pstoedit stucks on converting from eps to svg in gutsy

[fogman]

Binary package hint: pstoedit

When creating eps-files in gutsy (LaTex, Matlab, etc.) and converting them to a different format like svg (also xfig etc.) with pstoedit, pstoedit gets stuck and gs will take up 100% CPU-Time.
I suppose its reither a bug in the new ghostscript since everything works fine with gs-gpl and pstoedit in feisty.
But, because i haven't seen this problem anywhere else then in pstoedit, i'll post it here.

There is a small workaround that works quite well with some restrictions.
1. You have to reconvert the eps-file with "pstoedit -f gs:epswrite file.eps file2.eps"
2. Then you can convert the second eps-file to an svg-file with "pstoedit -f plot-svg file2.eps file2.svg"

This is usefull, if you need the LaTex-equation in Inkscape.
It won't work well, if you created an eps-file in matlab.
The svg-file (after 1. and 2.) will lose all Text-Information and won't show any Text.

Any more suggestions?

[Kenshiro (fdemartin)]

Same for me after installing Gusty (everything was ok with Feisty). Even your workaround for Inkscape does not work for me -__-

[fogman (sv)]

You should download pstoedit-2.45 from http://www.pstoedit.net/pstoedit .
Gutsy ships with pstoedit-3.44 which has the described bug.
I contacted the developers, which where giving me a path for 3.44 -> 3.45 before a release of 3.45.
In pstoedit-3.45 this bug was solved!

[Kenshiro (fdemartin)]

Thx for your help. I did what you said, but now I have the following error when I write pstoedit -f plot-svg foo.eps foo.svg: "Unsupported output format plot-svg"
Quite strange...

[CereS (ale-cere)]

I can confirm the bug and I can also confirm that in the 3.45 version it is solved. Thanks fogman, I was going crazy!
I would add that the latex formula compilation is one of the nicest features of inkscape, and it is a pity to see it crash because of the version of pstoedit. Should I open a new bug for wishing an upgrade ASAP?

For Kenshiro: have you installed the libplot-dev before compiling pstoedit?

[fogman (sv)]

Kenshiro: Is librsvg-dev installed?
CereS: You should do so, since it would also resolve a couple of other problems for other people.

[Kenshiro (fdemartin)]

Ceres, Fogman, thank for your answer! I had libplot-dev but not librsvg2-dev. After installing librsvg2-dev, it works perfectly!
THX a lot ^__^

[Andrew Chadwick (achadwick)]

I can confirm this bug when pstoedit is called to convert pdfs to svg. Gutsy systems can enter an infinite loop with no system calls when pstoedit is called in the normal way.

As mentioned in bug #156365 and bug #78737, and in the pstoedit changelog <URL: http://www.helga-glunz.homepage.t-online.de/pstoedit/changelog.htm >, the problem seems to arise from versions of pstoedit < 3.45 being used with ghostscripts >= 8.61.

For a workaround, a local source-build backport of Debian sid's pstoedit 3.45-2 solved the problem for me: I suggest grabbing the three source files linked at at <URL: http://packages.debian.org/source/sid/pstoedit > and doing a local package build so that at least you'll be getting a packaged build of the program.

[netAction (launchpad-netaction)]

The bug is still in hardy with pstoedit 3.45.
$ pstoedit test.esp test.svg
The output is a broken svg.

[Christoph B (er-satanziege)]

Bug also present in the current Jaunty RC, pstoedit 3.45.
Too bad. Gotta write my thesis with xfig...

[Andrew King (anders-king-00)]

@Christoph B -> you possibly are seeing bug #364319

As a workaround I rebuilt the package (as is - no changes/patches applied), and it now works.
(ie. apt-get source pstoedit -> apt-get build-dep pstoedit -> dpkg-buildpackage -> dpkg -i).
pstoedit now has various 'plot-*' filters, in particular, plot-svg.
This also fixes latex rendering in inkscape. - no need to resort to xfig...

Cheers,
Andrew

[hasi (whynot-nurfuerspam)]

Andrew King:
Everything but the last command works: when I do "sudo dpkg -i" it complains because it wants a package as argument. Which one to give?

[hasi (whynot-nurfuerspam)]

OOps, I found it. The created *.deb files were in my home directory. Sorry to bother you.

[W. J. van der Laan (laanwj)]

Andrew King his solution works; but only after I had re-installed(!) libplot2c2 and libplot-dev. Seems there was some strange dependency issue.

[Tarek Loubani (tareko)]

The above worked for me as well. As a note, I modified it ever so slightly. These are the exact commands I used:

apt-get source pstoedit
sudo apt-get build-dep pstoedit
cd psto*
dpkg-buildpackage
cd ..
sudo dpkg -i *.deb

tarek : )