Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!chinacat!woody
From: woody@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Woody Baker @ Eagle Signal)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: Definition of EPS vs PS
Summary: see the file server
Message-ID: <1389@chinacat.Unicom.COM>
Date: 10 Jul 90 02:48:54 GMT
References: <3911@crystal9.UUCP>
Distribution: comp
Organization: a guest of Unicom Systems Development, Austin
Lines: 38

In article <3911@crystal9.UUCP>, derosa@motcid.UUCP (John DeRosa) writes:
> I am having an arguement with a fellow worker about
> the difference between encapsulate postscript and 
> postscript.
> 
> We both agree what postscript is, i.e. a language
> of commands that can be sent to a postscript engine
> of one sort or another.
> 
> He says that an EPS file is: "An Encapsulated Postscript 
> file is merely a postscript file with two additional
> lines added at the begining:
> 
> 	%!PS-Adobe-2.0 EPSF-1.2
> 	%%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792"

in a sense it is. The above will allow you to import to some packages.
EPS is really an attempt to fix some oversights in the language, by using
structured comments.  These comments mean nothing to the Postscript printer,
but are designed to allow applications to do such things as allocate space
on the page properly, know which fonts are needed etc. etc.  Some print
spoolers apparently utilize this information as well.  There are several
documents on the  fileserver at adobe.  I forget the exact way to get there,
I think it is  ps-file-server@adobe.com.  Send a message    send help
and it will.  Then you can get the complete EPS specs from the server.
In the PC world, there is no use for EPS structuring comments, other than
to allow certain software packages to import EPS files for display or
printing.  Print spoolers are essentialy not needed, and very little used,
and those that are, are things like superspl from AST, and the like that
are NOT postscript aware.
Your friend is correct, in that the above 2 lines are the minimum required
to qualify as "EPS", but as anyone who has tangled with the beast can tell
you, they are not any guarantee of anything.  Seems that each package likes
a different subset of EPS, and there is very little acutal understanding
between packages when it comes to EPS.

Cheers
Woody