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Converter from PNG/JPEG/NetPBM to EPS and PDF
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FAQ

 PDF manual "bmeps.pdf" available
german PDF manual "bmepsde.pdf" available
Basics
What is bmeps?
Which filetypes are supported?
What's new in version 2.x.x?
Installation
Installation from source on Unix/Linux systems
Where can I get it?
What other software is required?
What does "system preparation" mean?
Why doesn't the configure script handle an incomplete setup?
For gcc, how can I report the include search path?
How can I set the search paths?
For gcc, how can I set defaults for the search paths?
How to install the bmeps library?
Should I build a modified dvips driver?
How do I build the modified dvips driver?
Installation on Windows systems
I'm on a Win32 system. Is there a binary?
I'm on a Win32 system. How can I build bmeps.exe?
Where can I get a Win32 binary of the modified dvips?
Where is the GUI?
Usage
General Usage
How do I create an EPS file?
How do I create a PS file?
How do I create a PDF file?
How do I create a bb file?
What are the easiest to use bmeps command lines?
Using bmeps with LaTeX
What must I do in my LaTeX source to use bitmap graphics?
What's the .bb file for?
How can I build the .bb file?
Can I use PNGs with both latex/dvips and pdflatex?
Which options are recognized by bmeps?
How can I use bitmap graphics with the modified dvips?
I don't want to specifiy EPS output configuration on the command line each time.
How do I configure default settings?
Is there a template to see how things work?
Using bmeps with other applications
How can I export MS Excel charts to EPS using bmeps?
Are there command line options for integration to Windows explorer?
Troubleshooting
Why do I get dvips: ... Couldn't find... errors?
Why are pictures not converted?
 

Basics

 
What is bmeps?
bmeps is a project to add bitmap graphics support to dvips.
It consists of three parts:

 
Which filetypes are supported?
The filetypes supported are:

PNG is the "native" file format because The PNG file format is a good choice for for "artificial" pictures such as logos, screenshots and computer drawings.
 
The JPEG file format uses DCT compression. Compression is lossy, typically the picture quality can be adjusted by the user during JPEG export in graphics applications.
The JPEG file format is a good choice for "natural scenes" such as photos.
Bmeps runs some tests on JPEG files (check for image dimensions, number of color channels, number of bits per components; check for usable SOF markers...), on success it uses the JPEG file directly as DCT-encoded data and only adds ASCII85- or ASCII-Hex-encoding. If one of the tests fails the JPEG library is used to decode the image and uses the combination of run-length, flate and ASCII85-/ASCII-Hex-encoding for output.
 
Support for NetPBM filetypes was added because it allows to use a lot of image file types via the NetPBM tools.
One can convert other image types to EPS by 
xxxtopnm image.xxx | bmeps > image.eps
The library can be extended to add support for further filetypes.

 
What's new in version 2.x.x?

 

Installation

Installation from source on Unix/Linux systems

 
Where can I get it?
Source code and documentation can be found at http://sourceforge.net/projects/bmeps.

 
What other software is required to install bmeps?
You need to install

before you can install bmeps.
Install the libraries in the given order, set the environment variables CPPFLAGS, CFLAGS and LDFLAGS so the header files and libraries are found.
Example: 
CPPFLAGS: -I/usr/local/netpbm/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include
CFLAGS:   -KPIC -xCC -v -I/usr/local/netpbm/include -I/usr/local/include -I/usr/include
LDFLAGS:  -L/usr/local/netpbm/lib -L/usr/local/lib -L/usr/lib

 
What does "system preparation" mean?
Before you install this software or any of the required/recommended libraries you must make sure the software can be built.
The C compiler must be ready to use both header files distributed with your system and as a part of additional software. The linker must be configured to use both the system libraries and additional libraries.
Some C compilers and linkers are only pre-configured to use libraries shipped with the OS or with the compiler, but no additional libraries. In such cases you need to extend the search paths.
If additional software is installed into /usr/local (found on many Unix/Linux systems), /sw (found on MacOS) or /opt/another-directory (just an example) the C compiler must be configured to search for header files in /usr/local/include, /sw/include and /opt/another-directory/include in addition to the default directories. The linker must be configured to search for library files in /usr/local/lib, /sw/lib and /opt/another-directory/lib.

 
Why doesn't the configure script handle an incomplete setup?

