Illustrator 10 freezes on GnuPlot figures with labels

bug-ID: ILL10-2002-01-24a

Some EPS documents created by GnuPlot, containing text labels, open fine in Illustrator 9.02. However, when attempting to open such files with Illustrator 10 (Macintosh, MacOS 9.1) the application appears to freeze; no picture is drawn, and there is not even a progress-bar. Now `force-quit' fails (separate bug, reported elsewhere!) so a reboot is required.

Software Versions

• Illustrator 10
• MacOS 9.1

Reported by:

Ross Moore, 24 January 2002.

In fact, on a subsequent attempt to open the file, Illustrator 10 was finally successfully, after 12-15 minutes. Subsequent opening, in the same session, of this and similar files were successful immediately. This errant behaviour still constitutes a `bug'. (See also Bug: ILL10-2002-01-24b.)

Example

(Click on an image to download the corresponding file.)

created with GnuPlot	distilled to PDF	resaved: (Illus9.02)	resaved: (Illus10)
fig1.ps	fig1.pdf	fig1-ill9.eps	fig1-ill10.eps
(size = 12.5k)	(size = 12.2k)	(size = 192k)	(size = 364k)

The file could be opened by Illustrator 10 only after removing the lines placing text-labels.
The original EPS file has Bounding-Box and Orientation comments as follows:

%%BoundingBox: 50 50 554 770
%%Orientation: Landscape

Both Illustrator 9 and Illustrator 10 rotate the artwork, but the Page Setup has to be adjusted to suit. (Note that Acrobat Distiller cannot respect the orientation comment.)

Further Information

The GnuPlot-produced EPS file handles axis-ticks with labels using PostScript coding such as the following, taken from the example above:

/M {moveto} bind def  /L {lineto} bind def
/R {rmoveto} bind def /V {rlineto} bind def
/vshift -80 def
/Lshow { currentpoint stroke M 0 vshift R show } def
/Rshow { currentpoint stroke M dup stringwidth pop neg vshift R show } def
/Cshow { currentpoint stroke M dup stringwidth pop -2 div vshift R show } def

(Helvetica) findfont 240 scalefont setfont
-63 0 V  -6129 0 R  
(-0.5) Rshow

and usages of Lshow and Cshow, similar to that of Rshow. When all lines using these operators are commented-out, Illustrator 10 opens the EPS file successfully. (Perhaps the problem is in finding the appropriate font, when it needs to be used.)