epstopdf warning: "Shell escape feature is not enabled."

Question

I'm having a bit of trouble trying to include .eps files in a LaTeX document compiled with pdfLaTeX. I've been told that I should use the epstopdf package to convert .eps files to .pdf on the fly.

This is my LaTeX code:

\documentclass[12pt]{article}
\usepackage[pdftex]{graphicx}
\usepackage{epstopdf}
\begin{document}
\includegraphics{thing.eps}
\end{document}

But when I try to compile it with pdflatex test.tex I get this error:

Package epstopdf Warning: Shell escape feature is not enabled.

(/usr/share/texmf-texlive/tex/latex/latexconfig/epstopdf-sys.cfg))) (./test.aux ) (/usr/share/texmf/tex/context/base/supp-pdf.mkii [Loading MPS to PDF converter (version 2006.09.02).] )

! Package pdftex.def Error: File `thing-eps-converted-to.pdf' not found.

See the pdftex.def package documentation for explanation. Type  H   for immediate help.  ...

                                                   l.7 \includegraphics{thing.eps}
                                ?

I'm not sure what to do, I've also tried putting \epstopdfsetup and \epstopdfsetup{} after \usepackage{espstopdf} but that doesn't help.

Answer 1

To compile the example without errors use:

pdflatex --shell-escape test.tex

With the beginning of TeXLive 2010 pdflatex automatically converts eps file to pdf. Karl Berry wrote a TUGboat article about this new feature. You should update your distribution.

TEX Live 2010 news TUGboat, Volume 31 (2010), No. 2