davisd@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu (Dug) (02/15/90)
Hi, I was wondering if anyone out there prints Mac generated postscript files using Unix. I've been trying with no luck. Here's what I do: Usually from inside MS Word 4.0, at the print dialog after clicking OK I hit command-K. It creates a postscript file, and then I kermit the file over to Unix. I then use "lpr" and the file prints as if it was a text file. I get pages and pages of postsciprt commands. Is there something I'm forgetting to do? -Dug
darcy@druid.uucp (D'Arcy J.M. Cain) (02/19/90)
In article <6461@cps3xx.UUCP> davisd@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu (Dug) writes: >Hi, > I was wondering if anyone out there prints Mac generated postscript >files using Unix. I've been trying with no luck. Here's what I do: > Usually from inside MS Word 4.0, at the print dialog after clicking > OK I hit command-K. It creates a postscript file, and then I > kermit the file over to Unix. I then use "lpr" and the file > prints as if it was a text file. I get pages and pages of > postsciprt commands. > Is there something I'm forgetting to do? >-Dug I'll ask the stupid question first. Do you actually have a PostScript printer attached? What printer is it? (Always try to give as much information as possible to forestall these dumb questions.) Assuming that you have a PostScript printer of some type there are two possibilities that I can think of. The printer may have been set up to emulate some other sort of printer such as a QMS with the switch set to Diablo mode. The other possibility is that the default printer is filtered through an ASCII printer emulator. Perhaps you have more than one logical printer device with the default being for standard printing and optional ones for PostScript, HP, etc. Check with your system administrator on both these questions. If you are the system administrator then I would suspect the switch possibility as the most likely solution. -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain (darcy@druid) | Thank goodness we don't get all D'Arcy Cain Consulting | the government we pay for. West Hill, Ontario, Canada | (416) 281-6094 |
iemasgn@prism.gatech.EDU (Gautham,Nalamada) (02/20/90)
>In article <6461@cps3xx.UUCP> davisd@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu (Dug) writes: > I was wondering if anyone out there prints Mac generated postscript >files using Unix. I've been trying with no luck. Here's what I do: > Usually from inside MS Word 4.0, at the print dialog after clicking > OK I hit command-K. It creates a postscript file, and then I > kermit the file over to Unix. I then use "lpr" and the file > prints as if it was a text file. I get pages and pages of > postsciprt commands. > Is there something I'm forgetting to do? You can print postscript files generated by using command-k only on Apple laserwriters. If you do have one, then lpr must not be having some filters, if not you have to use software like macps* to print the files * anonymous ftp'ble from Berkely --Gautham -- --------------------------------------------------------------------- "Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?" "That depends a good deal on where you want to get to," said the Cat. --Lewis Carrol
parker@zaphod.mpr.ca (Ross Parker) (02/20/90)
In article <1990Feb19.155338.8914@druid.uucp>, darcy@druid.uucp (D'Arcy J.M. Cain) writes: > In article <6461@cps3xx.UUCP> davisd@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu (Dug) writes: > >Hi, > > I was wondering if anyone out there prints Mac generated postscript > >files using Unix. I've been trying with no luck. Here's what I do: . . . > I'll ask the stupid question first. Do you actually have a PostScript > printer attached? > The printer may have been set up > to emulate some other sort of printer such as a QMS with the switch > set to Diablo mode. The other possibility is that the default printer > is filtered through an ASCII printer emulator > Actually, the most likely possibility is that you aren't including the correct (or any) postscript header file with the Mac-generated postscript. I believe the command-K sequence generates a file that includes lots of non-existant postscript commands, and doesn't start with the '%!' magic cookie that Transcript software (from Adobe) looks for. This usually works on a Mac, because the printer has been pre-loaded with the necessary functions. Printers hung off UNIX systems are rarely set up this way. I believe there's some magic Mac keystroke sequence or something that will magically generate a header file for you, but (not being a Mac hack) I can't help you with that one! Anyone else? Ross Parker parker@mpre.mpr.ca (604)293-5495 uunet!ubc-cs!mpre!parker
jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) (02/21/90)
