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From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript
Subject: Re: "Autoscale" for Postscript ?
Summary: initial clipping path
Keywords: scale transformations
Message-ID: <1991Feb19.045436.28511@ico.isc.com>
Date: 19 Feb 91 04:54:36 GMT
References: <20948@teda.UUCP>
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation, Boulder, CO
Lines: 25

bob@teda.UUCP (Bob Armstrong) writes:

>   A simple (I hope) question:  Suppose I want to define a Postscript image
> that always maps itself onto the full size of the paper, regardless of
> the actual paper size ?  For example, if I printed the same Postscript
> program on both A sized and C sized paper, both would exactly fill the
> page.

>   If I could somehow find the actual device size _at runtime_,...

We just went by almost the same problem, so this probably needs to go into
a FAQ.  (Not a criticism of Armstrong's question)

The initial transformation matrix and the initial clipping path tell you
interesting things about the device itself.  In this case, the initial
clipping path tells you the imageable area, so if you do (preferably within
gsave/grestore, to avoid screwing up other stuff):
	initclip clippath pathbbox
you have the area you can use.  initclip resets the clipping path to the
default startup value; clippath turns the clipping path into the current
path; pathbbox gives you coordinates of lower-left and upper-right corners
of the bounding box of this path.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd       Boulder, CO   (303)449-2870
   ...But is it art?