PSTILL(1)

NAME
pstill - PostScript to PDF converter

SYNOPSIS
pstill [-F format] [-w width] [-h height] [-d dpi_accuracy] [-a numeric_accuracy] [-l min_linewidth] [-o filename] [-c] [-g] [-i] [-p] [-s] [-t] [-I] [-H] [-Tpath] [-R#] [-P] [-me|p] [-E#] [-C] [-f] [-J#] [-2] [-S#] [-W] [-v] [-Vcrtl] files...(or use 'STDIN' for stdin)

DESCRIPTION
The pstill program is a PostScript to PDF and PS/EPS file converter ('flattener'). It works on the input files using its own build-in PostScript Interpreter and write a PDF, PS or EPS file from the graphics structures it finds for each input file during the interpretation. The resulting PDF files are viewable with the Adobe Acrobat Reader and other PDF viewers. Resulting PS or EPS files should be useable with any Level 1 PS interpreter.
    If you specify multiple input files PStill will automatically concat them resulting in one PDF file. The order of concatenation is the order you specify on the command line.

OPTIONS

-F format
    To set the desired output format, run pstill -H for a list of formats, or use -w width The page width at begin in pts (1/72 inch). If not set the default is 612 pts.

-h height
    The page height at begin in pts (1/72 inch). If not set the default is 792 pts.

-d dpi
    The desired graphics placement accuracy during interpretation, should be between 36 and 600 dpi. THIS IS NOT THE RESULTING RESOLUTION AND ONLY AFFECTS THE PLACEMENT OF GRAPHICS OBJECTS! The default is 150, lesser values needs less memory and may result in faster conversion but results may have more placement 'errors'. May also used as '-d A/B/C' where A is the placement accuracy, B is the max. raster image density and C is the max. monochrom image density (all in dpi). Images are recalculated to this density values if their native density is higher than these settings.

-a digits
    The desired numeric accuracy of the resulting PDF file, should be between 0 and 6. The default is 0 (that means 2 + 0)

-l pts
    The lowest allowed linewidth for the resulting PDF. May be used to eliminate hairlines. Defaults to 0 (that means hairlines are converted as hairlines)

-o filename
    The desired output filename, if not specified the output is written to 'out.pdf'. Must be a real file (no stdout output at the moment)

-c  Compress the resulting PDF file using the flate compression method. A PDF-1.2 compatible viewer is needed for viewing the PDF. This options is additive, use '-cc' for generation of binary PDFs (smaller), '-ccc' to increase the compression factor and '-cccc' for the maximum possible but potentially very slow compression

-g  Get the page size from the PostScript file (if available). Please define a large enough default page size using the -w width and -h height options, otherwise the result may be clipped.

-i  Include all non-standard fonts (even if not 'strictly' needed) in the result. Usually this is not needed as these fonts are 'emulated' using MultipleMaster variants.

-p  Include all fonts as partial fonts. Partial (also called 'subsetted') fonts only contain the glyphs needed for display and print. So if a job just prints 'abc' only the glyphs for 'a','b' and 'c' are included.

-s  Include all standard fonts in the PDF. This option should be used with caution as the resulting PDF does not conform to standards anymore.

-t  Map graphics transfer functions from PostScript to PDF. See the Adobe Red Book for more infos. Do not use together with the '-m p|e' PS/EPS generation. Be sureto use this option if you encounter 'inverted' elements or wrong colors in the PDF.

-I  Do not process any file but test and install all fonts found in the PSFonts directory. This must be done before pstill is fully functional and when any new fonts are added to PSFonts. Please also specify '-v' so the option actually reads '-vI' to see the process log and status messages.

-R degree
    Rotate the resulting PDF file by degree, must be either 0, 90, 180 or 270 (0 is default). If you specify -R 0 (Rotate by zero) PStill will honor the Document Orientation settings.

-T tmppath
    Path to a directory where pstill may place its temporary files, these files are invisible but may take up a lot disk space, for large conversions pstill can use more than a few 10 MBytes for its tmp files. (per default /tmp is used on UNIX and the Windows TEMP directory on Windows 9x/NT and 2000)

-P  Dump all text as paths (one may say as curves) to the output file, the output file may get bigger, may not be nice to view on screen (but printing should be not be affected much), be sure to set a good accuary and dpi setting or results may be poor)

-m p|e
    Dump to PostScript ('p') or Encapsulated PostScript ('e'), in this mode pstill writes a new PostScript file instead on a PDF. Use -E # to specify a page number for the EPS mode. Use 'P' and 'E' to include fonts also in the result.

-E pagenumber
    Specify here the page number you want to have extracted from the input PostScript file. Only useful for the -m e option

-f  Forces PStill also to include empty pages in the resulting PDF (per default PStill does not take over empty pages, but this may cause problems if you rely on the page numbers)

-v  Turns on more verbose output, also shows any errors (per default PStill only sets the return value of the process to the error number or zero for no error)

-C  Turns on RGB color model for output (CMYK is default, but Reader might show these colors a bit too dark)

-J #
    JPEG compress all raster images, # is quality factor (0 - 100, 100 is best). This only applies to gray and color raster images, b/w and colored masks are still compressed lossless using the Flate algorithm, so be also sure to specify '-c' to compress these.

-2  Tell interpreter to identify itself as Level 2 device (Level 1 is default but PStill only defines the Level 2 commands, this options only sets the so called 'languagelevel' variable to the given value)

-S #
    Start logical page count for PDF at given page (per default this is 1). Could also be complex, see Docs for help

-V crtl
    Set the viewer preferences to FitWindow, CenterWindow, HideToolbar, HideWindowUI. Use exactly these names as control strings for this option

-B  Causes PStill to emit only black and white (gray) PDFs, colors and images are recalculated in this process

-K  PStill will write all font infos in the PDF with full encoding if this option is specified. Without it will write them as delta encoding to a BaseEncoding which is usually smaller in size. Both methods are allowed by the specification but some post processing programs may not like BaseEncodings/Deltas when later concatenating PDF (e.g. the NSF 'Fastlane' submit program which may also need to omit option 'p' for max. compatibility)

-H  Display some hopefully helpful information. Use 'pstill -H | less' for best results.

INSTALLATION

See INSTALL in the pstill archiv, run pstill with the -I option and be sure to set the

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

PSTILL_PATH
    must be set to the directory where the pstill, init.still and the PSFonts directory are located.

PSTILL_LICENSE
    must be set to your license key, see 'registration.pdf' to obtain one for commercial use. Please do not abuse pstill and consider to register. The Sun Solaris version runs without a key, educational and private use is free.

EXAMPLES

pstill -w 800 -h 1000 -ccc -gipt -o testout.pdf testfile.ps
    Convert the file 'testfile.ps' to 'testout.pdf' using compression and binary output, job page size, include non-standard fonts as partial fonts and map transfer function. The starting page size is set to 800x1000 pts so -g has enough space to work with.

pstill -vI
    (In the PSTILL_PATH directory) Audit and install all fonts in $PSTILL_PATH/PSFonts

SEE ALSO
xpdf, pdftops, gs, acroread

BUGS
Concatenation does not work for EPS files as these may not use 'showpage' and may have a TIFF-Preview. EPS files are however accepted as singular input.
    See http://www.wizards.de/~frank/pstill.html for bug notifications and fixes. Please notify the author of any bugs and problems in the current versions.

AUTHOR
Written by Frank M. Siegert (frank@this.net), Stauferweg 35, 72555 Metzingen, Germany, FAX +49 7123 15463

Please visit the pstill homepage at

http://www.wizards.de/~frank/pstill.html.

TRADEMARKS
Acrobat, PDF, PostScript, Distiller and others are Registered Trademarks of Adobe, Inc. and are used for Identification purpose only. PStill is a registered trademark of Frank Siegert.