Error in Parsing the postscript to pdf

Question

I have a postscript file when i try to convert it into pdf or open it with postscript it gives the following error undefined in execform

I am trying to fix this error. But there is no solution i found. Kindly Help me understand the issue. This is postscript file

Answer 1

OK so a few observations to start;

The file is 8 pages long, uses many forms, and the first form it uses has nested forms. This really isn't suitable as an example file, you are expecting other programmers to dig through a lot of extraneous cruft to help you out. When you post an example, please try and reduce it to just the minimum required to reproduce the problem.

Have you actually tried to debug this problem yourself ? If so what did you do ? (and why didn't you start by reducing the file complexity ?)

I don't want to be offensive, but this is the third rather naive posting you've made recently, do you have much experience of PostScript programming ? Has anyone offered you any training in the language ? It appears you are working on behalf of a commercial organisation, you should talk to your line manager and try and arrange some training if you haven't already been given some.

The PostScript program does not give the error you stated

undefined in execform

In fact the error is a Ghostscript-specific error message:

Error: /undefined in --.execform1--

So that's the .execform1 operator (note the leading '.' to indicate a Ghostscript internal operator). That's only important because firstly its important to accurately quote error messages, and secondly because, for someone familiar with Ghostscript, it tells you that the error occurs while executing the form PaintProc, not while executing the execform operator.

After considerably reducing of the complexity of the file, the problem is absolutely nothing to do with the use of Forms. The offending Form executes code like this:

2 RM
0.459396 w
[(\0\1\0\2)]435.529999 -791.02002 T

(That's the first occurrence, and its where the error occurs)

That executes the procedure named T which is defined as:

/T{neg _LY add /_y ed _LX add /_x ed/_BLSY _y _BLY sub D/_BLX _x D/_BLY _y D _x _y TT}bd

Obviously that's using a number of other functions defined in the prolog, but the important point is that it executes TT which is defined as :

/TT{/_y ed/_x ed/_SX _x _LX sub D/_SY _y _LY sub D/_LX _x D/_LY _y D _x _y m 0 _rm eq{ dup type/stringtype eq{show}{{ dup type /stringtype eq{show}{ 0 rmoveto}?}forall}?} if 
1 _rm eq {gsave 0 _scs eq { _sr setgray}if 1 _scs eq { _sr _sg _sb   setrgbcolor}if  2 _scs eq { _sr _sg _sb _sk  setcmykcolor} if   dup type/stringtype eq{true charpath }{{dup type /stringtype eq{true charpath } { 0 rmoveto}?}forall}? S grestore} if 
2 _rm eq {gsave 0 _fcs eq { _fr setgray}if 1 _fcs eq { _fr _fg _fb   setrgbcolor}if  2 _fcs eq { _fr _fg _fb _fk  setcmykcolor} if  dup type/stringtype eq{true charpath }{{dup type /stringtype eq{true charpath } { 0 rmoveto}?}
forall}? gsave fill grestore 0 _scs eq { _sr setgray}if 1 _scs eq { _sr _sg _sb   setrgbcolor}if  2 _scs eq { _sr _sg _sb _sk  setcmykcolor}if  S grestore} if

Under the conditions holding at the time TT is executed (RM sets _rm to 2), we go through this piece of code:

gsave 0 _fcs eq

However, _fcs is initially undefined, and only defined when the /fcs function is executed. Your program never executes /fcs so _fcs is undefined, leading to the error.

Is there a reason why you are defining each page in a PostScript Form ? This is not optimal, if the interpreter actually supports Forms then you are using up VM for no useful purpose (since you only execute each Form once).

If its because the original PDF input uses PDF Form XObjects I would recommend that you don't try and reproduce those in PostScript. Reuse of Form XObjects in PDF is rather rare (it does happen but non-reuse is much more common). The loss of efficiency due to describing PostScript Forms for each PDF Form XObject for all the files where the form isn't reused exceeds the benefit for the rare cases where it would actually be valuable.