 
For gcc, how can I report the include search path?
Type 

  gcc -v -E -
and press CTRL-D after inspecting the output.
Normally the library search path is corresponding to the include search path, the final "include" subdirectory is replaced by "lib".

 
How can I set the search paths?
You can set the environment variables CFLAGS and LDFLAGS, i.e. 

CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include -I/sw/include -I/opt/another-directory/include"
CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include -I/sw/include -I/opt/another-directory/include"
LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib -L/sw/lib -L/opt/another-directory/lib"
export CPPFLAGS CFLAGS LDFLAGS
To have the settings available immediately after each login, add a section 
if [ "X$CPPFLAGS" = "X" ]
then
  CPPFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include -I/sw/include -I/opt/another-directory/include"
else
  CPPFLAGS="$CPPFLAGS -I/usr/local/include -I/sw/include -I/opt/another-directory/include"
fi
if [ "X$CFLAGS" = "X" ]
then
  CFLAGS="-I/usr/local/include -I/sw/include -I/opt/another-directory/include"
else
  CFLAGS="$CFLAGS -I/usr/local/include -I/sw/include -I/opt/another-directory/include"
fi
if [ "X$LDFLAGS" = "X" ]
then
  LDFLAGS="-L/usr/local/lib -L/sw/lib -L/opt/another-directory/lib"
else
  LDFLAGS="$LDFLAGS -L/usr/local/lib -L/sw/lib -L/opt/another-directory/lib"
fi
export CPPFLAGS CFLAGS LDFLAGS
to your .profile file.
To make the settings available to all users, add the section to /etc/profile.
Note: Different shells might use different file names and a different syntax.

 
For gcc, how can I set defaults for the search paths?
For gcc you can use environment variables instead of command line options to extend the search paths. Add 

if [ "X$C_INCLUDE_PATH" = "X" ]
then
  C_INCLUDE_PATH="/usr/local/include:/sw/include:/opt/another-directory/include"
else
  C_INCLUDE_PATH="${C_INCLUDE_PATH}:/usr/local/include:/sw/include:/opt/another-directory/include"
fi
if [ "X$CPP_INCLUDE_PATH" = "X" ]
then
  CPP_INCLUDE_PATH="/usr/local/include:/sw/include:/opt/another-directory/include"
else
  CPP_INCLUDE_PATH="${CPP_INCLUDE_PATH}:/usr/local/include:/sw/include:/opt/another-directory/include"
fi
if [ "X$LIBRARY_PATH" = "X" ]
then
  LIBRARY_PATH="/usr/local/include:/sw/include:/opt/another-directory/include"
else
  LIBRARY_PATH="${LIBRARY_PATH}:/usr/local/include:/sw/include:/opt/another-directory/include"
fi
export C_INCLUDE_PATH CPP_INCLUDE_PATH LIBRARY_PATH
either to your .profile (for a user-specific setup) or to /etc/profile (for a system-wide setup).
Note: Different shells might use different file names and a different syntax.

 
How do I install the bmeps library?
Unpack the bmeps.tgz file.
Change into the bmeps directory, run

./configure
make
make install
Make sure to set the environment variable CFLAGS and LDFLAGS properly.

 
Should I build a modified dvips driver?
Simple answer: If you want to convert images ``on the fly'' -- yes.
The modified driver runs faster when converting pictures because it is not necessary to start background processes for each picture.
If you want to do image conversion on the fly using the original dvips this requires to run external programs. This is denied by default in most modern LaTeX distributions. Using the ``-R0'' dvips option does not only allow to run the bmeps program for image conversion, it allows to run any command a *.dvi file contains. Are you sure there are no destructive commands in a *.dvi file you want to process?

 
How do I build the modified dvips driver?
Download tetex-src.tar.gz from ftp://ftp.dante.de/pub/tex/systems/unix/teTeX/current/distrib. Unpack the archive using 

gzip -dc tetex-src.tar.gz | tar xf -
Change into the texk sources directory using 
cd tetex-src-2.0.2
cd texk
Make sure the environment variables needed to run TeX are set.
Change into the kpathsea-* directory and run
./configure ...
make
make install
Now go into the dvipsk-* directory and run
./configure ...
make
make install
Possibly you want to make a backup copy of the unmodified dvips as dvips.original.
If you succeeded to build an unmodified dvips you can copy the contents of the .../bmeps/dvips-mods directory into the dvipsk source directory.
Now run
make
make install
again to build and install the modified dvips.

