dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (02/08/89)
I installed pps on our Sun network, and immediately ran into
problems when trying to pretty-print documents written in PostScript,
LISP, and C. The printer would generate the first couple of pages
correctly, and would then go berserk... printing several sets of data
on top of one or another, spitting out blank pages, and finally
aborting the job with a PostScript error.
I also noticed that the document was being printed "page 1 first",
although our spooler's log indicated that the PostScript page-reversal
filter had been activated.
Diagnosis: "pps" generates a PostScript file that asserts that it
complies with the PostScript document structuring conventions... the
file begins with the string "%!PS-Adobe-1.0". However, the file does
not actually conform... the file does not contain the "%%Page:"
comments that all minimally-conforming PostScript documents must
contain (per page 269 of the Red Book).
Our spooler (a modified version of "papif" from Columbia University's
CAP package) automatically filters all conforming PostScript documents
through "psrev", so that they print last-page-first and are stacked
properly. Apparently, "psrev" goes crazy when told to page-reverse a
document that doesn't contain "%%Page:" comments.
Short-term fix: modify pps.sh and slide.sh, replacing "%!PS-Adobe-1.0"
with "%!"; then, remake and reinstall. This will cause the PostScript
files created by pps to reflect the fact that they are nonconforming
PostScript.
Longer-term fix: modify pps and slide to output "%%Page:" comments in
the appropriate places.
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