Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:8122 comp.lang.postscript:496 comp.lang.lisp:852 Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!convex!killer!tness7!petro!swrinde!ut-sally!ut-emx!lad-shrike!milano!hi3.aca.mcc.com!ables From: ables@hi3.aca.mcc.com.UUCP (King Ables) Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.lang.postscript,comp.lang.lisp Subject: Re: postscript from Symbolics to a laserwriter via a Sun Message-ID: <297@hi3.aca.mcc.com.UUCP> Date: 27 Apr 88 19:21:30 GMT References: <295@hi3.aca.mcc.com.UUCP> Organization: MCC, Austin, TX Lines: 116 Summary: solution As promised, here are (possibly edited versions of) the replies I got to my Symbolics to laserwriter via Sun printing problem query. Any editing was done to remove incorrect or misleading information (I say "incorrect" based on my observation of conflicting behavior). However, almost all the information was correct and very valuable. Thanks to those who responded. I wound up trying the first solution of simply changing the %!PS-Adobe-0.67 that was in the preamble of the Postscript file generated on the Symbolics machine to simply %!PS instead. This no longer made it claim to be "real- honest-to-God-perfect" Postscript. Because of this, the Sun spooling software didn't want to take a chance on reversing it so it didn't run psrv (which is how FrameMaker does it) so it came out correctly. I imagine we'll hack our Symbolics and modify the Postscript preamble. -king ARPA: ables@mcc.com UUCP: {gatech,ihnp4,nbires,seismo,ucb-vax}!ut-sally!im4u!milano!ables --------------------------------- Date: Sat, 23 Apr 88 19:45:44 PDT Subject: Re: page reversal problem The "psrv" filter identifies a conforming file by looking at the first line. If it matches "%!PS-Adobe-" (plus version numbers or whatever might follow) it is assumed to be page-reversible. Frame Maker omits the "PS-Adobe" part, which means that it does not claim to be a conforming document. In fact, their documents are, and you could fix the prolog (.makerinit/ps_prolog, or something) to have the full "%!PS-Adobe-2.0" comment, and the pages should reverse fine. As for the other output not working correctly, It is probably the PostScript file itself that is not really page-reversible. "psrv" uses the %%EndProlog and the %%Page comments to decide how to reverse the code. You can, I think, run it directly, and see what happens to the file: psrv < infile > outfile (possibly different calling seq.) And look at the two files to see what happened. If the file looks OK but still doesn't print right, there may be some interdependencies between the code in page 1, and the code in page 2 which cause it not to work properly when the chunks are physically rearranged. If you cannot fix it by, say, moving the %%EndProlog comment or something simple, you can defeat the page reversal simply by changing the first line comment, as Frame did. I hope this helps. Glenn REid Adobe Systems ---------------------------- Date: Sun, 24 Apr 88 19:18:34 EDT From: Yoram Eisenstadter Subject: Re: postscript from Symbolics to a laserwriter via a Sun The way paging works in Postscript is that the application which generates the postscript puts in so called "structure comments" which are comments to Postscript but get looked at by the various programs which manipulate Postscript code (e.g., psrev, the page reversal/selection program). The comments which delimit pages look something like "%%Page NN". What psrev essentially does is to yank out the desired pages in the desired order, looking at the %%Page comments to see where pages begin and end. It then takes these desired pages, prepends the prologue of the postscript file, appends the epilog of the postscript file, and the result is a new postscript file. So far, very simple. Certain structure comments must be present and various conditions must hold in order for the PS-generating application to be "compliant" with the Postscript conventions. There are two versions of conventions currently used; the structure comment at the top of the postscript file must be present to specify that the file satisfies a given set of conventions (this line looks something like: "%!PS-Adobe-N.N", where N.N is 1.0 or 2.0). One of the most important conditions for compliance is that each page consist of totally state-independent postscript code, so that things don't get screwed up when you reverse pages or print only random pages. Thus, all definitions which are to be used on more than one page have to be made in the prologue section of the postscript file. The facts that your file (1) makes it to the Sun spooler intact, and (2) prints properly when not run through psrev, strongly suggest that the 7.2 Symbolics software violates the postscript file structuring conventions which psrev expects; most probably the problem is non-independence of pages. The fact that your other postscript-based stuff works properly is also evidence of this. Cheers..Y -- Yoram Eisenstadter | ARPAnet: yoram@cheshire.columbia.edu Columbia University | UUCP: [rutgers!]columbia!cheshire!yoram 450 Computer Science Bldg. | uunet!cheshire.columbia.edu!yoram 500 West 120th Street | Bitnet: yoram@cucsvm New York, NY 10027 | Phone: (212) 280-8180 --------------------------- Date: Mon, 25 Apr 88 17:56:22 EDT From: lou@aramis.rutgers.edu (Lou Steinberg) Subject: Re: postscript from Symbolics to a laserwriter via a Sun Here's a hack to try: to fool psrev into thinking the file is all one long page, try a string substitution of replacing all strings of the form "%%page" with %%%page". An alternative is to make psrev think the file is not in a format it understands: delete the characters "-1.0" from the end of the first line of the file. -- Lou Steinberg uucp: {pretty much any major site}!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!lou arpa: lou@aramis.rutgers.edu