PIL vs eps

[brueckd at tbye.com]

On Wed, 27 Feb 2002, Robin Becker wrote:

> In article <just-B1FF7B.22204827022002 at newszilla.xs4all.nl>, Just van
> Rossum <just at xs4all.nl> writes
> >In article <mailman.1014835309.1869.python-list at python.org>,
> > <brueckd at tbye.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Forgive me if I'm totally off my rocker, but I think by definition eps
> >> files should *not* have a showpage and it is technically correct that
> >> nothing gets rendered unless you have a showpage command. EPS is
> >> "encapsulated postscript" - postscript that you intend to encapsulate or
> >> embed in another document, so showpage would muck things up.
> >
> >The EPS spec says showpage is optional, and that the surrounding ps code
> >should redefine showpage as a no-op.
> >
> >  http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/pdfs/tn/5002.EPSF_Spec.pdf
> >
> >Just
> so I guess that EPSPlugin isn't going to be able to handle some eps
> files. Indeed the sample .eps that came with ghostscript didn't have a
> showpage.

I don't know what kind of constraints you're dealing with, but the correct
way to handle an eps file (i.e. make it display) would be to actually
embed it in what is essentially a dummy .ps file, e.g. take the eps data
and surround it with the minimal ps header and footer necessary and then
process that instead of the original. (The problem you're having is rooted
in the fact that you're trying to treat an eps file like a ps file, so the
solution is to use the eps to make a real ps file).

-Dave