edwards@dogie.macc.wisc.edu (mark edwards) (05/12/89)
We are thinking about using a Linotronic at a commerical organization. One
of the packages we want to use with it is TeX. The Linotronic does postscript.
I do have a dvi2ps program, however to use all TeX's math fonts it is
necessary to use CM bitmapped fonts, because postscript does not support all
TeX's math characters. The problem is that the bitmapped fonts for the
Lintronic have to be made at 1270 dpi. For cmr10 at 10pt this translates
into a pxl file of 165k, cmr12 is 225k. In short when using these fonts
the postscript file created can be quite large. The kicker here is that
we maybe transfering the file over a 2400 baud modem.
Possible ways to get around this are:
1. Hand carry the postscript files
2. Give postscript versions of the CM bitmap files to the typesetter.
(Any know if this is possible? How do you use them in dvi2ps?)
3. Use only postscript fonts (what about math?)
Anyone have any ideas, has anyone done this?
thanks
mark
rokicki@polya.Stanford.EDU (Tomas G. Rokicki) (05/12/89)
edwards@dogie.macc.wisc.edu (mark edwards) writes: > We are thinking about using a Linotronic at a commerical organization. One > of the packages we want to use with it is TeX. > I do have a dvi2ps program, however to use all TeX's math fonts it is > necessary to use CM bitmapped fonts, because postscript does not support all > TeX's math characters. The problem is that the bitmapped fonts for the > Lintronic have to be made at 1270 dpi. For cmr10 at 10pt this translates > into a pxl file of 165k, cmr12 is 225k. In short when using these fonts > the postscript file created can be quite large. The kicker here is that > we maybe transfering the file over a 2400 baud modem. And the PostScript file will be at least twice as large, with hex data! There is a solution. Pick up a copy of dvips 3.0 from labrea.stanford.edu:pub/drivel.tar.Z. Use it with the -Z option. This will `compress' the character bitmaps and download the magic PostScript to decompress the characters as they are needed. Typically these compressed bitmaps at 1270 dpi are only slightly larger than uncompressed bitmaps at 300 dpi. Things run pretty quickly, too, despite what you'd think. The *real* problem with the Linotronic 100 is how abysmally short of memory it is---180K free VM is usual. (The Lino 300, in its normal unexpanded state, is even worse, with only 130K.) You *need* to use such a compression scheme to be able to use bitmap fonts at all effectively in that printer. I have printed extremely complex pages with over a dozen fonts on each page and tall characters (cminch, for example) on a Linotronic 100 using this version of dvips . . . This version of dvips also does accurate memory budgeting, automatically splitting the document up between save/restores as necessary to allow it to run under a given amount of VM. It also supports PostScript fonts (use them whenever possible to save even more memory in the printer.) And graphics. And more. -tom