a2ping.pl(1) convert between PS, EPS and PDF and other page description

TIPS AND TRICKS

HISTORY


1999/05/06 v2.5 (Heiko Oberdiek)

 * New options: --hires, --exact, --filter, --help.
 * Many cosmetics: title, usage, ...
 * New code for debug, warning, error
 * Detecting of cygwin perl
 * Scanning for %%{Hires,Exact,}BoundingBox.
 * Scanning only the header in order not to get a wrong
   BoundingBox of an included file.
 * (atend) supported.
 * uses strict; (earlier error detecting).
 * changed first comment from '%!PS' to '%!';
 * corrected (atend) pattern: '\s*\(atend\)'
 * using of $bbxpat in all BoundingBox cases,
   correct the first white space to '...Box:\s*$bb...'
 * corrected first line (one line instead of two before 'if 0;';

2000/11/05 v2.6 (Heiko Oberdiek)

 * %%HiresBoundingBox corrected to %%HiResBoundingBox

2001/03/05 v2.7 (Heiko Oberdiek)

 * Newline before grestore for the case that there is no
   whitespace at the end of the eps file.

2003/02/02 (Szab['o] P['e]ter)

 * option --below
 * removes DOS EPSF binary junk correctly
 * adds all 3 BoundingBox DSC comments
 * reads all 3 BoundingBox DSC comments, and picks the best
 * forces BoundingBox to be an integer
 * adds %%EndComments and proper %!PS-Adobe-?-? EPSF-?.? header
 * adds %%Pages:
 * adds invocation syntax: a2ping <infile.eps> <outfile.eps|pdf>
 * can convert PDF to EPS (by calling pdftops(1)) and PDF to PDF
 * emulates work for PDF input

2003/04/16 (Szab['o] P['e]ter)

 * added PS and sam2p support, renamed to a2ping
 * sam2p and pdftops if $InputFilename eq '-';
 * remove PJL UEL header from the beginning
 * works for PS non-EPS files for input
 * input support for PNG JPEG TIFF PNM BMP GIF LBM XPM PCX TGA via sam2p
 * removes ^L (form feed) from end of EPS file
 * -x=-c:rle to add sam2p options

2003/04/26 (Szab['o] P['e]ter)

 * omit the unnecessary setpagedevice calls when creating normal eps
 * --noverbose --nocompress supported differently
 * no more option defaults :-(
 * justlib2
 * multi-page output with PS:, PDF:, PCL5:
 * after `a2ping -pa4', file out.pcl says: `HP PCL printer data - A4 page
   size', instead of `US letter'
 * justlib2-ified doesn't depend on Getopt::Long anymore
 * fully supports filtering (stdin and/or stdout), PDF and PCL5 output to
   pipe (!$$ll_zero)
 * adds DSC ``%%DocumentMedia: plain 612 792 0 () ()''
 * BoundingBox precedence for EPS input: --PageSize, %%*BoundingBox,
   setpagedevice. Precedence for other inputs: --PageSize, setpagedevice,
   %%*BoundingBox

2003/09/25 (Szab['o] P['e]ter)

 * --bboxfrom=adsc: %%BoundingBox overrides -sDEVICE=bbox
 * improved bbox discovery
 * many bugfixes
 * MetaPost EPS input fixes for prologues:=0;
 * a2ping.pl -v --papersize=50,60 --bboxfrom=compute-gs t.ps t2.ps
 * consistent bbox, --PageSize, /PageSize handling
 * consistent --Resolution and --Duplex handling

2003/12/02 (Szab['o] P['e]ter)

 * --bboxfrom=compute-gs option to fix PS -> EPS bbox (gs -sDEVICE=bbox), tuzv.eps

2004/02/10 v2.77 (Szab['o] P['e]ter)

 * the compute-pipe routine is now run unless --bboxfrom=guess with EPS
 * added --gsextra=
 * added --antialias=
 * added FileFormat PBM, PGM, PPM
 * separated FileFormat features to FL_* constants
 * added --doc
 * there is no default FileFormat (PDF) anymore