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From: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Lino problem
Summary: it "should" work...
Keywords: Linotronic, FrameMaker
Message-ID: <364@heaven.woodside.ca.us>
Date: 16 Dec 90 22:59:33 GMT
References: <904@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca>
Reply-To: glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us (Glenn Reid)
Followup-To: comp.lang.postscript
Organization: RightBrain Software, Woodside, CA
Lines: 51

In article <904@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca> jchin@van-bc.wimsey.bc.ca (Joseph Chin) writes:
>Problem:
>The newsletter was created using FrameMaker 2.0b. Images (two) were scanned
>in using the HSD Scan-X Professional scanner at 300-dpi and 256 grayscale.
>The scanned images were saved in TIFF and imported into FrameMaker.
>The pages were "printed" into separate files (i.e. page1.ps, page2.ps, etc.).
>The files were then FTP'ed to my 386SX PC (ASCII transfer). The big files
>were compressed using PKZIP (LZH algorithm) in order to fit them onto several
>1.44MB floppies to take to the Lino shop.

You should take a look at the PostScript files that you created on the
disk to see if the image data is in ASCII form or binary.  If they're
binary, you may have just lost (or added) some bits during the process
of transferring them onto floppies, etc.  Binary image data is *very*
sensitive, and even one extra carriage return can make the image operator
fail.  That's why you use ASCII hex data, for portability and a little
more robustness (although it's twice the size).  The scanner software
may have options for saving as ASCII if it turns out that the files are
indeed binary.

>I assumed that since pages which didn't contain scanned images printed
>without any problem, the culprit must be the scanned images. But Postscript
>is Postscript and it should be compatible ... from one true Postscript
>machine (NeXT) to another true Postscript device (the Linotronic L300). Are
>the pages with scanned images too "complicated" for the L300? Any thing I've
>missed so far?

Another possibility is to send your optical disk directly to a service
bureau that supports NeXT machines printing to Linos.  There is at least
one in Portland, Oregon, and perhaps others.  The NeXT catalog lists them
in the back, and you might call NeXT to see if there are more of them
popping up near you.  That would at least eliminate the process of
transferring them to other computers.

It is also possible that the service bureau sets the job timeout value
in PostScript to abort jobs that take longer than X minutes to image.

In summary, there is nothing inherent in PostScript that would cause
that kind of problem.  It is more a "systems" problem of too many kinds
of networks, computers, and so forth.  I have successfully printed
scanned images from the NeXT on a Lino through a service bureau, and it
is certainly possible and a reasonable thing to do.  Some service bureaus
try harder and know more than others, however.

I hope this helps a little bit.

Glenn
-- 
 Glenn Reid				RightBrain Software
 glenn@heaven.woodside.ca.us		PostScript/NeXT developers
 ..{adobe,next}!heaven!glenn		415-851-1785