OMG. I feel your pain brother. I have been exactly where you are now. Even that crap about EPS being the standard. I bet all those EPS files are outlined aren't they? They are aren't they.
Most readers might be confused by this post. Thermal Transfer Printers have no RIPs and no understanding of Postscript. There are machines driven by Windows drivers and PCL. They have tiny onboard processors so the artwork is just simple text and simple vectors. There is no transparency and only a greyscale colourspace. Want to print red? You buy red transfer foil. (it is more similar to a receipt printer than any other print device. They are often used to print the washing instructions sewn into your clothes so you can imagine how basic these EPS files are)
So for almost everyone else reading this PDF is a natural choice but as you have discovered the software (and hardware) does not always support this. I think Nice Label 6 onwards supports PDF. Chances you have a license for Nice Label 5
But you are in luck as ancient tech will come to your rescue. Acrobat Distiller will convert all your EPS files to PDF. You can define the settings you want (even outline all the fonts as you go if they insist). You can also create a hot folder and process all the files overnight and keep the successful conversions seperate from the failures.
You can set up an action in illustrator to do the same but Distiller can be left unwatched to do the job. Use illustrator and you might get the odd error.
Tell your team that EPS is a dead file format and we have reached the point where no software renders it consistently. The longer you use it the greater the risk of you getting different results on different machines. You have survived this long with EPS due to the simplicity of the artwork you handle. Any commercial printer would be dead in the water with your workflow. The time to move to PDF is now.
Good luck... Your cause is just so keep on fighting.
Here is a previous thread for you. It includes Dov Isaacs - Principle Scientist for Adobe
https://printplanet.com/forum/prepre...t-the-eps-file
(OK... If you are using variable image files called from a database then your EPS files might contain empty bounding boxes (boxes with no stroke or fill) around the edge of the artwork so that the position of the artwork on the output is always correct. If so you will need to get the PDF page boxes to match the bounding boxes. That might take a few attempts to get right. It will all depend on how bartender handles the file)
