
                           epsbb/README

              Copyright (C) 2003-2004, Fredrik Jonsson

The EPSBB program extracts the bounding box of files containing Encapsulated
PostScript (EPS) images [1]. The output is a string of coordinates of the EPS
bounding box, in the format "llx,lly,urx,ury", where (llx,lly) are the lower
left coordinate and (urx,ury) the upper right coordinate, both given in pt
(1/72 inch). The program is essentially just a self-consistent driver for the
scan_for_boundingbox() routine that I wrote some years ago, and this is
definitively one of the most compact and simple programs I have ever written.
Nevertheless, I find it very useful in scripts and Makefiles, where I
occasionally want to pipe the bounding box coordinate to other programs
(such as MetaPost or TeX).
   Notice that I have added the -w option, compared to the classical version
of epsbb, in order to get a more readable output of the bounding box size in
terms of millimetres. This option is nice to use when invoking epsbb from the
command line (in order to conform to the classical behaviour, I have though
kept the default output coordinates in pt whenever the program is invoked
without any options).

Files in this directory:

        Makefile     - The Makefile for compilation of the executable
                       file, as well as generation of the documentation
                       of the program. Extracts the C and TeX code from
                       the CWEB source, and compiles the C and TeX code
                       into binary executable and PostScript, respectively.
                       To create the executable and documentation, simply
                       run 'make' in this directory.

        epsbb.c      - ANSI-C (ISO C89) conforming source code for EPSBB.

Compile the EPSBB program using the enclosed Makefile, just running 'make'.


References

 [1] For information on the PostScript programming language, see for
     example the homepage of Adobe Systems Inc., at
     http://www.adobe.com/products/postscript/main.html,
     or "PostScript Language - Tutorial and Cookbook" (Adison-Wesley,
     Reading, Massachusetts, 1985), ISBN 0-201-10179-3.