Installation on Windows systems

 
I'm on a Win32 system. Is there a binary?
In the download section of http://sourceforge.net/projects/dklibs get the executable setup from the dklibs-win32 section.
If you just want to use bmeps get the *user*.exe file. If you are interested in development... get the *dev*.exe file. Note: The developer file is significantly larger.
For previous versions (1.x.x) a Windows binary was shipped with the source package of bmeps. Bmeps 2.x.x uses the dklibs library set and needs the supplemental files (libraries, string tables...), so it can not run without if the dklibs library set is not installed.

 
I'm on a Win32 system. How can I build bmeps.exe?
Building bmeps.exe is not trivial and requires practical skills in using your development software on Win32.
For normal users I recommend to use the binary package mentioned above.
The text below gives a general guideline how to build the executable and the libraries it depends on. Depending on library versions and depending on your development software the information below might be only partially valid.
 
Some notes about the Visual C++ runtime library:
There are at least 6 different versions of the runtime library:
C-compiler switch Purpose
/ML static, single-thread, release
/MLd static, single-thread, debug
/MT static, multi-thread, release
/MTd static, multi-thread, debug
/MD DLL, multi-thread, release
/MDd DLL, multi-thread, release
Each object module contains the information about the run-time library version it wants.
The linker inspects the modules and tries to load support for all the run-time library versions found in all modules (even in modules in *.lib files). If different run-time library switches were used in some modules the linker complains about conflicts.
Conclusion: You need to compile all libraries and bmeps using the same version of the run-time library.
If you decide to use static libraries, I suggest "/MT", if you decide to build DLLs, use "/MD /GD" for the libraries and "/MD" for the application.
 
First we need to create the zlib library.
Copy the files from the Win32 subdirectory into the libraries top-level directory, modify the makefile "makefile.msc" (replace "/MD" by "/MT" if you want to build a static library), run nmake and copy the files into the appropriate places: 

xcopy win32\*.* . /Y
edit makefile.msc
nmake -f makefile.msc zlib.lib
xcopy *.lib \p\lib-stt\lib\ /Y
xcopy *.h   \p\lib-stt\include\ /Y
Now we can create the libpng library.
Here we have a makefile in the scripts subdirectory and a *.def file in the projects\msvc directory. Copy both files into the top-level directory, and edit the makefile. If you want to build a static library, replace the CFLAGS line by 
CFLAGS= /nologo /MT /Oait -I\p\lib-stt-include /D "WIN32" /D "_WIN32" /D "NDEBUG" /D "_CONSOLE"
to build a static library or use 
  CFLAGS= /nologo /MD /GD /Oait -I\p\lib-stt-include /D "WIN32" /D "_WIN32" /D "NDEBUG" /D "_CONSOLE"
to build a DLL. Replace the section 
libpng.lib: $(OBJS1) $(OBJS2) $(OBJS3)
	del libpng.lib
	lib libpng $(OBJS1)
	lib libpng $(OBJS2)
	lib libpng $(OBJS3)
by 
libpng.lib: $(OBJS1) $(OBJS2) $(OBJS3)
	-ERASE libpng.lib
	LIB /OUT:libpng.lib $(OBJS1) $(OBJS2) $(OBJS3)
to build a static library.
To build a DLL use 
libpng.lib: $(OBJS1) $(OBJS2) $(OBJS3)
	-ERASE libpng.lib
	-ERASE libpng.dll
	LINK /nologo /DLL /RELASE /INCREMENTAL:NO /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE /OUT:libpng.dll /IMPLIB:libpng.lib /DEF:png32ms.def $(OBJS1) $(OBJS2) $(OBJS3)
instead.
Run 
nmake -f makefile.msc libpng.lib
xcopy *.lib \p\lib-stt\lib\ /Y
xcopy *.dll \p\lib-stt\bin\ /Y
xcopy *.h \p\lib-stt\include\ /Y

