[OS X TeX] Re: dvipdf vs. dvipdfm vs. dvipdfmx

[Bruno Voisin]

Le 27 nov. 05 à 19:29, Arthur Snoke a écrit :

> Also, in this recent thread I saw mention about the Mac ps2pdf.  Is  
> it superior to the ps2pdf which comes with ghostscript?

Beware: the Apple distiller is called pstopdf, not ps2pdf. In  
summary, you have:

- pstopdf, actually /usr/bin/pstopdf: Apple's built-in distiller  
(starting with Panther).

- ps2pdf, actually /usr/local/bin/ps2pdf: Ghostscript's distiller.

- epstopdf, actually /usr/local/teTeX/bin/powerpc-apple-darwin- 
current/epstopdf: teTeX's distiller (for EPS files only, and calling  
ps2pdf internally).

Re. you question: I saw files which ps2pdf couldn't process while  
pstopdf could; and I also saw files which pstopdf couldn't process  
while ps2pdf could.

Generally, I would recommend ps2pdf: ps2pdf produces compressed PDF  
output by default, while pstopdf doesn't. Hence, when the PDF files  
are included in a (La)TeX document as figures, say, and these figures  
have been created with pstopdf, then the compression of these figures  
in the final PDF output is redone every time the (La)TeX file is  
processed, taking up quite some time in some cases; on the other  
hand, with ps2pdf, the compression has been done once and for good,  
and won't be repeated.

Bruno Voisin

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