allen@hpfcdj.HP.COM (Allen Norskog) (03/20/89)
This past week I received a new release of PrintScript (1.0.1), which the enclosed letter said went out to all registered owners. This release appears to be mainly a bug fix release. PrintScript is a Postscript interpreter that runs on the Amiga. I tried to see if the "preferences" printer driver would now work for me. I still got the same error message. I talked with the folks at Pixelations, and we discovered that the problem occured when you have non-zero entries into the width and height limit fields in Preferences' Graphic 2 screen. This is even a problem if you have things set to "ignore" these fields. Pixelations was able to reproduce the problem and later find the actual bug. I would imagine this will be fixed in the next release. Anyway, zeroing these fields got the "preferences" drivers to work fine. Pixelations has fixed a bug in the charpath operator. This was apparently the cause for only being able to print outlines of only a few characters. Outline fonts worked fine on the tests I ran. The problem with setting half-toning to screen freq=300 and screen angle=0 has also gone away. The problem I had with printing text around a circle turned out to be a bug in my Postscript program. I was missing a space between a set of parentheses -- it is not clear from the book that a space was supposed to be there. The imagemask operator has been upgraded. It no longers ignores the "invert" parameter. Thus, it matches how things are displayed in City Desk. The imagemask operator still is not complete -- it simply converts itself into an image operator, which writes on top of anything already placed in its space. Keep other items away, and you'll be okay. I've also verified that PrintScript can write a file with a run-length encoding of the image. I've been able to get a crude version of "display Postscript" going by using these files. Allen Norskog allen_n@hpfcla.HP.COM ...!hplabs!hpfcla!allen_n
darin@nova.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson) (03/23/89)
In article <17110004@hpfcdj.HP.COM> allen@hpfcdj.HP.COM (Allen Norskog) writes:
<This past week I received a new release of PrintScript (1.0.1), which
<the enclosed letter said went out to all registered owners. This
<release appears to be mainly a bug fix release. PrintScript is a
<Postscript interpreter that runs on the Amiga.
This is the first I have heard of this product. Anyone have any
info?
Darin Johnson (leadsv!laic!darin@pyramid.pyramid.com)
Can you "Spot the Looney"?allen@hpfcdj.HP.COM (Allen Norskog) (03/30/89)
It seems to appear that my first posting on PrintScript, which described some of the features, didn't really get sent around. Anyway, here is some info. Sorry if it is a repeat to many. PrintScript is from Pixelations and costs $89. They started shipping in February. I saw their ad in the back of AmigaWorld. Printer support: You can use the Preference printers or they have special drivers for a few printers such as the HP LaserJet and HP DeskJet. Their DeskJet driver makes use of the DeskJet's ability to read Run-Length-Encoded data (compressed) to speed up printing. If you use a LaserJet, you need to be sure you have enough memory in the printer to hold a whole page of graphic data, (>=1Meg), as you would expect. You do not need extra memory for the DeskJet. You do not need font cartridges either. Print quality: The program reads the description of the page size (which you set up with a little configuration program) and the resolution of your printer. It builds its own internal bitmap based on this. It appears to me that it doesn't simply go out and make one big bitmap, but allocates parts based on where you are printing on the page. That is it doesn't always grab 1Meg for a full size 300dpi page. The program comes with equivalent of Times-Roman and Helvetica fonts. These are Postscript scalable fonts. I've printed out letters several inches tall, and they looked great. You may want to use multiple configuration files -- one that prints at 75dpi and one at 300dpi. Using the 75dpi mode will run faster as it has to compute a lot less dots. This would be good for preliminary layout where you want to make sure you have placed things correctly on the page. When you're ready, print at 300dpi. The program supports most of the Postscript commands. You can do gray-scale, images, rotate text, etc. I have used it with CityDesk and excellence! and it has worked well with both. A couple things that are missing are arbitrary clipping (though you can to rectangular clipping) and dashed lines (you always get solid). The program does not support color at this time. The program can also write its bitmap out to a file. It uses a run-length-encoding technique for this to reduce the file size. I am making use of this capability in my screen previewer. Screen previewer: PrintScript doesn't come with a previewer, so I've been working up my own. It's getting in pretty good shape now. I basically use the program's ability to write data to a file. I read the file, and display it. I have two display modes -- one that shows the whole page on the screen, and one that shows a more detailed look at part of the page. Other: I am using an A1000 with 1.5Meg, I have been able to do some full page printouts with this. I think it might be tough if you only have 1Meg. Pixelations says it can run on 1Meg (probably for low dpi printers) but recommend 2Meg. Their flyer that they sent me said it could make use of a 68881 math chip - but I've never verified this. A full page with text took about 30 minutes - about 20 minutes to compute the page, and 10 minutes to convert their bitmap and send it to the printer. A lot of (perhaps simpler) things are taking in the 10-20 minute range to run and print. Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any other questions. Allen Norskog allen_n@hpfcla.hp.com ...!hplabs!hpfcla!allen_n Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with any of the above mentioned products/companies except my employer Hewlett-Packard which manufactures the DeskJet and LaserJet printers.
ecarroll@csvax1.cs.tcd.ie (Eddy Carroll) (04/02/89)
In article <17110005@hpfcdj.HP.COM>, allen@hpfcdj.HP.COM (Allen Norskog) writes: > > [Some interesting stuff about PrintScript from Pixelations] > > The program supports most of the Postscript commands. You can do > gray-scale, images, rotate text, etc. I have used it with CityDesk > and excellence! and it has worked well with both. A couple things > that are missing are arbitrary clipping (though you can to rectangular > clipping) and dashed lines (you always get solid). The program > does not support color at this time. > Allen Norskog > allen_n@hpfcla.hp.com > ...!hplabs!hpfcla!allen_n Has anyone tried using this with Professional Page? I'm editor of the local user group newsletter, and at the moment, I do it on Pro Page (which I like quite a bit). However, we currently have to go to an outside agency to actually get access to a Postscript printer. If things go according to plan, we will shortly have access to a HP Laserjet which we can use much more conveniently. So the question is, do we get Pagestream (which seems to give very nice output on the HP, but appears to be very buggy at the moment) or stick with Pro Page and get PrintScript. I realise PrintScript would take forever to process a typical 20 page newsletter, but I could live with this since it only needs to be done once every two months or so. Suggestions welcome. [An aside to Eric Kennedy: Thanks for your email over the past weeks, in answer to several questions of mine. I got the new C Ltd. 3.0 s/w, and reformatted my hard drive, bringing the speed up to around 160K/second. All my replies to you bounced unfortunately so I couldn't thank you before.] -- Eddy Carroll ----* Genuine MUD Wizard | "You haven't lived until INTER: ecarroll@cs.tcd.ie | until you've died in UUCP: {..uunet}!mcvax!ukc!cs.tcd.ie!csvax1!ecarroll | MUD!" - Richard Bartle