[GRASS-user] problems with ps.map outputs

[Tom Russo]

On Thu, Aug 14, 2008 at 02:04:50AM -0700, we recorded a bogon-computron collision of the <hamish_b at yahoo.com> flavor, containing:
> > Glynn pisze:
> > 
> > > The usual tool for interactively editing PostScript files is
> > > Illustrator.
> 
> Maciek:
> > FTR, Corel Draw worked for me too when I used Windows.
> > 
> > BTW - anybody knows of good Open Source alternatives for
> > editing (*real* editing, alike Illustrator or Corel Draw) PS or PDF
> > under GNU/Linux?
> 
> How about Inkscape or Scribus?
>   http://www.inkscape.org/
>   http://www.scribus.net/

Both of these are cool programs, and if one could get ps.map's output into
them they'd be great choices for tweaking map presentation.  But neither is 
actually able to import a PDF (or even PostScript) map for editing.

Scribus can import a PDF of text and allow you to edit it.  It can't do much
with the graphics, though.

Inkscape can do a great deal with the graphics if you can get the data 
imported.  But it can't read PDFs or postscript directly.  Inkscape has some 
script that tries to use ghostscript to convert the document to an Adobe 
Illustrator document and then import that, but every time I've tried it it 
fails.  As far as I could tell, it was because the ghostscript ps-to-ai deal 
didn't work properly on ps.map's generated postscript.

Have you actually had success with either of these programs?  I would *LOVE*
not to have to use Illustrator (which I don't even have --- when I need this
capability I have to transfer PDF versions of my maps to my girlfriend's
computer, which *does* have Adobe CS).

-- 
Tom Russo    KM5VY   SAR502   DM64ux          http://www.swcp.com/~russo/
Tijeras, NM  QRPL#1592 K2#398  SOC#236 AHTB#1 http://kevan.org/brain.cgi?DDTNM
 "Argue for your limitations and sure enough, they're yours."  -- R. Bach