EPS and PostScript
PostScript is the page description language that laser printers and print shops have used since the 1980s. A PS file describes whole printed pages; many programs and printer drivers can "print to file" in this format. An EPS file (Encapsulated PostScript) describes a single graphic, such as a logo, an illustration or a chart, to be placed in other documents. Logos from designers, stock graphics and charts from scientific software often come as EPS.
Without Adobe Illustrator or a similar program, EPS files are hard to open. Windows and phones cannot show them, and many office programs no longer import them. PDF, on the other hand, opens everywhere, and it is built on the same graphics model as PostScript, so the conversion is faithful.
What the conversion keeps
- Vector graphics stay vectors: lines, shapes and text are sharp at any zoom and any print size.
- Fonts embedded in the file are kept; text that was converted to outlines stays as shapes.
- Page size: an EPS graphic gets a page exactly the size of its bounding box, without extra white space. A PS file keeps its page size.
- Colours: CMYK colours used for print are kept where possible.
Some EPS files contain only a pixel image, for example a photo saved as EPS. The PDF then contains the same pixel image, and it does not become sharper, because there are no vectors to keep. Many older EPS files also carry a small preview picture for page layout programs. The converter does not use this preview; it draws the real PostScript content.
Privacy and limits
The conversion runs on our own server with Ghostscript, the standard open-source PostScript interpreter. Files are uploaded over HTTPS, converted and deleted right after; the PDF is kept for 15 minutes at most. Up to 20 files at once, each up to 50 MB. For Adobe Illustrator files, see AI to PDF. To use the graphic as an image, convert the PDF with PDF to PNG, which can keep a transparent background.