[comp.windows.x] Postscript in an X window

warner@scubed.com (Ken Warner) (06/25/91)

Is there any product or tool or PDS that will display Postscript in an
X window?  What I mean is, if I have a Postscript description of an image or
page of text, how can I interpret the Postscript and show the results of that
interpretation in an X window?

How do you do 'dat?

Ken Warner

fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) (06/25/91)

In article <756@scubed.SCUBED.COM>, warner@scubed.com (Ken Warner) writes:
|> Is there any product or tool or PDS that will display Postscript in an
|> X window?  What I mean is, if I have a Postscript description of an image or
|> page of text, how can I interpret the Postscript and show the results of that
|> interpretation in an X window?
|> 
|> How do you do 'dat?
|> 
This is one of the popular FAQ item, so please check it.  However, I post this
follow-up for one reason, I am not satisfied with existing no-cost PostScript
previewers, eg, ghostscript v2.21, xps etc.  I have built all of them for our
SUN SPARCs, DEC 3100s, IBM RISC 6000s (YES, gs v2.21 can be easily ported to
this guy too :-) but when I compare their performance with SUN's PageView, there
is simply no comparision!  The later is *blazingly fast*!!!!   And most of the
time I am on a RISC 6000 320 which can easily beat the pants of a SUN SPARC 2!

However, I have built SeeTeX v 2.17.2 for all our platforms, and I am pleased
by it's performance, even though appearance is still nowhere close PageView's
output.  But for scientific paper proofing/previewing, the speed is very good.

So, unless it's for pictures/graphics designs, I think no fee DVI previewers are 
much better.  However, if your needs are beyond such and you don't want to pay money for a commerical product, well, get a faster machines (more costly) Sigh..

Sincerely,

Chin Fang
Mechanical Engineering Department
Stanford University
fangchin@leland.stanford.edu

datri@convex.com (Anthony A. Datri) (06/25/91)

>follow-up for one reason, I am not satisfied with existing no-cost PostScript
>previewers, eg, ghostscript v2.21, xps etc.

I'm amazed at how people still cling to xps despite wide knowledge of its
supercession by ralpage.

>this guy too :-) but when I compare their performance with SUN's PageView, there
>is simply no comparision!

That's right -- PageView needs the xnews server to run, and is therefore of
limited appeal.  Even so, it has a way giving you a mirror-image of a page,
and lacks even a clean way to exit.

>  The later [sic] is *blazingly fast*!!!!

You must have lots of memory and spare cycles.  Both the xnews server and
pageview need both to run even acceptably fast.

--


Use your wheels: that is what they are for.
datri@convex.com

rchui@neptune.nswc.navy.mil (Chui) (06/26/91)

Is there any product or tool or PDS that will display Postscript in an
X window?  What I mean is, if I have a Postscript description of an image or
page of text, how can I interpret the Postscript and show the results of that
interpretation in an X window?

Yes, try to use xps.