Subject: summary: postscript editor

From: [email-masked] (Shin-Inn Chen)
Date: Thu, 12 Feb 1998 16:38:15 +0800

thanks for your help!

my original question:
> dear netters:
>        i need a program that can read the postscript file and modify the
> figure. does any one know where can i download the program like this?
> any suggestion will be appreciated.

and i got the following answers:
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I'm not sure if there are any freeware programs around to do this, but
modern versions of Adobe Illustrator and Coral Draw have good import
filters which for most postscript files work well.

Regards,
Phil.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

CorelDraw 7.0 is able to import PS files, and then you are free to edit
the figure as you want.

The only problem, it is not free...

Keep in mind that older versions of coreldraw are not able to read PS files.

ciao
Luigi
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Dear Shin-Inn Chen,
it is no simple task to write a PostScript interpreter.
For the Macintosh there used to be a program called LaserTalk,
which could be used to analyze and debug PostScript code.
Some graphics programs (such as CorelDraw) will read a .ps file,
and let you manipulate it as a graphical object.
But it will not let you operate on the individual components.

In principle you should be able to take the source code
from GhostScript and turn it in to an editor.
Maybe someone else had better suggestions.

Good luck,
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Hi,

on workstation you can use "xv" and "ghostview"
to edit and to modify your postscript files.
However, it is not that good. I am very
interested in any other solution.
Bye.

                                      ...Xav
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Hi,
Adobe Illustrator can do that very nicely, however it is not share or free
ware and quite expensive.

Best regards,  Gert
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There is a program for x-windows systems, but I don't know exactly the
name. It's part of very linux distr. Try xpaint, tgif and so at one
of the ftp-servers, I think it was tgif.
                                Andreas Goeller
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Hi Shin,
you may use CorelDraw to do this. Import it as *.EPS file and use the
"curve" feature. After that you should ungroup it and make individual
changes. Good luck.
Regards,
Claudio
Ciba Specialty Chemicals, Germany
 --------------------------------------------------------------------

I don't know what's your operating system, but if you use a Mac you can
download the program called photoshop of Adove from:

          ftp.rediris.es

If you use a Pc, you can use a program called  "Paint shop Pro" for Win95.

                                                            best regards.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello Shin,

There is a plug-in for Freehand called "PS Edit Link".  It is not
free.  For some PS files it works great (such as the print files from
Daylight programs).  In other cases it does not work.  I don't know
why.  If you hear of anything better please let me know.

Cheers, Eric
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hi Shin,

one possibility to edit ps-files is the following: Take your ps-file (I
think it is a figure) under Linux and convert it with the following order
to an .fig-file: ps2edit (the exact order-structure can You see in the
man-pages.After conversion you can edit the new file under the
program xfig. If you have finished your session then you can safe the 
file as an eps-file. Hope it works!

best wishes

oliver
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hi,

on workstation you can use "xv" and "ghostview"
to edit and to modify your postscript files.
However, it is not that good. I am very
interested in any other solution.
Bye.

                                      ...Xav
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

 Dear Shin-Inn,

Try with Ghostview x.x. I think it is freeware.

        with kindest regards,
        
              Zeljko
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

You can use pagedraw software, it can be downloaded from the
http://www.mayura.com/ page and it can edit the postscript files if you
have the ghostscript installed.

Hope this helps

Regards
----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Dear Shin,
	on UNIX/LINUX, Win and Mac you may use ImageMagick which do exactly 
what you need.

have a look at it at:
http://www.wizards.dupont.com/cristy/ImageMagick.html

Bye
Bruno
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The only visual Postscript editor I know (and tried) is Tailor. It first
appeared on NEXTSTEP and has been ported to MacOS. 

See 
http://www.zdnet.com/macuser/mu_0397/reviews/review12.html
for a review.

A demo is available at:
http://www.enfocus.com/ 

See attachment below for a more complete description of the NEXTSTEP
version of the program, which runs on Intel based PCs.

Hopes this can help,

Bruno
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http://www.peanuts.org/

Tailor Office 2.0d

Visual PostScript Editor

Search the FTP-server for Tailor Office

Description

   * postscript editor.

With Tailor, you can visually edit PostScript documents, effortlessly
and cleanly - no specialized knowledge required at all. You can cut
pieces out of a document and copy them to any other application. Or
recover text paragraphs for use in your favorite word processor. And all
this regardless of the platform the document was generated on.
Tailor offers numerous tools for productive, visual editing, even of the
most complex documents. Tailor Office 2.0 is targeted towards the
general user .

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Hi Shin,

	Adobe illustrator (AI) will allow you to read in postscript and edit each
element of the postscript file. The current version of AI 7.0 on the mac
and pc will read in the postscript file directly. AI 5.0 for unix and
windows versions bellow 7.0(I also think mac version bellow 7.0) requires
you to convert the file from .ps to .ai before it can be read in. This can
be done using ghostscript (ps2ai.ps). I have also used Tailor and
IslandDraw which are both very good but are limited with the platforms you
can use it on. Adobe offers special academic pricing which makes it more
affordable. I do not know of any freeware/shareware available which will
allow you to modify a postscript file beyond scaling, rotating and
converting file formats.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I have a suspicion that the original request may have been
misunderstood. Until now, all postings referred to programs
which can read an EPS file and export it as some kind of
bitmap and support the addition of
annotations and other image manipulations on the
bitmap. A good selection of these programs has been presented in the
previous posts.

However, EDITING a PostScript file is another problem. For example,
if you want do delete a line which crosses other elements this will
be an awkward procedure in a typical image processing program, and in
any case you will lose the advantage of the original file format, for
example scalability without artefacts etc.

There are programs available which contain an embedded
PostScript interpreter and allow direct manipulation of the
PostScript strokes and other basic elements. Unfortunately,
these programs tend to be rather expensive.

The freeware program 'pstoedit' (part of the X11R6 distribution, also
available from numerous ftp repositories, check with archie,
most current version appears to be 2.50) will read a PostScript
or PDF file and output its contents in various vector formats
(mif, fig, cgm, wmf, gnuplot, dxf, etc.) which can be
loaded into a vector drawing program and manipulated in a
more comfortable way than with bitmap image manipulation programs.
Note however that this program only processes lines and text,
embedded images etc. are lost in the conversion process. You also need
a PostScript interpreter program, for example ghostscript.

Of course, you can also use your standard text editor to edit the
original file directly. PostScript is plain Ascii and inherently just another
programming language. Direct editing is not so difficult as it may
sound if you simply remove items -
just a few hours ago I edited an MSI Cerius II output file to get rid of
some annoying logos. All you need is a PostScript language documentation
manual and a PostScript display program to avoid wasting paper
during the editing steps.

--
Dr. Wolf-D. Ihlenfeldt

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 You have several options:
 
 - Adobe Ilustrator is able to read postscript files and modify the contents,
   but it's a commercial software.
   
 - Mayura Draw is a postscript editor for W95 and is FREEWARE !!!
   We have used it and is easy and fast.
   You can obtain it from  http://www.wix.com/PageDraw
   May be you will need Abobe Type Manager if you need to include text.

  Best wishes,
  
               Carles
  
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