Is it possible to insert a PDF file into a PostScript file?

[Mr__Horton]

I am the developer of several DB/400 to PostScript drivers for a specialty packaging print company.

I would like to insert, size, and position, component files (graphics) that exist as PDF files without converting them to EPS files first.

Are there any PostScript commands/examples that demonstrate this ability, similar to pdfmark for inserting html and javascript actions into a PostScript stream?

[Dov Isaacs · Accepted solution]

Since today's PDF is a significant superset of PostScript in terms of the imaging model, you unfortunately cannot simply wrap PDF in some wrapper and directly place it into a PostScript stream. You do have to interpret the PDF an convert it completely into PostScript.

          - Dov

[Mr__Horton]

Dov,

I assume that your answer applies even when the RIP can process both types of input data stream (PS or PDF)?

Would you have a recommendation for a batch application to render EPS from PDF on a PC server platform?

Thank You!,

Marvin

[Dov Isaacs]

Even if a particular RIP supports PDF and PostScript, a job is either PDF or PostScript. A job cannot be a mixture of both.

I don't have recommendation to create EPS from PDF in a batch fashion, although you probably could setup Acrobat to perform batch operations. How many such PDF to EPS operations are you planning? Is this supposed to become a workflow in your organization?

          - Dov

[Mr__Horton]

Dov,

Yes, this would be an input component of our workflow.

Right now the conversions are handled manually, usually through the use of Illustrator, mostly because the incoming pdf's have not been uniform or included several graphic components that needed to be controlled separately, or were "sloppy". Recently however, a situation has developed where a 3rd party is providing discrete, uniform pdf files for multiple clients that we will need to input efficiently into our system.

What I envision after your response of the impossibility of wrapping a PDF inside a PostScript stream is as follows:

- Normally, 100's of pdf's arriving from the 3rd party would be dropped into a "hot" folder for batch processing.

- A client "key" would trigger the hot folder application to act on the pdf's, prepending the client key to each file name.

- Batch processing would then accomplish the pdf to eps conversion.

- The eps files would be scanned for indexing data such as color information and bounding box, and, if necessary, color remapping could be done here too.

- The eps files would then be moved to our eps library and the indexing data would be added to the eps library database.

The only thing we aren't doing right now is the automated prepending of the client "key" and the pdf to eps conversion. At least in the short term I plan to see about the viability of converting the pdf's to eps using a batch action in Illustrator. I know I can write the "key" prepending code, as well as the eps parsing/color editing code.

Thanks,

Marvin

[Mr__Horton]

Dov,

Never considered using Acrobat instead of Illustrator, but for batch processing I'll give that a try first.

Thanks,

Marvin

[Dov Isaacs]

Marvin,

FYI, Adobe Illustrator is absolutely not a general purpose PDF file editor or viewer. The only PDF files that it can fully and safely “open” are PDF files saved from the current or previous versions of Adobe Illustrator using the save as PDF feature and specifying that editability be maintained.

In all other cases, although Illustrator makes a good effort to do something with all PDF it encounters, in the general case it may cause color space changes and loss of certain items. Note that PDF's imaging model is a superset of that of Illustrator.

          - Dov

[Mr__Horton]

Dov,

Thanks for the heads up on pdf's in Illustrator. A significant portion of the time we are remapping colors anyway, but more and more, we are getting files in that are technically ready for rendering, so that is good to know.

Marvin

[Helge_Blischke]

You might onsider using open source tools for the PDF to EPS conversion like the utilities of the Xpdf suite (see http://www.foolabs.com/xpdf/home.html for details).

[Mr__Horton]

Helge,

Thank you for the pointer to Xpdf.

I will compare it with Acrobat for batch conversions.

- Marvin