 
If you want JPEG support we need to create the JPEG library. The jpeg-6b directory contains a makefile named "makefile.vc" and a configuration header "jconfig.vc"
Edit the makefile, the CFLAGS and LDFLAGS lines should look like this 
CFLAGS= /nologo /MT /W3 /O2 /D "WIN32" /D "_WIN32" /D "NDEBUG" /D "_CONSOLE" /I. /QI0f /QIfdiv
LDFLAGS= /nologo /RELEASE /INCREMENTAL:NO /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE
Copy "jconfig.vc" to "jconfig.h", build and install the library. 
copy jconfig.vc jconfig.h
edit makefile.vc
nmake -f makefile.vc libjpeg.lib
xcopy *.lib \p\lib-stt\lib\ /Y
xcopy *.h \p\lib-stt\include\ /Y
If you want to create a DLL you need to create the file jpeg.def like this (you can copy and paste from here): 
LIBRARY		LIBJPEG
DESCRIPTION	'The independent JPEG groups JPEG library'
EXPORTS
	jpeg_std_error
	jpeg_CreateDecompress
	jpeg_stdio_src
	jpeg_read_header
	jpeg_start_decompress
	jpeg_abort
	jpeg_read_scanlines
	jpeg_finish_decompress
	jpeg_destroy_decompress
The "makefile.vc" should be changed to 
CFLAGS= /nologo /MD /GD /W3 /O2 /D "WIN32" /D "_WIN32" /D "NDEBUG" /D "_CONSOLE" /I. /QI0f /QIfdiv
LDFLAGS= /nologo /RELEASE /INCREMENTAL:NO /SUBSYSTEM:CONSOLE
...
libjpeg.lib: $(LIBOBJECTS)
  	-DEL libjpeg.lib
	-DEL libjpeg.dll
	-DEL *.obj
	LINK /DLL $(LDFLAGS) /OUT:libjpeg.dll /IMPLIB:libjpeg.lib /DEF:jpeg.def $(LIBOBJECTS)
before building and installing the library.
 
If you want NetPBM support we need to create a pbm library. Change into the lib subdirectory. Copy the contents of the util subdirectory to here. Change the shhopt.c file, add the following contents: 
char *rindex(char *s, int c)
{
 char *back = NULL;
 char *ptr;
 ptr = s;
 while(*ptr) {
  if(*ptr == c) {
   back = ptr;
  }
  ptr++;
 }
 return back;
}
Change the libpm.c file, add the following contents: 
#include <io.h>
#include <process.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

static int _S_ISREG(int m)
{
  int back = 0;
  if((m & _S_IFMT) == _S_IFREG) {
    back = 1;
  }
  return back;
}
Create a makefile "makefile.msc" as follows (you can copy and paste from here): 
# Where do you want to install the software?
PREFIX=c:\p\lib-stt

# Which programs to use for compiling and linking?
CC=CL
LD=LINK

# Where is Visual C?
# Directories lib, include and bin must be beyound this.
VC=C:\Programme\DevStudio\Vc

all:	lib

install:	all
	-mkdir $(PREFIX)
	-mkdir $(PREFIX)\include
	-mkdir $(PREFIX)\lib
	-mkdir $(PREFIX)\bin
	xcopy *.h   $(PREFIX)\include\
	xcopy ..\*.h $(PREFIX)\include\
	xcopy *.lib $(PREFIX)\lib\

clean:
	-del *.obj
	-del *.lib
	-del *.exe
	-del *.dll

lib:	netpbm.lib

OBJS=	libpm.obj bitio.obj colorname.obj \
	libpbm1.obj libpbm2.obj libpbm3.obj libpbm4.obj libpbm5.obj \
	libpgm1.obj libpgm2.obj \
	libppm1.obj libppm2.obj libppmcmap.obj libppm4.obj libppm5.obj \
	libppmfloyd.obj \
	libpnm1.obj libpnm2.obj libpnm3.obj \
	libpam.obj libpammap.obj nstring.obj shhopt.obj

netpbm.lib:	$(OBJS)
	lib /nologo /out:netpbm.lib $(OBJS)

COBJFLAGS= /nologo /MT /W3 /GX /O2 /D "WIN32" /D "_WIN32" /D "NDEBUG" /D "_CONSOLE" /YX /FD /I. /I.. /I"$(VC)\Include" $(SCD) $(DEFS) /QI0f /QIfdiv

.c.obj:
	$(CC) $(COBJFLAGS) /c $*.c

 
Now create a new project of type "Win32 Console Application" named bmeps.
Add the sources to the project.
Add the libraries created above to the project.
Now we need to edit the file bmepsco.h. By default all the libraries are enabled by HAVE_... contants. To disable libraries define the appropriate constants to 0:
JPEGHAVE_JPEGLIB_H
NetPBMHAVE_PNM_H
Now you are ready to build the application.

