Re: ImageMagick convert -- a required bundle to handle EPS on Windows and OSX?

Hi Stuart, *,

On Sat, Apr 26, 2014 at 8:45 PM, V Stuart Foote <VStuart.Foote@utsa.edu> wrote:
> Looking at issue fdo#62051
> <https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=62051>  , why no versions of
> LibreOffice seem to handle insertion of EPS.
>
> Looking in OpenGrok at  ieps.cxx
> <http://opengrok.libreoffice.org/xref/core/filter/source/graphicfilter/ieps/ieps.cxx>
> Linux seems to use the GhostScript -- gs command that is commonly bundled.
> But Windows seems to require use of ImageMgaick convert command.  That is
> not normally a program a Windows user would install!

Nope. ps2edit, convert and ghostscript are tried in that order on all
platforms. The first one that is available will be used.

> So, I installed an ImageMagick binary (32-bit static
> ImageMagick-6.8.9-0-Q16-x86-static.exe) from
> http://www.imagemagick.org/script/binary-releases.php  and all versions of
> LibreOffice through 4.1.x now render a viable image of the EPS.

That might just as well be because ghostscript has trouble with the
border/placement of the image in the preview - that is why the two
other variants are tried first. Those do a better job with that.

> Can find nothing noting a requirement for ImageMagick as a install
> dependency, should ImageMagick be bundled if EPS rendering is depending on
> it?

No. As all of the above is only used to create a preview image of the
EPS file if there is none embedded in the EPS file already.

EPS is a niche format that most of the users won't encounter. So no
need to confuse those by listing those helper programs as a
"installation requirement"

ciao
Christian