Several people have responded to the article asking how to print a Mac-generated PostScript(TM) file on a printer hooked up to a Unix box. However, I don't think anybody has given the "full story", so I'd like to try to bring everything together in one message. Most Mac programs which generate PostScript generate a special form of PostScript which is designed to be printed in conjunction with a "Laser Prep" header file which, in its original form, can be understood only by the Apple LaserWriter. When printed directly from a Mac to a LaserWriter, this isn't a problem because the LaserPrep file is downloaded to the printer directly, either beforehand or at the beginning of each job. In fact, I think the LaserPrep is designed in such a way that it checks to see if it's already been downloaded each time it is sent to the printer, and if it is already present in the printer, aborts the evaluation of the rest of the LaserPrep, which speeds things up quite a bit. If you want to print PostScript to a file instead of to the printer when using a Mac, there are two ways to do this, Command-f and Command-k. Using Command-f will give you a PostScript file without the LaserPrep file prepended to it, while Command-k will give you a file with LaserPrep prepended. Unfortunately, most printers besides the LaserWriter won't be able to print either of these as-is, for the reasons mentioned above (i.e. they won't be able to understand the LaserPrep header, and without the header the contents of the PostScript file won't make any sense to the printer). Another possible problem is that much of the software that is used to print to PostScript printers from Unix relies on "%!" being the first two characters in any PostScript file. If they are not, the file is considered a text file and *passed through a formatter to print it as text* before it is sent to the PostScript printer. The best solution to this problem I've seen is a package called "macps", written by Edward Moy (or, at least, he's the person who signs the mail sent out about it :-). This package includes several program. The two most importants ones are: 1. "prepfix", a program which will take a LaserPrep file uploaded to a Unix box and fix it so that printers besides the LaserWriter will understand it. You then install the fixed LaserPrep file(s) into a library directory so that the other important program can use them.... 2. "macps", a program that reads a PostScript file generated on a Mac using Command-f, figures out which version of LaserPrep it requires, pulls the fixed LaserPrep out of the library directory, prepends it to the beginning of the file and sends the output to its standard output -- you can then pipe this through lpr to print it to a PostScript printer. The most recent version of macps (version 2.2, I think) is available for anonymous ftp from the directory ~ftp/info-mac on the machine sumex-aim.stanford.edu (36.44.0.6). Jonathan Kamens USnail: MIT Project Athena 11 Ashford Terrace jik@Athena.MIT.EDU Allston, MA 02134 Office: 617-253-8495 Home: 617-782-0710
prs@tcsc3b2.tcsc.com (Paul Stath) (02/22/90)
davisd@cpsvax.cps.msu.edu (Dug) writes: >Hi, > I was wondering if anyone out there prints Mac generated postscript >files using Unix. I've been trying with no luck. Here's what I do: > Usually from inside MS Word 4.0, at the print dialog after clicking > OK I hit command-K. It creates a postscript file, and then I > kermit the file over to Unix. I then use "lpr" and the file > prints as if it was a text file. I get pages and pages of > postsciprt commands. > Is there something I'm forgetting to do? >-Dug Dug- We have been able to do this quite simply at our site. There are several things that you have to do. The first is to get a copy of the LaserPrep file over to the Unix machine. You can do this using kermit if LaserPrep is a text file? (I can't remember now) You then need to create the PostScript file as you describe above, with the command-K option, and ship that to the Unix machine via Kermit. Next you need a printer interface that either assumes your file is PostScript, or knows the difference between plain text and PostScript. Then use `cat' to send the LaserPrep file and the MSWord4.0 PostScript file to the printer. (i.e. cat laserprep.ps msword.ps | lpr -dPostScript ) If you get loads of PostScript code printed as regular text, then the printer interface doesn't know about PostScript, and is converting the 'text' of the PostScript code to PostScript, (Is this recursion??) or your printer is in some kinda emulation mode which doesn't process PostScript. Use a small 1 page test PostScript file to find out if, how and under what conditions your Unix printer will process PostScript. We ran our PostScript printer here for a long time in Diablo emulation mode until we purchased TranScript from Adobe. (p.s. I would do several files at one time, only sending the laserprep file the first time. After this I would power cycle the printer to free up the virtual memory taken by the laserprep prolog. ) -- =============================================================================== Paul R. Stath The Computer Solution Co., Inc. Voice: 804-794-3491 ------------------------------------------------+------------------------------ INTERNET: prs@tcsc3b2.tcsc.com | "There was no diety involved,