Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!gatech!mcnc!ecsvax!ruslan
From: ruslan@ecsvax.UUCP (Robin C. LaPasha)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: DeskJet+ Questions
Summary: PixelScript will do it
Message-ID: <7427@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: 3 Aug 89 15:25:54 GMT
References: <459@tw-rnd.SanDiego.NCR.COM> <380033@hpdml93.HP.COM>
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 69

In article <380033@hpdml93.HP.COM>, stephen@hpdml93.HP.COM (Stephen Holmstead) writes:
> ml@eceris.ncsu.edu writes:
> > [lots deleted]
> >
> >Other than that, I have no complaints.  Laser quality output without laser
> >printer prices; quiet, reasonably fast.  I wouldn't mind having a way to add
> >Postscript capability though.
> 
> You might want to try the PD program GhostScript.  It's a PostScript
> clone and will process postscript files either to the display or a
> printer.  The only problem is that it requires 1 Mb MINIMUM (and often
> wants more!).
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Stephen Holmstead
> ...!hplabs!hpdmlge!stephen                      //
> Hewlett Packard Disk Memory Division          \X/  Amiga Forever!


I own PixelScript (nee PrintScript) from Pixelations.  It's been useful to
me (the snooty Grad School here will accept its DeskJet output for my
thesis manuscript.)  I've tried Ghostscript as well, and compared them for
my own purposes:
	- For clarification (well, I was confused for a while on this):
Both take a PostScript file and squirt it out to a printer as a (raster?
bitmap?) image.  They don't _make_ files into Postscript, you use other
products for that.  They just send them to your non-PostScript printer.
	- Both are for pretty much any Preferences printers; PixelScript
is optimized for the DeskJet (and maybe the LaserJet, I forget.)
Ghostscript has some sort of previewer built in; you can use Allen
Norskog's dps previewer on Fish 209 for PixelScript.
	- As best as I was able to determine, Ghostscript will NOT handle
bitmap images.  No IFF2PS, no Amiga bitmap fonts, nothing.  With
PixelScript, I use a monster big size of my own (Slavic) fonts, scaled
down to ~25% original (via some ProScript tricks,) next to Times, and
it looks good.  And EPS stuff comes out fine as long as you don't run
out of memory.
	- PixelScript has Times and Helvetica clones, they say they're
working on getting more.  (If it wasn't clear above, I meant that
my font was a _bitmap_ font stuck in among the PostScript ones.)
	- I printed the recently posted space station logo (oh, I don't
know, maybe in sci.space or sci.astro) with both products.  The
Ghostscript version chopped the bottom arc entirely, and had a truly
nasty serif font substituting for "Narrow Helvetica."  The PixelScript
version had the middle piece slightly off center...
	- So I wrote Pixelations, and said "Here, this broke."  And they
said, "Aha!  We've been trying to catch that bug, thanks!  We'll fix it
for the next rev, and here's a fix now."  They've been helpful all along,
and the product has been steadily improving.  Thinner, more graceful
fonts (the early versions were a bit "bold"-looking,) faster printing
(definitely faster than Ghostscript,) and bug fixes.  Since I _need_
to do things with the product, I appreciate the quick and competent
fixes.  
	
A few disclaimers, though:
	- I bought it awhile ago at $80 or $90.  The ads for the new
rev advertise it at $149.  Since the new rev is due out any day now,
I don't know what the price is.
	- After I had trouble with my fonts and screamed at them, they
decided I was more useful with them than against them, and have sent
me some beta copies with the fixes I requested.  There's always the
chance that the improvements I mentioned won't be out until 1.1, but
that's going to be darn soon.  Otherwise, the marketing folks are
going to hang the programmer, he says ;^)

Happy PostScripting.
-- 
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Robin LaPasha               |Deep-Six your
ruslan@ecsvax.uncecs.edu    |files with VI! ;^) ;^) ;^)