Preview EPS files

I am writing textbooks that each contain a large number of EPS files, and I am naturally wanting to preview them in DOpus, because I'm wasting far too much time opening each one in turn.

There have been a handful of discussions in the past about this, but I can't see any conclusive solution. I have installed GhostScript, which may have some sort of useful plugin, but I still can't work out any solution. (And I certainly haven't been able to make File Explorer do it.)

QUESTION: Is it possible to preview EPS files in DOpus --- natively, or using GhostScript, or using any other software?

@Julianon

I have tried many solutions to this problem over the years and have finally settled on Mystic Thumbs. It provides thumbs of all the major graphic formats - and best of all - it provides them with transparent backgrounds if the original has a transparent background.

Takes a bit of setting up and I do get the very occasional EPS that will not thumbnail. I then simply convert them to PDF.

Thanks auden. Sorry about the delay, but I was mucking about with other approaches. Eventually I came back to your approach, but I've installed SageThumbs rather than Mystic Thumbs because it was free.

PROBLEM: I now have SageThumbs previews in File Explorer, which is really useful, but is inconvenient because it's not DOpus. I can't work out how to produce previews in Directory Opus, however. Does anyone know the trick that has to be used here?

Make sure the Shell Thumbnails option hasn't been turned off in the viewer pane's preferences.

No luck. After rebooting this morning, I checked that:

  1. File Explorer is still previewing the EPS files (and also displaying a small icon-sized preview to the left of each filename).
  2. DOpus is only displaying the code text in its viewer..
  3. Preferences --> Viewer --> Viewer pane --> Display shell thumbnails is checked.

The other checked items on the same window are:
Automatically refresh image when file changes
Automatically select next file . . . deleted
Display shell icons
Show conrol bar
Use EXIF information . . .

I've set Use Plugin to ActiveX+Preview+Office+Web, although SageThumbs is not listed in the plugin's configuration menu. Should I then be adding .eps to one of the other preview handlers? Or should I be selecting another plugin?

Is this detail significant?
I have 64-bit DOpus.
SageThumbs is only offered as one version, which is said to support 32-bit.and 64-bit, but it has been installed only into Program Files (x86) and not into Program Files.
I have installed the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Ghostscript.
All versions are up to date, including Windows 10 Pro.

False alarm. The EPS files are now displaying in DOpus!

Well, at least some of them are. I have some very old EPS files (over 20 years) that will not preview, either in File Explorer or in DOpus, even though they can be viewed in Sumatra. But the subset that can be previewed is the same in both File Explorer and DOpus.

It may have been my fiddling about with Use Plugin and Configure Plugin that did it. Or it may have been user stupidity, namely failing to scroll down far enough.

Anyway, it is fixed as a far as it can be, given that some of the files are so old. Thanks, Leo. And thanks auden for giving me the clue as to which direction to go.

Glad you have at least got some of your EPS files to preview. I have found it not uncommon to get an EPS file that simply will not thumbnail.

After that much depends on whether you wish to use EPS for its vector scaling capabilities or you can abandon this and simply rasterise the EPS.

If you want to keep the vector properties, you could open the EPS in Illustrator and try re-saving it.(That is if you are rich enough to have a copy of Illustrator.) I know I can't run to it.

Otherwise if you are happy to turn it into a vector, rasterise it into Photoshop (i.e. open it in Photoshop) and re-save as a Photoshop EPS or as a Photoshop PDF.

I have to say that as I am not interested in the vector capabilities of EPS files, I have been slowly turning my EPS files into PDFs. Seems the way to go for my needs.

They're not my files, Also, they are so old that CorelDraw can no longer process the source files, (Why not make things baclwards compatible --- apparently one has to process each file in the successive versions of CorelDraw!)

I can deal with the situation much better now. Thanks for your advice.

Further improvement. I have found that IrfanView Thumbnails (32-bit, install IrfanView 32-bit first) can preview all the EPS files in a directory, and its subdirectoreis if required. This programme manages to display even my very old EPS, which is really good. It's an independent viewer, of course, not a file manager plugin, but it fills the gap in my organsiation.

Also Sumatra gives excellent renderings of individual EPS files (but no directory preview, unfortunately).