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# Overview

pstoedit translates PostScript and PDF graphics into other vector formats.

# Supported Formats

Currently pstoedit can generate the following major formats:

- Tgif .obj format (for tgif version >= 3)
- .fig format for xfig
- pdf - Adobe's Portable Document Format
- gnuplot format
- Flattened PostScript (with or without Bezier curves)
- DXF - CAD exchange format
- LWO - LightWave 3D
- RIB - RenderMan
- RPL - Real3D
- Java 1 or Java 2 applet
- Idraw format (in fact a special form of EPS that idraw can read)
- Tcl/Tk
- HPGL
- AI (Adobe Illustrator) (based on ps2ai.ps - not a real pstoedit driver - see notes below and manual)
- Windows Meta Files (WMF) (Windows only)
- Enhanced Windows Meta Files (EMF) (Windows, but also Linux/Unix if libemf is available)
- OS/2 meta files (OS/2 only)
- PIC format for troff/groff
- MetaPost format for usage with TeX/LaTeX
- LaTeX2e picture
- Kontour
- GNU Metafile (plotutils / libplot)
- Skencil ( http://www.skencil.org )
- Mathematica
- via ImageMagick to any format supported by ImageMagick
- SWF
- CNC G code
- VTK files for ParaView and similar visualization tools

Besides these some further very special formats are supported. See the pstoedit.htm for a complete list of available drivers.

The following formats are available as additional plugins on a shareware basis. See http://www.pstoedit.net/plugins/ for more details.

- (Frame)Maker Intermediate Format (MIF)
- CGM Format (both binary and textual)
- SVG - scalable vector format. One candidate of the W3C for a web standard for vector drawings. See http://www.w3.org/Graphics/SVG/ for more details.
- Better Enhanced Windows Meta Files (EMF) (supports curves and compound pathes and does more accurate text formatting) (Windows only)
- RTF (MS Word) (Windows only)

Implementing support for other formats should be very easy. The architecture of pstoedit consists of a PostScript frontend which needs to call a PostScript interpreter like Ghostscript and the individual backends which are pugged into a kind of framework. This framework can be used independently from the PostScript frontend from any other program. The framework provides a uniform interface to all different backends. You need a C++ compiler to compile and GhostScript to run pstoedit. pstoedit should run on all Un*x like systems (including cygwin) and has also been ported to OS/2, Windows 9x/NT/2K/XP/Vista, and RiscOS.

Since version 3.00 it is possible to add new drivers without even recompiling the core program. pstoedit can load additional drivers as plugins.

# Download

You can download pstoedit:

- Source tarball: pstoedit-3.60.tar.gz
- binary for Windows 32 bit
- binary for Windows 64 bit
- additional plugins
- a version of pstoedit that can be used as graphic import filter for MS-Office, Paint Shop Pro, or Photoline

In case of download problems, visit this page via the alternate URL.

pstoedit can also be used from within gsview via the "Edit|Convert to vector" menu.

# More Information

You get can more information from:

- The manual,
- The readme file.
- The change log

pstoedit also cooperates with autotrace. Autotrace can produce a dump file for further processing by pstoedit using the -bo (backend only) option. Autotrace is a program written by a group around Martin Weber and can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/autotrace/

# Related Links

Some links more or less related to pstoedit can be found here.

# Primary Author

Wolfgang Glunz email: wglunz35_AT_pstoedit.net http://de.linkedin.com/in/wolfgangglunz

# Donations

Donations to the pstoedit project are welcome and can be done easily here:

# Pstoedit at Facebook