[texhax] including multiple page .ps documents

Randolph J. Herber herber at dcdrjh.fnal.gov
Fri Jun 20 13:22:23 CEST 2003


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|Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2003 07:13:55 +0200
|From: Tim Gard <t.gard at student.unimaas.nl>
|Subject: [texhax] including multiple page .ps documents
|To: texhax at tug.org
|Organization:
|	<mailto:texhax-request at tug.org?subject=subscribe>
|	<mailto:texhax-request at tug.org?subject=unsubscribe>

|Hi,

|Does anybody have an idea how to include a multiple page .ps document in
|a latex document? With \icludegraphics and \epsfig, I only succeeded in
|including documents that cover not more than one page.

|Thanks for your help,

|Tim

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1)  Adobe PostScript language that intended to compute images.
2)  Adobe PostScript print files are main programs.
3)  Adobe Encapsulated PostScript files (a.k.a. eps or epsf) are subroutines,
    which not intended as stand-alone main programs are intended to be
    embedded (encapsulated) into main programs.  There are requirements on
    such subroutines so that they will not have undesirable side-effects.
    One of those requirements is that they be single images and therefore
    that they be single page.
4)  The Adobe (D)ocument (S)tructuring (C)omments are for the
    purpose of division of an Adobe PostScript print files by a program
    that does not understand the Adobe PostScript language itself.  It
    is intended to permit the division of a multiple page print file into
    a declaration section at the front, a following, optional initialization
    section at the front, zero or more individual pages which must be
    independent of each other and a terminal, optional termination section.
    This permits the display of single pages or the display of ranges of
    pages in any order (such as reversed or booklet order).

The only compliant methods to do what you request is to divide the multiple
page document into its individual pages and convert them to EPS with a
tool such as ghostscript and then encapsulate each page as a separate,
full page figure or to use a tool such as mpage to combine all the pages
into a single page image, convert that to EPS and encapsulate that as
you wish.

I believe that LaTeX also has a specific, documented requirement that
figures be single images.

Briefly, you can not do it.  The systems were not designed to work that way!

Randolph J. Herber, herber at fnal.gov, +1 630 840 2966, CD/CDFTF PK-149F,
Mail Stop 318, Fermilab, Kirk & Pine Rds., PO Box 500, Batavia, IL 60510-0500,
USA.  (Speaking for myself and not for US, US DOE, FNAL nor URA.)  (Product,
trade, or service marks herein belong to their respective owners.)


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