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Did you attempt to extract the pictures so they could be converted directly by another program? Archive Team says that LibreOffice can read vector PICT files[1]

Did you attempt to extract the pictures so they could be converted directly by another program? Archive Team says that LibreOffice can read vector PICT files[1]. And then saved as SVG. Of course you still have the font problem if it has text. I hadn't thought of using PDF to preserve vectors, but of course it does, as well as embedding the fonts. [1] http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/PICT http://fileformats.archiveteam.org/wiki/PICT

jasomill 3y ago
Good question. I saved the original document as RTF and extracted what I believe is the raw PICT binary data, but quickly decided on the Acrobat route when I realized I didn't know of any software that could easily convert PICT to a more modern vector format (other than by printing the PICT to Acrobat PDF, but that's essentially what I did in Word with extra steps). If you want to give it a go, here's the raw PICT data from the RTF: https://jasomill.at/Picture1.PICT https://jasomill.at/Picture1.PICT (extracted from RTF tag \pict\macpict\picw513\pich459) https://jasomill.at/Picture2.PICT https://jasomill.at/Picture2.PICT (\pict\macpict\picw410\pich327) https://jasomill.at/Picture3.PICT https://jasomill.at/Picture3.PICT (\pict\macpict\picw420\pich291) and here are MacBinary-encoded[1] PICT files containing the same data: https://jasomill.at/Picture1.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture1.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture2.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture2.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture3.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture3.bin [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBinary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBinary Encoding is required because the PICT file format stores image data in the file's resource fork[2]. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork
- Gormo 3y ago
  Just tried it and confirmed that LibreOffice can indeed read PICT files as vector images and re-export to SVG. This can be scripted using the `--convert-to` option on the LibreOffice command line.

jasomill 3y ago

Good question. I saved the original document as RTF and extracted what I believe is the raw PICT binary data, but quickly decided on the Acrobat route when I realized I didn't know of any software that could easily convert PICT to a more modern vector format (other than by printing the PICT to Acrobat PDF, but that's essentially what I did in Word with extra steps). If you want to give it a go, here's the raw PICT data from the RTF: https://jasomill.at/Picture1.PICT https://jasomill.at/Picture1.PICT (extracted from RTF tag \pict\macpict\picw513\pich459) https://jasomill.at/Picture2.PICT https://jasomill.at/Picture2.PICT (\pict\macpict\picw410\pich327) https://jasomill.at/Picture3.PICT https://jasomill.at/Picture3.PICT (\pict\macpict\picw420\pich291) and here are MacBinary-encoded[1] PICT files containing the same data: https://jasomill.at/Picture1.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture1.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture2.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture2.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture3.bin https://jasomill.at/Picture3.bin [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBinary https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MacBinary Encoding is required because the PICT file format stores image data in the file's resource fork[2]. [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_fork

Gormo 3y ago
Just tried it and confirmed that LibreOffice can indeed read PICT files as vector images and re-export to SVG. This can be scripted using the `--convert-to` option on the LibreOffice command line.