richter@randvax.UUCP (Susan Richter) (03/10/86)
In article <285@hadron.UUCP> tsp@hadron.UUCP (T. Scott Pyne) writes: >There is a troff-to-PostScript postprocessor on the market, from a company >called Adobe Systems. The product is named Transcript (tm) . . . short description of the package, followed by address: > > Adobe Systems Inc. > 1870 Embarcadero Road, Suite 100 > Palo Alto, CA 94303 > (415) 852-0271 > >The propaganda I have gives a list price of $495 (binary) or $1795 (source) >per CPU, or $2950 (source) for a site license. Transcript is claimed to >run under 4.2BSD. > >A question: has anyone on the net actually *used* this product? We have the transcript software running on a bunch of VAX 780s under 4.2bsd, and it's pretty good stuff. The package has a good set of filters to start out with: they give you PostScript-producing filters for ditroff, C/A/T (old troff), plot(5), Diablo 630, and Sun raster-format output. You also get a program called enscript, which is a frontend for printing straight text files. It's wired to use lpr (oh, you also get the lpr filters that are called out by "of", "if", "gf", "nf", and "tf" in /etc/printcap), but I have it running with Ballistic Research Labs' MDQS (Multi-Device Queueing System). As far as I can see, Adobe has the most credibility in the PostScript world (makes sense, since they invented the language). They're the ones who published the tutorial/cookbook and the reference manual. Adobe is now putting out a quarterly newsletter called Colophon, with news of PostScript devices, new fonts, examples of users' applications, little focused tutorials on specific PostScript language features, etc. It looks as if it can be had for free (although they may be checking to see if you've bought their software). The address on the mail-in coupon is the one shown above. I'm happy with transcript. I don't have anything to do with Adobe Systems, either! - Susan Richter Rand Corporation