[comp.sys.mac] Paint Formats

bird@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (j.l.walters) (08/18/89)

Earlier I asked for information on converting MacPaint to Sun
Raster format and received no answer so I'll try a different tack:

1. Need the MacPaint bitmap format

2. Need Encapsulated PostScript Format EPSF

Any information on the above will be appreciated.
-- 
				Joe Walters att!ihlpf!bird   
				IHP 1F-240 (312) 713-5356

halliday@cheddar.cc.ubc.ca (Laura Halliday) (08/19/89)

In article <1238@cbnewsd.ATT.COM> bird@cbnewsd.ATT.COM (j.l.walters) writes:
>Earlier I asked for information on converting MacPaint to Sun
>Raster format and received no answer so I'll try a different tack:
>(...)
>2. Need Encapsulated PostScript Format EPSF
>
>Any information on the above will be appreciated.

See if you can lay your hands on a copy of Adobe's EPSF spec. There are FTPable
copies floating around, or you could get a copy from Adobe. Briefly, EPSF
means that the file contains `well-behaved' PostScript, which generally means
that the contents don't do anything weird like `note', `grestoreall' or
`renderbands'. The `setscreen' and `settransfer' operators are permitted, but
you have to be careful.

EPSF includes additional information like font usage and bounding box size, 
for the benefit of any other program you may feed EPSF to. Other than that, 
it's more or less arbitrary PostScript. 

In the Mac world, the screen preview is a PICT approximation to the printed
result. It goes into the resource fork, as PICT resource number 256. The file
type is EPSF, whether a screen preview is available or not.

You might like to draw a simple picture with Illustrator 88 (or whatever)
and dissect the results with ResEdit. This can be educational...

...laura