DHReutter

I just stumbled over the following problem: I received a PDF file with a graph inside. I want to include the graph into my thesis, but I don't want to use pdflatex. I also don't want to debate this decision, I just want to extract the vector data from the PDF file into an EPS to include it into my latex file.

Since a google search on this topic only brings up scamming sites offering windows shareware and hints which suggest the usage of Adobe Illustrator, I hope this page will get a higher google rank and help people with the same problem in the future.

To put it short, instead of extracting the eps data directly from the pdf, one has to go the way of converting the pdf to postscript and then to encapsulated postscript.

So, first generate the ps file:

pstoedit graph.pdf graph.ps

And then convert it to encapsulated postscript:

ps2eps graph.ps

That's all. And all it cost me was two hours of research on the internet.

Update: Both tools, pstoedit as well as ps2eps, are of course open source and available via the MacPorts Project. So if you got a mac, install it already!