Convert PDF to EPS online, free (Mac & Windows) It is really an easy task to convert PDF to EPS, especially online, free, thanks to a host of online, free PDF to EPS converters are open to Internet users. Requiring no software installation nor fee are the mains reasons why these online, free image converters are kissed by users. Convert Adobe Portable document format to Encapsulated PostScript image. We have found 14 software records in our database eligible for.pdf to.eps file format conversion. Using programs like Adobe InDesign it might be possible to convert PDF documents to their Encapsulated PostScript.

Recently I discovered that some academic publishers will let you submit PDF figures right up until acceptance, where they then need to be in an 'editable' format. Vector figures inside PDF containers are editable of course, but the author guidelines for your journal of choice may well say otherwise, instead offering a list of ancient and bewildering image formats which are deemed acceptable. It's baffling to me why a journal would prefer a pptx PowerPoint file containing your figure than a modern open standard like SVG (not a format without consistency issues, admittedly). So for this reason I needed to convert a bunch of PDF figures to EPS (encapsulated postscript) without too much manual effort.

Conversions

Google lead me to tex.se where a great answer (+1) lists a few different possible methods of going about this conversion. After trying a couple, it turned out the results were often imperfect and sometimes wildly different.

As an example PDF vector image, here's the measles heatmap I put together recently:

ImageMagick

How well does this convert with, say, ImageMagick:

Wow, I have no idea why that gives such a bad result, maybe it could be improved by tweaking some parameters but I didn't experiment with these.

Inkscape

Better results came from Inkscape (though linking the commandline version is a pain on OS X):

This looks a bit better, though the bounding box is tightly cropped.

Convert Pdf To Eps For Mac File

pdftops (xpdf)

Convert Pdf To Eps For Mac Download

The best out-of-the-box result with this file came from pdftops (part of xpdf) which maintained PDF margins and converted vector elements reasonably faithfully:

Script

To quickly try each of the above methods (and more) I've put a rough bash script together pdf2eps that can be cloned from github and run as:

Maybe I'll properly develop this script in future, using getopts and testing/installing linked programs, but for now it works as a quick hack!

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Convert Pdf To Eps For Mac 7

Click here to return to the 'Convert EPS and PS to PDF using Preview' hint

I've had major problems using this 'feature': many of my project are too complex for preview and I get a freeze when I accidently open a 'generic' eps in preview.
Also you cannot control the quaility of the PDF made. I expect this process uses the same options as the 'Print to PDF' feature of the print dialog box. These PDF are generally not suitable for sending to a commercial printer for use on a printing press.
Given these couple limitations, I think this is a GREAT way to convert those raw PS and EPS files to a useful format.

Apple's ps/eps convertion can also be done via the CLI using pstopdf. This should not be confused with the various GhoseScript convertions utilities also avalable via the CLI such as ps2pdf etc.
As previously noted pstopdf has problems with some PostScript commands, but when used in conjunction with epstool is very efficent. The latter most probably due to Apple optermising pstopdf.

This is an old feature of Mac OS X, I think it existed since 10.2.

Converting Postscript or Encapsulated Postscript files to PDF usually requires the use of Illustrator or Acrobat Distiller.

Or you can just grab ps2pdf from Fink. I actually prefer this method over Preview because it's faster and more convenient when you're on the command line.

Faster than grabbing Fink...use the conversion tool that comes with Tiger (or Panther):
/usr/bin/pstopdf
To maintain bounding boxes for EPS files, Fink helps though:
/sw/bin/epstopdf

From my experience with working with Quark PS files to create PDFs Preview doesn't create an acceptable PDF for a Professional Printer to use. They reject the PDF as being corrupt because their software can't open it without error.
So Preview is just good for previewing these high quality high res images

Since Panther, MacOS's preview containt an Adobe Normaliser like we found in the professional RIP (used in pre-press DTP, like Heildelberg's PrintReady or CREO's Printenergy as an EOM solution). The role of this Normaliser is to… normalise (sic) a PostScript file (eps and ai who are just an kind of) before convert the file into pdf one.

As I know one professional pdf producer use it : Enfocus Instant PDF 3. The Apple documentation about this Normaliser is very poor and it's a shame because it could be a usefull solution for a lot of litle DTP software, espacialy as Tiger introduce the PDF/X standart in the printing API...

If you need control over output or Preview isn't working that well, I've put together a collection of drag-and-drop AppleScript front ends to the fink/Ghostscript ps2pdf converters, amongst others. It usually works better with more complex files, and it also has a frontend to OS X's pstopdf command. You can check it out here.

It'll even help you download Ghostscript separately if you don't have/want fink.