orthlieb@adobe.COM (Carl Orthlieb) (03/16/91)
An Encapsulated PostScript file (EPSF) is a standard format for importing and exporting PostScript language files in all environments. It is usually a single page PostScript language program that describes an illustration. The purpose of the EPS file is to be included as an illustration in other PostScript language page descriptions. The EPS file can contain any combination of text, graphics, and images. An EPS file is the same as any other PostScript language page description, with some restrictions. EPS files can optionally contain a bitmapped image preview, so that systems that can't render PostScript directly can at least display a crude representation of what the graphic will look like. There are three preview formats: Mac (PICT), IBM (tiff), and a platform independent preview called EPSI. It is up to the application creating the EPSF to include the preview. An EPS file must be a conforming file, that is, it must conform to the document structuring conventions (DSC). At a minimum, it must include a header comment, %!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0, and a bounding box comment, %%BoundingBox: llx lly urx ury, that describes the bounds of the illustration. Optional comments include font usage (%%DocumentFonts: or %%DocumentNeededResources: font), EPSI preview comments (%%Begin(End)Preview:) extensions (%%Extensions:) and language level (%%LanguageLevel:). There are some operators that should not be used within an EPS file: banddevice cleardictstack copypage erasepage exitserver framedevice grestoreall initclip initgraphics initmatrix quit renderbands setglobal setpagedevice setshared startjob These also include operators from statusdict and userdict operators like legal, letter, a4, b5, etc. There are some operators that should be carefully used: nulldevice setgstate sethalftone setmatrix setscreen settransfer undefinefont Look in Appendices H and I of the new red book for more information on EPSF. Hope this helps, Carl 8-)