pstopnm(1)                                                    General Commands Manual                                                   pstopnm(1)

NAME

       pstopnm - convert a PostScript file into a portable anymap

SYNOPSIS

       pstopnm  [-stdout]  [-forceplain]  [-help] [-llx s] [-lly s] [-landscape] [-portrait] [-nocrop] [-pbm |-pgm |-ppm] [-urx s] [-ury s] [-ver-
       bose] [-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  cre-
       ates  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 Standard 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 borders 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 Standard Input, pstopnm does not use the Bound-
       ingBox parameters (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  prob-
       lem, 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) format.  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 pnm-
              split to extract individual 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 specified 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 specified 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 supposed to be rendered on a medium different from letter-size paper.

SEE ALSO

       gs(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)