 
Where can I get a Win32 binary of the modified dvips?
The MikTeX 2.1 distribution includes a dvips containing the bitmap support.
See http://www.miktex.org.

 
Where is the GUI?
The Java GUI was removed, the old GUI can not be used with the current version of bmeps.

 

Usage

 

General Usage

 
How do I create an EPS file?
Run 

bmeps -leps input.png output.eps

 
How do I create a PS file?
Run 

bmeps -lps input.png output.ps

 
How do I create a PDF file?
Run 

bmeps -lpdf input.png output.pdf

 
How do I create a bb file?
Run 

bmeps -lbb input.png output.bb

 
What are the easiest to use bmeps command lines?
The most simple way to convert an input image to EPS, PS, PDF or bb using bmeps is to run one of the commands 

bmeps input.png output.eps
bmeps input.png output.ps
bmeps input.png output.pdf
bmeps input.png output.bb
Note: I the ``-l'' option is omitted bmeps inspects the output file name suffix to find an appropriate output configuration. If you want to overwrite configuration entries using the ``-o'' option, place these options after the output file name.

Using bmeps with LaTeX

 
What must I do in my LaTeX source to use bitmap graphics?
If you use the modified dvips add

\DeclareGraphicsRule{.png}{eps}{.bb}{}
to your LaTeX source's preamble.
If you use an unmodified dvips add
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.png}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
or 
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.png}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps -leps2 #1}
instead. See below for bmeps options.
To include a graphics file, type
\includegraphics{file.png}
You can also specifiy additional options like
\includegraphics[width=\linewidth]{file.png}

 
What's the .bb file for?
To calcaluate the documents layout LaTeX needs information about the bounding boxes of included graphics.
In EPS files this information is contained in a line like

%%BoundingBox: 0 0 800 600
directly in the file.
Other file types do not allow text lines in the file, a separated file must contain this information.

 
How can I build the .bb file?
Use

bmeps -lbb file.png file.bb
to create the bounding box file file.bb for file.png.
Do not use the ebb program coming with some LaTeX distributions in conjunction with bmeps. Bmeps and ebb use different formulas to calculate the BoundingBox:

 
Can I use PNGs with both latex/dvips and pdflatex?
Of course you can.
In your documents preamble (before \begin{document}) write 

\usepackage{ifpdf}
\ifpdf
...
\else
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.png}{eps}{.bb}{}
\fi
for modified dvips or 
\usepackage{ifpdf}
\ifpdf
...
\else
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.png}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
\fi
for unmodified dvips.
 
If your document contains EPS graphics too, you should change 
\includegraphics[...]{xxx.eps}
to 
\includegraphics[...]{xxx}
and provide both an EPS and a PDF version of the picture.
Use 
ps2pdf xxx.eps xxx.pdf
or - for large pictures - 
cat xxx.eps | epsffit -c 87 92 487 363 | ps2pdf - xxx.pdf
to convert the EPS file to PDF.
The epsffit program is contained in the psutils (http://www.dcs.ed.ac.uk/home/ajcd/psutils/index.html).
The ps2pdf script is contained in the Gostscript distributions. (http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost)

 
Which options are recognized by bmeps?
The syntax to run bmeps is 

bmeps [<options>] [ [<infputfile>] [<outputfile>] ]
The following options can be used:

 
How can I use bitmap graphics with the modified dvips?
Options for bitmap-to-EPS-conversion can be specified on the command line. Use

dvips -I <configuration-name> ...
where <configuration-name> is the same as the ``-l'' argument to the bmeps program (a configuration name, configuration entry overwrites optionally appended separated by comma).
Examples:

 
I don't want to specifiy EPS output configuration on the command line each time.
How do I configure default settings?
Both bmeps and the modified dvips retrieve default settings from the EPSOUTPUT environment variable before processing command line options.
The contents of the variable must be the same as the argument to the -I option of the modified dvips as explained in the section above.
This variable can be set in your login scripts, i.e.

setenv EPSOUTPUT eps2,color=no
in .cshrc or
EPSOUTPUT="eps2,color=no"
export EPSOUTPUT
in .profile or
set EPSOUTPUT="eps2,color=no"
in AUTOEXEC.BAT.

 
Is there a template to see how things work? [Last Update: 2003/05/05]
Here I show a template how to use the bmeps with an unmodified dvips.

