weber@brand.UUCP (02/02/87)
A enough people have asked for copies of my program "drawimp" for converting MacDraw pictures into a form for printing on Imagen laser printers that I'm posting in to the net. Unfortunately, I can no longer figure out exactly where I'm supposed to post things like this. Mod.mac.sources seems reasonable so that's where it's going (in 3 shar files). If any of the people who asked me for copies don't see it soon, let me know and I'll mail you a copy of your very own. The posting also contains a text file describing as much as I have been able to figure out about the file format. To clarify what this program does, it takes a MacDraw file saved in the MacDraw format (as opposed to PICT format), and converts it to Impress commands that the Imagen printer understands. Some MacDraw features, such as rotated text, smoothing, bitmaps from Macpaint, and some text characteristics are not supported. It operates in two modes, standalone and TeX compatible. In standalone mode, it produces a printable file complete with Impress header. In TeX mode, it produces a file of Impress commands that can be merged with other Impress commands for including pictures in TeX (or LaTeX) documents. See the README files for more info. I wrote this program because we had an Imagen and no LaserWriter. We now have a LaserWriter but I find that I still use the program for printing MacDraw pictures. One reason is that it gives you the ability to customize the way the various objects in the picture get printed. For example, if you don't like the way the arrowheads on vectors come out on a LaserWriter (I don't), change the algorithm in drawimp to make them whatever shape you want and print it on an Imagen. Takes a bit of work but it can be done. Allan Weber USC Signal and Image Processing Institute (213) 743-5519 Arpa: Weber%Brand@USC-Oberon.ARPA UUCP: ...sdcrdcf!usc-oberon!brand!weber