This is an excerpt from the README included with EPSWMF, a little program that "marries" EPS and WMF files exported from your graphics programs into a single EPS with WMF preview graphics file.

What EPSWMF is:

EPSWMF is a Windows program that marries WMF preview images to EPS files.

If the world were a perfect place, your software would offer EPS files with WMF preview images as an option, just as it now probably allows TIFF preview images.

The world is not a perfect place, but I took it upon myself to pretty up this one small corner of it.

Why WMF?

Most programs export EPS files with no preview or a TIFF preview image.

TIFF images are either low resolution or they're large and ponderous.

To get a reasonably detailed preview, even in black in white, you're committed to a TIFF image that makes your EPS file much larger than it needs to be, and which slows redraws in the app you import it into.

WMF previews have these advantages over TIFF previews:

1. They're typically much smaller
2. They're resolution independent ... they don't fall apart on screen or printout when you scale them up or down
3. They're higher resolution ... you can see what you're doing much better
4. They're in color. Except in Great Britain and most its former colonies where they're in colour.
5. They print well on non-PS printers

Disadvantages:

1. WMF previews don't work on Macs. When you add a WMF preview, you lose portability.
2. They're not as universally supported as TIFF previews. Some software will stare stupidly and drool on its shoes when you ask it to import WMF'd EPS files.

How you use EPSWMF:

From Corel Draw, Freehand, etc, export your drawing first as EPS (with or without TIF preview image) then immediately, and without changing anything, export your image again as WMF (with or without placeable metafile header) to the same directory as the EPS export, and with the same base filename. In other words, once done with this stage, you might have on your disk:

C:\EXPORTS\MYFILE.EPS
C:\EXPORTS\MYFILE.WMF

You then run EPSWMF, click Choose Files, point it at MYFILE.EPS and MYFILE.WMF, hit the Go button and you're off to the races.

EPSWMF assumes that you want to attach a WMF preview with the same base
file name as the EPS file, but you may choose any other WMF file instead.

Once it's done, it saves the new EPS file with your WMF preview attached as MYFILE.EPS (ie, the new file takes on the name of the original EPS file) and saves your original EPS file with the same name, but with EPB as the extension.

(There are other options, but they're explained in the full README file)

Last updated 9/27/2001 6:36:32 PM

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