How to convert .PDF to .eps (on Windows)

Question

I am looking for a free software program to allow me to convert a PDF file into an EPS file.

The converter should retain the image quality as much as possible.

I was able to do this with GSView, but the result was always of the shape of a portrait A4 image, while my image is a landscape A4.

(Sorry if this was asked already, I was only able to find EPS to PDF questions, but not the other way around.)

Answer 1

You can use the tool pdftops with the --eps switch. This is installed on most Linux systems together with the xpdf package.

This also can be installed on Windows. See for the links http://gnuwin32.sourceforge.net/packages/xpdf.htm

Answer 2

Ghostscript also can convert PDFs to EPS:

gswin32c.exe ^
  -o output.eps ^
  -sDEVICE=epswrite ^
  d:/path/to/input.pdf

If Ghostscript's default media size (which is letter) doesn't match your needs, you can specify any other one like that:

gswin32c.exe ^
  -o output.eps ^
  -sDEVICE=epswrite ^
  -sPAPERSIZE=a5 ^
  d:/path/to/input.ps

A list of PAPERSIZE-values known to Ghostscript is here. Even more fine-tuned control you can gain by using -dDEVICEWIDTHPOINTS=w -dDEVICEHEIGHTPOINTS=h like this:

gswin32c.exe ^
  -o output.eps ^
  -sDEVICE=epswrite ^
  -dDEVICEWIDTHPOINTS=175 ^
  -dDEVICEHEIGHTPOINTS=267 ^
  d:/path/to/input.pdf

Width and height are given in 'points' (72 pt == 1 inch). OK, but now you have multi-page PDFs and EPS inherently is a 1-page format only? Additionally, you want to shift images to the left and to the top? Try this:

gswin32c.exe ^
  -o input_page_%03d.eps ^
  -sDEVICE=epswrite ^
  -dDEVICEWIDTHPOINTS=227 ^
  -dDEVICEHEIGHTPOINTS=354 ^
  -dPDFFitPage ^
  -c "<</PageOffset [-72 100]>> setpagedevice" ^
  d:/path/to/input.pdf

For each PDF page Ghostscript will create a separate EPS file, named input_page_001.eps, input_page_002.eps, etc.

Answer 3

Adobe lets you download a free postscript driver:

http://www.adobe.com/support/downloads/product.jsp?product=pdrv&platform=win

Frankly, I used to use that quite a while ago, but it used to work fine back then.

Answer 4

There are several options that I have found: The first is an online solution where you upload the file and then download it as a zip file. The second is a piece of software where you purchase it and then download the software. Hope that these lead you in the right direction.

Answer 5

I found this website to be incredibly helpful:

http://image.online-convert.com/convert-to-eps

All the best.