[softwarelist] Re: Potential TransPDF improvements
- From: Peter Newble <peter@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: davidpilling@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 29 Jan 2019 23:34:58 +0000
On 29 Jan 2019, at 21:58, David Pilling <david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I see what follows is missing from the list archive - it could be useful - so
I'm reposting it.
Peter's notes tell anyone how to add their own filter to OP on Windows.
If you want to use ImageMagick to import transparent PNG files or something
similar.
A postscript (pun intended) to that:
I had forgotten that the ImageMagick attribute ‘-density’ (for setting output
resolution in dpi) only works if it precedes the input filename in the command
line. Thus the TransPDF.cmd batch file should be:
if exist C:\Temp.tif del C:\Temp.tif
if exist C:\Temp.eps del C:\Temp.eps
"C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.26\bin\gswin32c.exe" -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE
-sDEVICE=eps2write -sOutputFile=C:\Temp.eps -r600 -q -dFirstPage=1 -dLastPage=1
%1
"C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.0.8-Q16-HDRI\convert.exe" -density 300 -depth 8
-type TrueColorMatte %1[0] C:\Temp.tif
"C:\Program Files\epstool-3.09\bin\epstool.exe" --add-user-preview C:\Temp.tif
C:\Temp.eps %2
if exist C:\Temp.tif del C:\Temp.tif
if exist C:\Temp.eps del C:\Temp.eps
Beware that there are only seven lines of commands there, not eleven as it was
quoted in David’s posting, and the correct paths need to be used for the
versions of Ghostscript, ImageMagick and epstools installed on your machine.
In the third line, ‘-r600’ sets a deliberately high resolution of 600dpi for
any elements of the PDF which may only be rendered in a Postscript 2 EPS by
rasterisation. However, in that case importing a PDF will usually be very slow
and the resulting file very large. For many purposes ‘-r300’ would be
sufficient, and much quicker.
In the fourth line, ‘-density 300’ creates a 300dpi preview image. Many might
consider a 96dpi or 120dpi preview more appropriate for Windows, and it would
certainly be quicker.
To recap, that should be saved as a file TransPDF.cmd in the same directory as
the other transfilters (in my case C:\Program
Files\DavidPilling\Filters\Filters) and regedit should be used to change the
entry for TransPDF from
-T pdf eps -R "C:\Program Files\DavidPilling\Filters\Filters\TransPDF.exe"
to
-T pdf eps -R "C:\Program Files\DavidPilling\Filters\Filters\TransPDF.cmd"
Some PDFs cannot be converted and will cause an error when you try to import
them. Others will appear to have been imported OK, because a valid preview
image is generated, but then might cause a Postscript error when printed. (This
has always been true of EPSs too, in my experience.) And, because this works by
converting PDF to EPS, or trying to, it only applies when printing to
Postscript drivers, otherwise presumably the preview image will be printed.
This is the equivalent batch file TransPNG.cmd, to replace the current
TransPNG.exe in the same way but preserving transparency which TransPNG.exe
does not. It too requires ImageMagick to be installed, but not Ghostscript or
epstool. As David suggested, it converts the PDF to a TIFF (retaining
transparency) then uses the existing TransTIF to convert that to a scaled
sprite within a drawfile as Ovation Pro requires:
if exist C:\Temp.tif del C:\Temp.tif
"C:\Program Files\ImageMagick-7.0.8-Q16-HDRI\convert.exe" -type TrueColorMatte
%1 C:\Temp.tif
"C:\Program Files\DavidPilling\Filters\Filters\TransTIF.exe" C:\Temp.tif %2
if exist C:\Temp.tif del C:\Temp.tif
Again, the path for TransTIF.exe must be correct and might be different on your
machine (e.g. if using 64-bit Windows).
In all cases you might prefer, or need, to create Temp.tif and Temp.eps
somewhere other than C:\
Peter.
Other related posts:
