harvey/sys/man/1/ps2pdf

.TH PS2PDF 1
.SH NAME
ps2pdf, pdf2ps \- convert between PostScript and PDF
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B ps2pdf
[
.I gs-options
]
[
.I input-file
[
.I output-file
]
]
.PP
.B pdf2ps
[
.I gs-options
]
[
.I input-file
[
.I output-file
]
]
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Ps2pdf
and
.I pdf2ps
convert from PostScript to PDF and back by invoking
.IR gs (1).
If
.I output-file
is not specified, they write to standard output.
If neither
.I input-file
nor
.I output-file
is not specified, they read from standard input and write to standard output.
.PP
The
.I gs-options
are passed to Ghostscript unaltered.
The most useful option to
.I ps2pdf
is
.BR -dCompatibilityLevel=\fIlevel ,
which sets the version of PDF to be written.
The default is
.BR 1.2 ;
.B 1.3
and
.B 1.4
are also possible.
Similarly, the most useful option to
.I pdf2ps
is
.BR -dLanguageLevel=\fIlevel ,
which sets the version of PostScript to be written.
The default is
.BR 2 ;
.B 1
and
.B 3
are also possible.
.PP
.I Ps2pdf
produces output competitive with
Adobe Distiller in most cases, and it
accepts all the embedded PDF-generation hints that Adobe Distiller does.
.PP
.I Pdf2ps
produces a PostScript file containing one large bitmap
per page.  For a more direct and smaller translation,
use Adobe Acrobat's
.B -toPostScript
command-line option.
.SH SOURCE
.B /rc/bin/ps2pdf
.br
.B /rc/bin/pdf2ps
.SH SEE ALSO
.IR gs (1)
.SH BUGS
.IR Gs 's
.I pdfwrite
sometimes emits bad PDF at the default level 1.2.
Adding
.BR '-dCompatibilityLevel=1.4'
should cure it.