384. Another (vaguely) TeX-related headache

The error
ps2pdf wasn't working on one of my .ps files (generated from a .tex file by texmaker). When I try to print the .ps file, it also shows up as having 197 pages, instead of 85 pages, which is what is has and what is seen in e.g. evince.

ps2pdf gives

Error: /syntaxerror in -file-
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   false   1   %stopped_push   1910   1   3   %oparray_pop   1909   1   3   %oparray_pop   1893   1   3   %oparray_pop   1787   1   3   %oparray_pop   --nostringval--   %errorexec_pop   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   2   %stopped_push
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:1164/1684(ro)(G)--   --dict:4/20(G)--   --dict:101/200(L)--   --dict:215/300(L)--   --dict:90/200(L)--   --dict:57/75(L)--   --dict:211/313(L)--   --dict:72/140(L)--   --dict:0/10(G)--   --dict:0/10(L)--   --dict:6/50(ro)(G)--   --dict:56/71(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: No such file or directory
Current file position is 86139456
GPL Ghostscript 9.05: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

And I have no idea where to start troubleshooting...the file position error is not terribly helpful given that the file only has 2010146 lines. So I commented everything, then slowly uncommented everything.

And it was a bit more complex than I thought -- this is the smallest section of code I could use to reproduce the error (note that the two frames are about 30 pages apart in the original):

[preamble]

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}{A frame}
\begin{table}
 \begin{tabular}{l r}
 \includegraphics[width=4cm]{images/figure_1.eps} & \pause
 \includegraphics[width=3.5cm]{img/folder_1/figure_2.eps} 
 \end{tabular}
\end{table}
\small{
\begin{itemize}
\item Blah blah blah
\item Blah Blah?
\end{itemize}
}
\end{frame}

\begin{frame}{Another frame}
 \small{Blah blahdi blah}\\
 \begin{center}
 \begin{table}
 \begin{tabular}{c c}
 \includegraphics[width=5cm]{img/folder_1/figure_3.eps} &
 \includegraphics[width=5cm]{img/folder_1/figure_4.eps} \\
 {\sc Caption} & Caption
 \end{tabular}
 \end{table}
 \end{center}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

The error was only apparent if both figure_2.eps and figure_3.eps were requested -- somehow those two files didn't like each other. I had made figure_2.eps myself (povray -> png -> eps), but a collaborator had sent me figure_3.eps, which was made using Bruker Topspin (a stacked plot of NMR spectra)

The fix:
I fixed it by opening figure_3.eps in inkscape and saving it again

bad.eps is figure_3 before re-saving it, good.eps is figure_3 after re-saving it:

me@beryllium:~/work/manuscripts/Talks/Australie/img/folder_1$ head -n 20 bad.eps 

���� X�+x�+ ��%!PS-Adobe-3.1 EPSF-3.0
%ADO_DSC_Encoding: Windows Roman
%%Title: 72_tempbw.eps
%%Creator: Adobe Illustrator(R) 15.1
%%For: Collaborator
%%CreationDate: 9/12/2012
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 633 359
%%HiResBoundingBox: 0 0 632.8331 358.5000
%%CropBox: 0 0 632.8331 358.5000
%%LanguageLevel: 2
%%DocumentData: Clean7Bit
%ADOBeginClientInjection: DocumentHeader "AI11EPS"
%ADO_ContainsXMP: MainFirstustrator(R) 15.1.0 x39 R agm 4.5189 ct 5.1875
%ADOEndClientInjection: DocumentHeader "AI11EPS"
%%Pages: 1
%%DocumentNeededResources: 
%%DocumentSuppliedResources: procset Adobe_AGM_Image 1.0 0
%%+ procset Adobe_CoolType_Utility_T42 1.0 0
%%+ procset Adobe_CoolType_Utility_MAKEOCF 1.23 0
%%+ procset Adobe_CoolType_Core 2.31 0
me@beryllium:~/work/manuscripts/Talks/Australia/img/folder_1$ head -n 20 good.eps 

%!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0
%%Creator: cairo 1.12.2 (http://cairographics.org)
%%CreationDate: Thu Apr 11 11:36:28 2013
%%Pages: 1
%%DocumentData: Clean7Bit
%%LanguageLevel: 2
%%BoundingBox: 0 -1 633 359
%%EndComments
%%BeginProlog
save
50 dict begin
/q { gsave } bind def
/Q { grestore } bind def
/cm { 6 array astore concat } bind def
/w { setlinewidth } bind def
/J { setlinecap } bind def
/j { setlinejoin } bind def
/M { setmiterlimit } bind def
/d { setdash } bind def
/m { moveto } bind def

I had another couple of files which caused the same issue -- all of which originally came from Bruker Topspin (XWinNMR). Re-saving them in inkscape solved the issues.

I still don't understand why figure_1 had to be present though.