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EPS
What is an EPS file?
The print industry vector exchange format. Being replaced by PDF almost everywhere.
What EPS is
EPS is a plain-text format you can open in any editor. It can hold both pixels and drawn shapes on the same page. It is used for print and typesetting.
The extension is .eps, and the full name is Encapsulated PostScript. Both matter less than what the file can hold, which is what the rest of this page is about.
Where EPS came from
Adobe published it in 1987. The specification is PostScript Level 2.
A format that has been readable for that long is a format worth trusting with something you want back in ten years.
The specification is published, but by its owner
It is written down and implementable, though the vendor decides what the next version looks like. In practice that is enough for the file to keep opening; it is not enough to be sure of it.
It is a legacy format
It still opens everywhere and is still written by older tools, but nothing new is being built around it. Convert what you mean to keep, and do not choose it for something starting today.
Nothing is thrown away
EPS stores its content exactly. Saving it again changes nothing, so it can be opened, edited and re-saved as often as you like without accumulating damage — which is what makes it a working format rather than a delivery one.
It cannot be transparent
EPS has nowhere to record transparency. Anything transparent in the source is filled with a solid colour on the way in — white, unless something chooses otherwise.
Colour it can describe
It can work in RGB, CMYK, the model a printing press needs and greyscale.
CMYK is the one that decides whether a printer accepts the file, and it is the thing most often lost converting to a screen format.
What opens EPS
Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape and Ghostscript read it, and so do most programs of the same kind.
If a file will not open, the format is rarely the problem — it is more often that the program predates it. Converting to something older is the reliable way past that, and it is what the rest of this site is for.
Opening it in a browser
No browser reads it.
That is the single most common reason to convert it: not that the format is bad, but that the place you want to show the file cannot read it.
It is a working format
EPS is meant to be opened and changed. Keep the file in this format for as long as the work is going on, and export from it whenever a finished copy is needed.
What goes wrong with it
The recurring complaints: fonts are not always carried inside the file and support outside its home ground is uneven.
None of these is a reason to avoid the format. They are the things worth knowing before you are surprised by one, which is a different claim and a more useful one.
The facts, in one place
| Extension | .eps |
|---|---|
| Media type | application/postscript |
| Published by | Adobe |
| First published | 1987 |
| Specification | PostScript Level 2 |