# How do you read .ps files?



## buc99 (Jun 30, 2002)

Simple unix question:

Lately I have come across many documents written in postscript. They all have the .ps extension. What app can you use to read these?

Thanks. 
SA


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## uoba (Jun 30, 2002)

Adobe Acrobat, Photoshop, and Illustrator all open .ps I think.


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## lethe (Jun 30, 2002)

i just tried a postscript document with acrobat reader.  i couldn t get it to open.  i can t verify photoshop or illustrator.  ghostscript is a common program in the world for displaying ps documents.

i use TeXShop for creating postscript documents, but it can also display them.  it is free and open source.  in fact, it won the apple best open source port award from apple.  look for it on their macosx downloads site


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## chemistry_geek (Jun 30, 2002)

*PostScript to PDF Conversion* 

Go here:

http://www.stone.com/PStill/

and download *PStill*, it's *FREE* and converts Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) and PostScript Files to PDF.

I have it but I never installed it, nice to have in case I need it though.


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## chenly (Jun 30, 2002)

.ps is PostScript; that is to say, the file that a PostScript output device can natively understand. It's also the type of file created when one "prints to file" from within a print dialog box. 

.pdf files are Portable Document Format files; they are, essentially, .ps files which carry the .pdf extenstion and begin with %PDF.

Many freeware programs exist to automate the conversion from .ps to .pdf; the reverse is not really necessary as PostScript Level Three devices also understand .pdf files natively. For printing, just place the .pdf file in the print queue and your PostScript 3 device will not bat an eye, or even spend time processing the file; it will simply print it.


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## lethe (Jun 30, 2002)

yeah, chenly is right.  sometimes the easiest way to view a postscript file is to just print it.  my network printer lets my just ftp a file, ascii or postscript, and it will print it.


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## ladavacm (Jul 1, 2002)

if you don't want to go the way of huge TeXShop style installations; GS is about 7 Megs.
It comes with ps2pdf script which converts to PDF, like

ps2pdf document.ps

result is document.pdf

Since it is a PostScript script, it does not deal very well with blanks in filenames; just make sure that your document.ps does not have one in the document filename part.

You can find GS at Source Forge.


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## chenly (Jul 1, 2002)

Additionally, Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, three of the four top-tier Adobe applications I own, can also import .ps files directly, although, obviously, each in its own way. To the best of my knowledge, Acrobat, the PDF editor, cannot, but this may not be entirely accurate; if it can, I don't know how to do it (I don't use Acrobat for much more than reading PDFs).


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## buc99 (Jul 1, 2002)

Thank you everyone for the head start.
I will play around with some different items and see what I come up with that works best for my situation.

Thanks Again. 
SA


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## cabbage (Jul 3, 2002)

Adobe Acrobat Distiller will convert .ps files to .pdf
It's not OS X native yet though
CorelDraw and Illustrator should be able to open the .ps files


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## MACFOREVER2 (Jan 16, 2007)

Yes cs and cs2 will open .ps files


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## artov (Jan 22, 2007)

If you doubleclick onto a Postscript file, Preview is loaded and tells that
it is converting the file to PDF. I tried with a few files (EPSs and some others),
but in each case I ended up with an empty window. 

If you read Preview's Help, it says:



> If you open a PostScript (PS) or EPS file in Preview, it is
> converted to a PDF.



So you might like to try, those files were made in Windows, I guess.


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## Natobasso (Jan 22, 2007)

On a mac you could send the .ps file to your printer and print to pdf instead of your actual printer.


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## chemistry_geek (Feb 4, 2007)

Apple's Preview application automatically converts Adobe .ps files to PDF.  At least it did back in 2002 through 2004.


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## mdnky (Feb 4, 2007)

Y'all know this is a 4.5 year old thread, right?


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## Ron Bates (Mar 26, 2017)

As I learned from this guide: http://www.paintshoppro.com/en/pages/ps-file/ it is a file format created by Adobe, so Photoshop or Illustrator should open it without a problem, if not, you could also try with PaintShop.


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## Cheryl (Mar 26, 2017)

You had to post to a 10 year old thread ?


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