\documentclass[ngerman,12pt,a4paper]{scrartcl}
\usepackage{ngerman}
\usepackage{ifpdf}
\usepackage[latin1]{inputenc}
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}
\usepackage{textcomp}
\usepackage{mathptmx}
\usepackage[scaled=.92]{helvet}
\usepackage{courier}
\usepackage{array}
\usepackage{enumerate}
\usepackage{longtable}
\usepackage{latexsym}
\usepackage[ngerman]{varioref}
\usepackage{makeidx}
\usepackage{color}
\ifpdf
\usepackage[activate=normal]{pdfcprot}
\usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}
%
% - The epstopdf package requires the write18 feature to invoke
%   eps -> pdf conversion from pdfLaTeX. To enable it use
%   - -shell-escape command line option (recommended)
%   - write18=enable in miktex.ini or   (not recommended, security risk)
%   - shell_escape=1 in texmf.cnf or    (not recommended, security risk)
% - on Windows there are errors if epstopdf is invoked by pdfLaTeX
%   (possibly the epstopdf program does not set stdout to binary mode?)
%
\usepackage{epstopdf}
\pdfcompresslevel=9
\usepackage[
  pdftex,
  a4paper=true,
  pdftitle={Test},
  pdfsubject={Test},
  pdfauthor={Dipl.-Ing. D. Krause},
  colorlinks=true,
  linkcolor=linkgreen,
  pdfpagemode=None,
  pdfstartview=FitH
]{hyperref}
\definecolor{linkgreen}{rgb}{0,0.5,0}
\else
\usepackage[dvips]{graphicx}
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.png}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.jpg}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.jpeg}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.pgm}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.pbm}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.pnm}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
\DeclareGraphicsRule{.ppm}{eps}{.bb}{`bmeps #1}
\usepackage[
  dvips,
  colorlinks=true,
  linkcolor=linkgreen
]{hyperref}
\definecolor{linkgreen}{rgb}{0,0.5,0}
\fi
\setlength{\parindent}{0cm}
\author{Dipl.-Ing.~D.~Krause}
\title{Test mit Bildformaten}
\renewcommand*{\sectfont}{\bfseries}
\makeindex
\begin{document}
\begin{sloppy}
\newpage
\section{Test}
Dies ist ein Test für das Einfügen von Graphiken.
\begin{figure}
{\centering
\includegraphics[width=0.9\linewidth]{arch5.jpg}
\caption{Delicate Arch}
}
\end{figure}
\end{sloppy}
\end{document}

This template allows to use latex+dvips and pdflatex (latex+dvipdfm was not testet).
It is the template I use when writing new documents, maybee you need other packages and options.
The DeclareGraphicsRule is used only when not running pdftex/pdflatex/.

Using bmeps with other applications

 
How can I export MS Excel charts to EPS using bmeps?
A VB macro ChartPict_save() - placed in contrib/kant_krishna/excel_to_eps.vbs - was provided by Krishna Kant to export all charts to PNG files and run bmeps on these files.
Note (1): This macro is provided "as-is", no support for it as I have no knowledge of VB. I tested the macro on Office Prof. 2003, works fine. On earlier Office version (i.e. Office 97 Prof.) there were problems.
Note (2): This conversion produces bitmap graphics EPS files. Possibly you want to try exporting to WMF and use the wmf2eps program to obtain vector graphics EPS files.

 
Are there command line options for integration to Windows explorer?
To create context menu entries for bmeps use the ``-a'' option, create commands like 

bmeps -a -lbb "%1"

 

Troubleshooting

 
Why do I get dvips: ... Counldn't find ... file ...errors?
The dvips driver uses the kpathsea library to locate files.
This library assumes a directory structure having a so called BASEDIR. Executable files are expected to be in BASEDIR/bin/<architecture>.
When searching for a file the library estimates the directory where the executable for the current process was taken from, goes up two directory levels and treats that directory as BASEDIR.
In BASEDIR/share/texmf there is a file ls-R containing the file name database. This file is needed by kpathsea to find files.
Type

which dvips
to find where your dvips is located. If it is in a directory
BASEDIR/bin move it to BASEDIR/bin/<architecture>.

 
Why are pictures not converted?
Probably the original dvips is used. Type

dvips --version
If the first output line looks like
dvips(k) 5.86
you are using an unmodified dvips. If it looks like
dvips(k) 5.86 modified for bitmap graphics support
the dvips version is correct.

Dirk Krause http://bmeps.sourceforge.net 2007/07/09