How to utilize old EPS files?

PS-to-PDF:

Nothing against these Rootrise guys other than a lack of history, but an Indian company established Dec 2012, almost no references or reviews, but a plethora of many similar utilities. The sheer availability of linked generic-web-template sites and downloads, and hiding behind any further information other than "give us money" tells me to stay away.

I suspect it's just compiled scripting using existing background utilities on the Mac, and that it would fail because I just tried to do the same thing manually. This utility probably just calls pstopdf and Preview to convert a file with and save it as another format, which doesn't work for me. They have many other utilities that do the same thing with different formats.

EPS Converter:

Three reviews that all say it doesn't work, no support, and no money back. I didn't even bother to look for this company on the web.

ps2pdf:

Doesn't exist, so I wonder if this was an earlier name for pstopdf, again, the background for what I've already tried. Basically, if I do this command line with the terminal instead of the applications, I get a slightly more descriptive error message, if anybody can interpret it: <%%[ Error: undefined; OffendingCommand: Adobe_level2_AI5 ]%%> To me, that's just a comment about the file source so maybe it's more significant, like I need an AI5 dictionary or something.

Adobe Illustrator download:

An interesting idea that I'll save to the end. It's because of the stupid cloud thing now, they want a pound of flesh to start the download and there's no way I'm going that route until I have no other options. I assume I'll be downloading a fully functional version and they'll find a way to "rent" AI to me if I hand over anything like a credit card number. Let's just say it's my holdout idea.

Thanks, anything else, anybody parse EPS in their heads know what things have changed that make old EPSF not really work into its future?

Again, web site says nothing about money, then the fine print is three pages of subscription fees you accept if you select the button. How to companies operate like this? Do they not even ask for money because the majority of people will walk away from a line added to their credit card bill as long as it doesn't repeat?

Are you guys getting kickbacks for posting these software links?

See ya. I didn't ask for free, I just asked for ideas, which were provided and I negated. I'm not avoiding paying, only avoiding fraudulent or useless. I can use google too.

Now GraphicConverter, there's a winning idea.

I didn't know they still existed but I recall it was very popular in the past. I will download it, and if it works I will gladly buy it an push the price onto the customer.

And yes, I will return with feedback.

I tried GraphicConverter but it suffers from the same shortcomings, opening only what I verified already but not the old stuff, then saving user-selectable-resolution bitmap EPS/PDF. This prints only the preview bitmap, worsening resolution with scale up, so I suspect that's the actual conversion that took place, line art to pixels. I just can't prove if that was only the preview or not in the printout.

It did give me an idea though. I can replicate the same idea by saving a drawing selection inside Preview as a new file, then typesetting around that art to replicate the old files, letterhead etc. Cheesy but good enough for a simple logo, not useful if the files in question were more complicated.

So, I'll sign this off since all my good friends have departed, with a nod to Old Toad for the GraphicConverter suggestion.

Thanks

Fascinating stuff. I tested and rejected iDraw in previous versions, just because I was so familiar with Illustrator tools after years of use that iDraw felt overly strange, but the price insensitivity of Adobe has me wandering and wondering.

Some facts:

- files that I could still open in Preview and save as PDF can be opened with iDraw beta

- they contain intact, editable, vector art, as promised on the web site; very cool

- those that didn't have the EPSF header info still can't be opened or imported in any form

- files saved from iDraw as PDF (EPS not an option) are true to form full-size pages, but can be cropped successfully in their final layout, making me wonder if file size could become an issue after importing multiple graphics. Nothing like a failing print rendering because it thinks you're using real estate six inches outside the printable page

- the files I had tested earlier, saved as a selection box to a PDF file from Preview, appear in iDraw as merely a window cropping of the entire original file; Preview puts the entire postscript code into the newly saved PDF with a window of the selection area laminated on top.

I guess I'm not done yet. More on this after I get some feedback from on-site output samples. About price, only $25.

After reading Adobe's Illustrator file format document, I have to assume that all the files that don't have EPSF at the top are one of the other various Illustrator formats related to EPS, but not intended for export, maybe even Illustrator's default. I saved files like this for many years with external file systems or tar tapes, stripping things like previews and resource forks so they'd work in Framemaker or vi or whatever, and I've decided I'm barking up the wrong tree. Maybe some day I'll buy Illustrator again and find out exactly what's in there, but for now I'll have to satisfy myself with a few extracted vector objects from iDraw's demo.