PDF to eps preserving pantone colors

[Jeffrey H. Coffield]

I am looking for a way to automate converting a 4 page PDF that contains
Pantone colors into 4 eps files (one for each page) and preserve the
Pantone color hopefully using GhostScript. The epswrite with a %d in the
output file name give me the eps files but the Pantone calls are gone.

[Dave]

On Dec 29 2009, 3:23 pm, "Jeffrey H. Coffield"

So you want to end up with spot colors, i.e. colors in the /Separation
color space (which is a special case of DeviceN) in the output EPS?
I think it's legal but I don't know if GS will support it. The
documentation (http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/cvs/Devices.htm)
says that the epswrite device takes a language level parameter, but
that choosing Level 3 results in the same output as Level 2, so I take
that to mean Level 3 features aren't supported. Separation color space
was introduced in Level 2 and the generalized form DeviceN was
introduced in Level 3. The same documentation says that GS supports up
to 64 process/spot colors so you do have a chance at success, maybe
it's down to what the epswrite output device supports. Did the Pantone
colors in the original file use the Separation color space? Maybe
somebody else here knows more about GS color support than me.

[abe...@hotmail.com]

On Dec 29 2009, 6:23 pm, "Jeffrey H. Coffield"

Using Acrobat Reader seemed to preserve to spot color but g smay have
options.

Ed

% create PostScript file including color PANTONEFF where .5 magenta is
alternate color
[ /Separation (PANTONEFF) /DeviceCMYK { pop 0 .5 0 0 } ] setcolorspace

% convert to PDF with ps2pdf and PDF has:
[/Separation
/PANTONEFF
/DeviceCMYK
8 0 R]endobj
...

% convert to PostSCript via gs and PANTONEXX is gone but

% convert to PostScript with Acrobat Reader/Driver and PostScript has:
/Name (PANTONEFF)
/0
[/DeviceCMYK] /CSA add_res
/CSA /0 get_csa_by_name
/MappedCSA /0 /CSA get_res
/TintMethod /Subtractive
/TintProc null
...