The PostScript produced by many PC packages does not conform to Adobe's Document Structuring Conventions, which can cause problems when trying to print it or include the output in mkdoc. Most of these problems can be fixed by hand-editing the PostScript file.
The most common problems are:-
PostScript files are supposed to start with %!, so that the printer can recognise them as PostScript. The software which drives our PostScript printers has been fixed to recognise files starting with ^D%! as PostScript. Without this fix they are treated as ASCII files and printed in full. Mkdoc will not recognise them, and will refuse to include them.
To conform to the DSC, a PostScript file must start with a line of the form %!PS-Adobe-2.0 (the 2.0 is a version number and may be different). Mkdoc checks for %!PS-Adobe- and will not include the file if it is not present.
Programs which include Encapsulated PostScript files need a way to know how much space to leave. The %%BoundingBox comment provides this. It can be added with a command such as
then, in mkdoc
This also adds a preview bitmap, which is used by programs such as xfig to show roughly what the image looks like. Newer versions of xfig will generate a bitmap on the fly if the file does not already contain one. This bitmap will not be added to the file. Again, mkdoc will not include the file if the %%BoundingBox missing.
Some PC drawing packages, most notably Freelance, produce EPS files with the bounding box set to the whole screen, even though the image only covers a small part of it. This can be fixed in the same way as files which have no %%BoundingBox. You will end up with two %%BoundingBox comments in the file, the second one will be ignored (by mkdoc at least).