Re: Splitting 2 pages/page landscape postscript file into two single page portrait pages

[Brian Blackmore]

In comp.text.tex Ross Presser <rpresser@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Oct 10, 4:30 pm, vasan...@hotmail.com wrote:
> > Hi, I am a newbie.
> >
> > I have a book.ps file which has all the pages, having two facing pages
> > per portrait page like this:
> >
> > +---------------+--------------+
> > |                 |               |
> > |                 |               |
> > +---------------+--------------+
> >
> > I want to split the two pages. I dont want to scan the pages and then
> > make bulky images out of compact pdf file. The file was generated from
> > a dvi and latex that are no longer available. The
> > author has died. The ps was made to save the number of printed
> > pages in an era before pdf.
> >
> > So there are two problems:
> > (1) split the ps into single pages
> > (2) split each page in the center to to two successive pages.
> > (3) then combine all the ps
> > (4) I would like the ps to be converted to pdf so that it is
> > searcheable, if possible.
> >
> > Steps 1-2 are the most important.
> >
> > Vasantha

> I can't help but think that all the solutions proposed so far are
> overthinking the problem. There are only a few good ways to 2-up a
> document in postscript, and it seems likely that a suitable perl
> script (or, if you're insane like Don Lancaster, a postscript program)
> could do the job without having to go through a PDF phase.

It's easy to think this because you're correct.  It would be nice to see
the first few pages, as was requested, simply so we could discern what
2-upper was used.  If the document was created through a reasonable
process like latex->dvips->psnup, then the data should nicely be in
unmunged form whence all that is required is to remove the two-up stuff,
which is easily found after the %%EndSetup as the PStoPS stuff.  In this
case, the pages are preserved (TeXDict begin ... bop ... eop end) so
removing the PStoPS rotation/scaling is all that's required.

Incidentally, I'm sure it would be fairly easy to right a postscript
header that would disable the PStoPS commands and create the same
effect.  :)

It seems to me that going through PDf, etc., is way overkill, and likely
to cause more problems.  The ability to search PDf is, of course,
somewhat dependent on the fonts used; the more steps you carry out, the
more likely it is that it becomes bitmapped.

If you just want to search, I suggest ps2ascii or a more capable
document (postscript) viewer.

-- 
Brian Blackmore
blb8 at po dot cwru dot edu