Convert .png to .eps on Mac

This is one of those tips that seems almost too easy to be true.

My resume and cover letters are written in LaTeX. LaTeX is a typesetting system often used for creating technical documents as it is particularly good at creating complex documents including scientific equations. I have been using it for a few years to draft documents both because it gives me a lot of control over the output and so that I could prepare myself for working with technical documents such as patents which are likely be written in LaTeX.

I wanted to include my signature in a cover letter. In order to do so in LaTeX, it required a graphic in .eps format. However, my signature was a .png image. I searched for awhile until I came across the answer which was so simple I felt silly for not knowing it.

I thought it may prove useful to someone else. This is a command line trick, so if you are not familiar with a terminal, this tip will not be of much help. Without further adieu:

Simply use the convert command line utility to convert it.

$ convert image.png image.eps

Yes, it was that easy! Out came a perfect .eps file which I was able to use in my LaTeX document. The convert command has all sorts of other options for resizing and many other things, but for simply doing a straight conversion, that was all!

Worth noting, while this worked for .png to .eps, it also works for .jpg to .eps and .gif to .eps. Have not tested anything else, but it appears to be pretty versatile!