[R-SIG-Mac] [External] macOS Ventura (13) Preview App Drops Support for PS/EPS File Rendering

Wed Oct 26 18:26:22 CEST 2022

Hi Rich,

macOS includes pstopdf (/usr/bin/pstopdf) as a local, albeit dated, distiller. 

ps2pdf (/usr/local/bin/ps2pdf) is installed with the macTeX distribution with Ghostscript, and I use that as a last step in a shell script to process the .tex files via latex and dvips, when using Sweave, since the use of PS based components like pstricks precludes directly going to pdf with pdflatex.

The advantage of Preview was that it was a quick way to view a PS/EPS file, since you could just click on the file in Finder and hit the space bar to do a quick visual file view, or also fully open the file and render it as well, if preferred. I would use the former frequently, especially if I had several PS/EPS files in a folder and quickly wanted to confirm which one had the content that I was looking for. That applied whether the PS/EPS file was generated via Sweave or directly using postscript() in an R session.

As noted below, there are multiple alternative options, some "free", some not, and it may come down to specific workflow issues as to which approach may be better suited for useRs that need this capability.

Thanks!

Marc

On October 26, 2022 at 10:31:29 AM, Richard M. Heiberger (rmh using temple.edu) wrote:
> Have you considered ps2pdf?
>  
> > On Oct 26, 2022, at 10:11, Marc Schwartz via R-SIG-Mac  
> wrote:
> >
> > Hi Prof. Ripley,
> >
> > Thanks for your reply. Responses inline below.
> >
> > On October 25, 2022 at 11:11:43 PM, Prof Brian Ripley (ripley using stats.ox.ac.uk) wrote:  
> >> Somehow you sent HTML only, and that renders oddly in Thunderbird.
> >
> > My apologies on that.
> >
> > That is curious and I now see that in looking at the raw message content. I am not sure how  
> that occurred, as I had set the e-mail to plain text when composing, so somehow that changed  
> at some point. What is even more confusing, is that by default, had the e-mail been initially  
> composed as HTML/RTF, it would normally be sent as multipart MIME, which does not appear  
> to have been the case here, leaving me even more confused.
> >
> > I am sending this now as plain text, so hopefully that is what is sent. I will keep track  
> and if that is not the case, report a bug.
> >
> >> Have you considered GhostScript? That used to be my viewer of choice
> >> for Postscript long ago. I think TeXShop may be a wrapper.
> >
> > Yes, TeXShop is a GUI front-end previewer as you note below, included in the macTeX distribution,  
> using underlying functionality. Ghostscript 9.55 is also installed as part of macTeX,  
> which I have installed as I still heavily use Sweave to generate PDF reports for clients,  
> some of which use pstricks to generate flow chart figures. Thus, the included figure  
> content is generated as PDF and PS/EPS files, which I sometimes quickly preview, until  
> now, using macOS Preview.
> >
> > There is some coverage now of this change in Preview in various Mac fora, with some hypothesizing  
> that this change in Preview may be security related, pointing to a change by Microsoft  
> in Office back in 2017/2018:
> >
> > https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.microsoft.com%2Fen-us%2Foffice%2Fsupport-for-eps-images-has-been-turned-off-in-office-a069d664-4bcf-415e-a1b5-cbb0c334a840&data=05%7C01%7Crmh%40temple.edu%7C78ef812c421947a3942608dab75c0425%7C716e81efb52244738e3110bd02ccf6e5%7C0%7C0%7C638023903602892347%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=TbOX5KoROWOLe%2BTAx3EN0rSDVwIp%2BbRwaQDhqSBJIz0%3D&reserved=0  
> >
> > Of course, nothing official from Apple that I have seen.
> >
> >> My box has Photoshop as the default viewer for .eps and TeXShop for .ps.
> >> I almost never use Photoshop: it comes as part of Adobe's
> >> Photographers Bundle.
> >
> > I also have the full Adobe Acrobat application installed, as I have other functionality  
> provided by that app that I need, so pay for that as a business expense.
> >
> > It is interesting that now that I am trying to open some PS/EPS files with apps other than  
> Preview, if I use TeXShop, the file opens right away, whereas if I use Acrobat, I get a security  
> pop-up asking me if I trust the source that generated the file, which in this case, is me.  
> Perhaps Apple could take a similar approach with Preview, if security was the motivation  
> for this change, and they elect to revert it.
> >
> > This was more of a heads up for folks, who like me, have been dependent upon using Preview  
> for a quick look at these files, which are commonly generated using R.
> >
> > Thanks and regards,
> >
> > Marc
> >
> >
> >> Brian
> >>
> >> On 26/10/2022 01:06, Marc Schwartz via R-SIG-Mac wrote:
> >>> Hi All,
> >>>
> >>> Having updated to macOS Ventura, I just became aware that Ventura's
> >>> Preview app has dropped support for rendering PS and EPS files after all
> >>> these years.
> >>>
> >>> Not clear on the rationale for this change, but there is an Apple
> >>> Support article here on this:
> >>>
> >>> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsupport.apple.com%2Fen-us%2FHT213250&data=05%7C01%7Crmh%40temple.edu%7C78ef812c421947a3942608dab75c0425%7C716e81efb52244738e3110bd02ccf6e5%7C0%7C0%7C638023903603048577%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=YSoEWtjrSTW53AM9wF80GPHY%2BWz%2FxJIfJDykhrDW%2B%2B8%3D&reserved=0  
> >>>
> >>> Apparently, one can still print these files by dragging and dropping
> >>> them on to the printer queue, but you will need to find a different
> >>> application, such as the TeXShop app, which is bundled in macTeX for
> >>> free, or another option is the full Adobe Acrobat Pro application, if
> >>> you have and pay for that.
> >>>
> >>> If you are so inclined, you can provide product feedback to Apple here:
> >>>
> >>> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.apple.com%2Ffeedback%2Fmacos.html&data=05%7C01%7Crmh%40temple.edu%7C78ef812c421947a3942608dab75c0425%7C716e81efb52244738e3110bd02ccf6e5%7C0%7C0%7C638023903603048577%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=JytUqQ28oLpcg5IkxE1deFl29tKPkRELVRkDVEye2NY%3D&reserved=0  
> >>>
> >>> Regards,
> >>>
> >>> Marc Schwartz
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> _______________________________________________
> >>> R-SIG-Mac mailing list
> >>> R-SIG-Mac using r-project.org
> >>> https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fstat.ethz.ch%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Fr-sig-mac&data=05%7C01%7Crmh%40temple.edu%7C78ef812c421947a3942608dab75c0425%7C716e81efb52244738e3110bd02ccf6e5%7C0%7C0%7C638023903603048577%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=uIsQJcSYPddHtxzv%2FsyRdwVFCfJ4pF1lzo3wRJuGyeY%3D&reserved=0  
> >>
> >> --
> >> Brian D. Ripley, ripley using stats.ox.ac.uk
> >> Emeritus Professor of Applied Statistics, University of Oxford
> >>
> >>
> >
> > _______________________________________________
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>  
>  