Standard Output instead of
to regular files, one per page (see description of
output files above). Use pnmsplit to extract indi
vidual pages from Standard Output.
-urx tx
selects tx as the upper right corner x coordinate
(in inches).
-ury ty
selects ty as the upper right corner y coordinate
(in inches).
-verbose
prints processing information to stdout.
-xborder frac
specifies that the border width along the Y axis
should be frac times the document width as speci
fied by the bounding box comment in the PostScript
file header. The default value is 0.1.
-xmax xs
specifies that the maximum output image width
should have a size less or equal to xs pixels
(default: 612).
-xsize xsize
specifies that the output image width must be
exactly xs pixels.
-yborder frac
specifies that the border width along the X axis
should be frac times the document width as speci
fied by the bounding box comment in the PostScript
file header. The default value is 0.1.
-ymax ys
specifies that the maximum output image height
should have a size less or equal to ys pixels
(default: 792).
-ysize ys
specifies that the output image height must be
exactly ys pixels.
BUGS
The program will produce incorrect results with PostScript
files that initialize the current transformation matrix.
In these cases, page translation and rotation will not
have any effect. To render these files, probably the best
bet is to use the following options:
pstopnm-xborder 0 -yborder 0 -portrait -nocrop file.ps
Additional options may be needed if the document is sup
posed to be rendered on a medium different from letter-
size paper.
SEE ALSOgs(1), pstofits(1), pnmtops(1), psidtopgm(1), pbmtolps(1),
pbmtoepsi(1), pnmsplit(1)COPYRIGHT
Copyright (c) 1992 Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
PostScript is a Trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated.
AUTHOR
Alberto Accomazzi, WIPL, Center for Astrophysics.
28 June 2000 pstopnm(1)
