[comp.sys.atari.st] Page Stream - > Postscript & more

jensen@trout.nosc.mil (Layne K. &,B217/1,31687,5787549) (02/03/89)

From article <1673@ssc.UUCP>, by fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes):
> 
> Well, it may create PostScript but it won't write it to disk.
> First, PageStream V1.0 crashed so fast that I never got to actually
> attempting to print anything.  But, yesterday I went to see of there
> was anything that works on an Atari that will produce PostScript (before
> we trash the 1040 and buy an Amiga).  I played with Calimus which seems
> like a great program but it doesn't talk PostScript (yet).  So, I loaded
> PageStream V1.5 to test it out.  Upon entering a command to write
> PostScript to a disk file it crashed.  Oh well.

Since I'm the one who made the original request for help in writing
PostScript to disk from PageStream V1.5, I guess I should follow up with
what I have learned.

I have been successful in sending several small documents to the disk and
subsequently printing them.  There seem to be just a couple of things to
watch out for.  First, you can only use screen fonts for which the
corresponding PostScript printer fonts are available.  For the PS V1.5
distribution that means only Tyme (Times-Roman) and Helv (Helvetica).  (Can
anyone comment on the availability of other Laserwriter fonts?)

Secondly, make sure that you have the PostScript printer files available on
the disk to which the output will be written (preferably in a folder named
PSFONTS).  Before I had my output disk arranged that way the program would
hang in the process of looking for the PS fonts.

Other than that, just make sure that the PostScript driver is loaded, and
choose the print-to-disk output option.

On another subject, does anyone know how to reliably change the font style
(type and size) at the start of a document?  If I create a new document,
layout columns, then try to change the default font style, it doesn't seem
to "take" on the first few tries.  It seems like I have to type at least one
character, erase it, then try the change again, or highlight a string and
change it, then do a global change, or some such contortions.  Am I missing
something?  Once the first global style change has been successful I don't
have any problems changing again.

The more I use PageStream, the more I like it, and think that this latest
version is certainly usable.  (But I look forward to more bug fixes.)  I'm
a complete novice at desktop publishing on this or any other machine, so
I can't really make good comparisons, but I think PS is worth the money.

I get the impression that there are good discussions concerning PageStream
going on in the paid-services realm (Genie, Compuserve, etc.?), to which
many of us don't have access.  Could someone who does have access please
pass on any useful tidbits to us on Usenet?  'preciate it.

Layne Jensen
Naval Ocean Systems Center           jensen@nosc.MIL
San Diego, CA                        ...!sdcsvax!noscvax!jensen

fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes) (02/04/89)

In article <874@nosc.NOSC.MIL>, jensen@trout.nosc.mil (Layne K. &,B217/1,31687,5787549) writes:
> From article <1673@ssc.UUCP>, by fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes):

> > Well, it may create PostScript but it won't write it to disk.

> Since I'm the one who made the original request for help in writing
> PostScript to disk from PageStream V1.5, I guess I should follow up with
> what I have learned.

>                 First, you can only use screen fonts for which the
> corresponding PostScript printer fonts are available. 

Just a quick comment - when I originally ordered PageStream (~June 89)
as an upgrade to PP, SoftLogik "assured" me that you could use any of
the fonts distributed with PageStream with a PostScript printer.

Guess that pretty well covers my situation.
-- 
Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155  (206)FOR-UNIX
    uw-beaver!tikal!ssc!fyl or uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl

cew@venera.isi.edu (Craig E. Ward) (02/04/89)

I was able to load the one of the font sample documents into Pagestream
v1.5 and write the file out to disk in Postscript.  I uploaded the
(rather large file) and printed it on an Apple LaserWriter.  Most of it
looked okay.  I don't know much about fonts but most of them looked
okay.

The postscript file generated had to be modified after uploading.  The
postscript standard states that all postscript files start with a
%!, usually followed by the postscript version number.  Pagestream (and
Publishing Partner for that matter) fail to do this.  I find a
<NEWLINE><NEWLINE><EOF> at the begining of the file.  Easy to fix but
annoying.  (No, KERMIT does not add this; there are no comments at the
beginning of the file.)

I have a more general question.  Is pagestream downloading fonts to the
laser printer?  I had no end of grief trying to print a postscript file
from First Publisher (IBM PC & clones).  The local postscript wizard said
they were downloading fonts and that was why it took forever (the file
would timeout over the network connection).  Publishing Partner files
did not seem to do that.  Has SoftLogic changed things?  Sure, a lot of
home desktop publishing might be done on low end laser writers, but they
should not assume a stupid printer.  It should at least be configurable
or they should have a separate utility to download the desired font set.

While on the subject of desktop publishing, I've taken Michtron up on
their offer to send owners of other dps's a copy of Fleet Street v2 for
$50.00 plus S/H (ST World 1/89).  Before I did it, however, I called and
asked about postscript to files.  The answer was that could write to
files.  (And it's not copy protected this time -- reason I didn't buy
the first release.)

		Craig

-- 
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jensen@trout.nosc.mil (Layne K. &,B217/1,31687,5787549) (02/07/89)

From article <1681@ssc.UUCP>, by fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes):
> In article <874@nosc.NOSC.MIL>, jensen@trout.nosc.mil (Layne K. &,B217/1,31687,5787549) writes:
>> From article <1673@ssc.UUCP>, by fyl@ssc.UUCP (Phil Hughes):
> 
>> > Well, it may create PostScript but it won't write it to disk.
> 
>> Since I'm the one who made the original request for help in writing
>> PostScript to disk from PageStream V1.5, I guess I should follow up with
>> what I have learned.
> 
>>                 First, you can only use screen fonts for which the
>> corresponding PostScript printer fonts are available. 
> 
> Just a quick comment - when I originally ordered PageStream (~June 89)
> as an upgrade to PP, SoftLogik "assured" me that you could use any of
> the fonts distributed with PageStream with a PostScript printer.
> 
> Guess that pretty well covers my situation.
> -- 
> Phil Hughes, SSC, Inc. P.O. Box 55549, Seattle, WA 98155  (206)FOR-UNIX
>     uw-beaver!tikal!ssc!fyl or uunet!pilchuck!ssc!fyl or attmail!ssc!fyl

Over the weekend I used the font conversion program that came with PageStream
V1.5 to convert one of my old Publishing Partner fonts for use in PageStream.
One feature of the conversion program is to write out a file that apparently
is downloaded to the PostScript printer along with the document.  So the
assumption is that any PageStream (or Publishing Partner) font can indeed be
used with a PostScript printer.  I haven't had a chance to go through the
whole process yet to confirm that it works, but will report as soon as I find
out.  The PostScript font file to be downloaded was approximately 32K bytes
in length.  This was for the Calligraphy font, so it may be larger than
average, but I was still surprised at the size.

Has anyone else gone through the whole process?  I'll try to refrain from
making any more misleading statements until I understand the situation
better.  It's not fair to SoftLogik.  (But I surely wish this area was better
documented!)

Layne Jensen                        jensen@nosc.MIL
Naval Ocean Systems Center          ...!sdcsvax!noscvax!jensen
San Diego, CA