[scribus] exporting EPS images to PDF as vectors

[Jiri Bohac]

Hi,

I need to create a PDF A0 poster, containing (among other things)
AutoCad drawings.

I thought the best way to go would be to create an EPS from AutoCad,
and insert that into Scribus. But if I understand correctly, Scribus
will rasterize the EPS when exporting to PDF. Rasterizing crisp vector
graphics is something I want to avoid.

I found two other ways to get my EPS into the PDF without rasterizing,
but they both seem awkward:

- I can File->Import the EPS instead of inserting it as an image.  This
  imports all of the multiple-thousand AutoCad objects into Scribus.
  This just does not seem to be the right thing to do, as it will make
  Scribus always work with all the objects individually, re-drawing them
  all the time, no fast-preview, huge file size...

- I can print my Scribus document to a Postscript file and use ps2pdf (a
  wrapper using gs and its pdfwrite DEVICE) to create the PDF. I
  actually tried that and the AutoCad objects are beautifully crisp, all
  vector. However, the Scribus PDF export filter has a good reputation
  and I don't really want to miss all the nice features (selecting which
  fonts to embed, etc...).

What can you recommend? Is there something I am missing that can force
Scribus to export the EPS graphics as vectors into the PDF?  If not,
why? Does it make sense, only just noone had the time to implement it, or
is there some fundamental problem I am not seeing?

Which of my two workarounds can you recommend? Should I be expecting any
obvious problems with any of them?

Thanks for any comments.


Jiri