ghostscript regression

[George N. White III]

On Fri, 16 May 2008, Julius Smith wrote:

> I am getting errors converting PostScript to PDF on F8 that I do not
> get on an F6 machine:
>
> On F6:
> ps2pdf test.ps test.pdf
> uname -a
> Linux ccrma-gate.stanford.edu 2.6.23.16-64.2.fc6.ccrma #1 SMP Mon Feb
> 11 14:13:20 EST 2008 i686 i686 i386 GNU/Linux
>
> On two different machines running F8 (operating on the same PostScript file):
>
> ps2pdf test.ps test.pdf
> Error: /undefinedresult in --xyshow--
> [...]
> Current file position is 8013015
> GPL Ghostscript 8.61: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1
> GPL Ghostscript 8.61: ERROR: A pdfmark destination page 227 points
> beyond the last page 226.
>
> The file is 24MB, so it is not easy to isolate what is triggering the
> problem.  It is a book containing PostScript figures dating back to
> the 1990s.
> Any ideas?

Is the last page really 226?  You should be able to find the
problematic pdfmark with an editor.  The ghostscript documentations
provides pointers to the relevant Adobe documents.  Does the link
work in the .pdf file created using FC6?  How was the .ps file
created?  It is possible that the PS figures are not EPS and the
ghostscript error is a result of some side efect of the PS figure.

I've had some experience with "a book containing PostScript figures dating 
back to the 1990s" (and earlier).  Many of the figures did not meet the 
"EPS" specification.  The book was originally formatted using Y&Y TeX, 
dvipsone, and distiller.  The solution was to convert all the figures to 
PDF (because that can be done with pretty much any PS file, not just EPS) 
and format using pdftex with miniltx and the LaTeX graphics macros.

-- 
George N. White III  <aa056 at chebucto.ns.ca>