How To Get Ghostscript Setup In Inkscape For EPS Files
Objective: Learn how to get Ghostscript downloaded and installed whilst setting up new environment variable paths so Inkscape will allow you to import EPS files.
For a current project I am building in Unity, I am learning how to create SpriteSheets from an EPS file and unfortunately found that Inkscape doesn’t natively support EPS files so we need to add the Ghostscript plugin tool to Inkscape to allow us to import and open these file types and it wasn’t as straight forward as it seemed so I wanted to create a quick article to hopefully make it easier for someone else.
Downloading and Installing GhostScript
Head to this link where you will find a button in the top right hand corner to download:
You will then need to select the “Postscript and PDF Interpreter/Renderer” link:
From here, you need to choose your ‘Platform/License’, which for me was ‘64-bit’ and a ‘General Public License’.
To check what type of architecture your system is, go to:
Settings → System → About, and then under Device Specifications → System Type.
After clicking on this link, it should now be downloading.
Open the .exe file and follow the instructions until it is installed. It is quite straightforward, just remember the path where you installed this too as we will need this shortly.
Setting Up Environment Variable Paths
From your desktop, navigate to Settings → System → About, find a tab called ‘Advanced’ or ‘Advanced System Settings’. Clicking on this will open a new pop up box:’
From here, click on ‘Environment Variables’. This will create another pop up box as shown below and before we click on the ‘Edit’ button we need to copy the path to get to 2 folders in the Ghostscript file.
Navigate to where you installed Ghostscript. For me it was this:
C:\Program Files\gs\gs10.02.1
Opening this folder will look like this:
Now, we only need to keep 2 folders — ‘Bin’ and ‘Lib’. The others can be deleted:
Double-click into one of the folders and then in the address bar at the top, right-click in here to copy the path.
Now we can click on the ‘Edit’ button and it will take us to a new pop up box (below):
Click the ‘New’ button and right-click paste (or CTRL + V) to add the path.
You should now see it in the list.
Do the same steps above for the ‘Lib’ folder.
We can now close out of all these tabs and open Inkscape.
Importing An EPS File Into Inkscape
If everything went to plan, we should be able to import EPS files without receiving any errors, so let’s test.
With Inkscape open, I am going to create a new ‘Other’ → ‘Icon 512x512’.
In the top left corner, press File → Import. Navigate your way to where you have saved an EPS file and select then ‘Open’.
This should bring up a new pop up box, the first one being this:
Press ‘Ok’.’
The next pop up box you should see is something like this:
Play around with the settings as you wish, but I am happy with the default, and when you are finished, press ‘Ok’.
You should now have an imported EPS file in Inkscape!
