Opening EPS - Windows 10 Pro x64 - Inkscape 0.92.2 - GS 9.22

[luthientinuviel]

I saw another post but it was for a MAC, so instead of confusing the conversation with a PC, I wanted to start this thread. I have a Windows 10 Pro x64 laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad) and I installed Inkscape 0.92.2 yesterday (Fedruary 15, 2018). I remembered from previous experience with Inkscape that you have to enable opening EPS and AI files. So I went back to the Inkscape site and found the instructions on how to install Ghostscript so that it will open EPS. I installed GS 9.09 (x32 by mistake) and was not able to open EPS. So I googled and found that there was a later version (GS9.22) and downloaded the x64 version of that. Didn't work. So I downloaded the x32 version - Didn't work. I spent some time googling and looking on Facebook without success. I did find the EPS on MAC post on this thread, but it did not apply to me. This morning, I started typing this post only to realize that yesterday, I installed the x32 9.09. So I downloaded the x64 version, installed it, changed the environmental paths and again, Inkscape did not open the EPS file. So I have tried four versions of GS without success.

Is there something else that is not in the FAQ on the Inkscape site that hasn't been added to help with making this work? Is there a better version of GhostScript that I have not tried?

[Moini]

Did you check if ghostscript was installed successfully?
Did you uninstall the other versions?
Did you remove the modifications to your path?
Can you copy your edited path here?
Do you get an error message?

[brynn]

Welcome to the forum!

Mostly I would echo what Moini said.  But I also wanted to comment that even an extra space in the environmental path, can cause it not to work.  So you need to be very careful about the path.

[luthientinuviel]

I did not uninstall each version of ghostscript as I installed them. There were no errors that I saw when installing any of them so from what I know, they are installed correctly. Which would be the recommended version? (I am assuming the most recent unless there are known compatibility issues.)

The only message I got when trying to open an EPS file is "Failed to load the requested file [file path]". I brought my own laptop thinking that since I could open EPS files on there, I would be able to convert them to SVG and most them to my work laptop. Discouragingly, I found out this morning that it is not working any longer on my laptop as well. I did find that if I tell Windows to run Inkscape in compatibility mode for Windows 7, it recognizes AI files now. Unfortunately, most of the files that I need to work on are in EPS with no AI version at the moment.

Windows 10 has a different view of the environmental paths. It is no longer in a single field. It allows me to add each path in its own window. A screenshot has been attached to this reply.

Edit: I just uninstalled Inkscape 64 bit and installed Inkscape 32 bit only to see if it made any difference. It didn't.

[Moini]

Okay, so I tried it out on a evaluation virtualbox instance of Windows.

I encountered the same issue you did, and moving up the variables in the order, as described here in this video: https://youtu.be/e7OeI8xB5Ts?t=248 , was what helped.
Can you try that, too?

[luthientinuviel]

Okay, so I tried it out on a evaluation virtualbox instance of Windows.

I encountered the same issue you did, and moving up the variables in the order, as described here in this video: https://youtu.be/e7OeI8xB5Ts?t=248 , was what helped.
Can you try that, too?

Thank you, Moini. This worked and I can now import EPS on both systems. Initially, I had then in the wrong place and once I got them put in the correct place, I had to move them up towards the middle of the list. But it is working now.

[brynn]

Oh, that's interesting info about how the Environment paths or variables are managed differently in Windows 10!  It really is a much better way than how previous versions do it.

Moini, shall I take a stab at editing the FAQ?  Probably you can explain it better than me, but I'm glad to try if you're busy.

Wow, good find on that video, Moini.  Was just looking through that author's videos, hoping he would have more tutorials.  But oddly, that seems to be the only one about Inkscape!

Very strange that just moving those paths up through the list solves the problem.  I wonder if Inkscape developers should be made aware of that?  I mean, is it something about Inkscape which requires the path not to be on the bottom of the list?

Well anyway, luthientinuviel, I'm glad it's working now!

[Moini]

Moini, shall I take a stab at editing the FAQ?

Good thinking. Adding a short description how to find that on Windows 10, and that it may be necessary to move the links to lib and bin up in the list to get it working, would be helpful. Go ahead and let me know when it's ready for translation.