Legacy ImageMagick Discussions Archive

Using convert.exe to produce .tif files from PDF's. The PDFs come from vendors as email attachments so I have no control over creation. 95% of the time everything works fine. From certain vendors I get PDFs that, when converted, are all black or mostly black. Here is the command:

convert.exe -density 300 <input.pdf> -monochrome -compress Group4 <output.tif>

I have played around with setting -alpha off, -flatten, -background to none or white; no luck.

here is a link to the pdf if you want to test: http://1drv.ms/1pH8H1M

This PDF converts fine using GhostScript with: gswin64c -q -dNOPAUSE -dUseCropBox -sDEVICE=tiffg4 -r300 -sOutputFile=<outputfile.tif> <inputfile.pdf> -c quit

Other Info:
Running on Windows Server 2008. Testing on Windows 8.1

Version: ImageMagick 6.8.9-2 Q16 x64 2014-05-27 http://www.imagemagick.org
Copyright: Copyright (C) 1999-2014 ImageMagick Studio LLC
Features: DPC Modules OpenMP
Delegates: bzlib cairo freetype jbig jng jp2 jpeg lcms lqr pangocairo png ps rsvg tiff webp xml zlib

Thanks,
Pat McGrath
GSWP

this works fine for me on IM 6.8.9.5 Q16 Mac OSX
Perhaps you need to upgrade your Ghostscript and/or libtiff

See

convert -list format

for your current versions

Thanks for the quick reply.

-alpha off does not seem to have any effect.

from the -list command:

TIFF* TIFF rw+ Tagged Image File Format (LIBTIFF, Version 4.0.3)
TIFF64* TIFF rw- Tagged Image File Format (64-bit) (LIBTIFF, Version 4.0.3)

Not seeing GhostScirpt in the -list command

gs9.14 is installed on the pc.

Your pdf image has transparency. That may be the issue


Check your delegates.xml file and be sure it is using -sDEVICE=pngalpha for ps:alpha rather than pnmraw


<delegate decode="ps:alpha" stealth="True" command=""gs" -q -dQUIET -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOPROMPT -dMaxBitmap=500000000 -dAlignToPixels=0 -dGridFitTT=2 "-sDEVICE=pngalpha" -dTextAlphaBits=%u -dGraphicsAlphaBits=%u "-r%s" %s "-sOutputFile=%s" "-f%s" "-f%s""/>

Here is the line copied as is from my delegates.xml:

<delegate decode="ps:alpha" stealth="True" command=""@PSDelegate@" -q -dQUIET -dSAFER -dBATCH -dNOPAUSE -dNOPROMPT -dMaxBitmap=500000000 -dAlignToPixels=0 -dGridFitTT=2 "-sDEVICE=pngalpha" -dTextAlphaBits=%u -dGraphicsAlphaBits=%u "-r%s" %s "-sOutputFile=%s" "-f%s" "-f%s""/>


I have also updated to 6.8.9-5 Q16, and installed the Q8 version of ImageMagick. No joy with either. Same result, black pages.

I may try the x86 versions for fun and giggles.

Sorry. I am out of ideas. Perhaps some other Windows user can test this. On my Mac it works fine.

Works fine for me, with or without "-alpha off", IM 6.8.9-0 Q16 on Windows 8.1, Ghostscript 9.10.

Delegates: bzlib cairo freetype jbig jng jp2 jpeg lcms lqr pangocairo png ps rsvg tiff webp xml zlib

I do not see gslib in this list. Are you sure IM can find Ghostscript? I do not know if it shows in the list on Windows, but it does show in the list for Linux/Mac OS.

GS is needed to properly read PDF files.

I uninstalled both GS and all version of IM from my test pc and started from scratch.

First installed just IM 6.8.9-5 Q16 x64. Ran the convert, it failed as expected not being able to find GS.

I then installed GS 9.14. Ran the convert. This time no error, but output is still black.

I'm installing GS 9.10 to give that a try.

@fnw42 I'm a little confused by your post. Where did you find that Delegates list?

Further Testing:

Uninstalled GS 9.14, installed GS 9.10. Ran convert. WORKED!

to verify; uninstalled GS 9.10, installed GS9.14. Ran convert. BLACK.

So it seems to be an issue with the interaction between IM and GS 9.14.

if I just run the file through GS 9.14 with

gswin64c -q -dNOPAUSE -dUseCropBox -sDEVICE=tiffg4 -r300 -sOutputFile=<outputfile.tif> <inputfile.pdf> -c quit

It works fine.

@fnw42 I'm a little confused by your post. Where did you find that Delegates list?

On my system it is installed at /usr/local/etc/ImageMagick-6/delegates.xml

However, the original file is included in the source code downloads folder in folder config.