[comp.windows.x] Help! Need help with getting a working PS Previewer

sgilley@cbnewsl.att.com (The Idealistic Cynic) (09/29/90)

Summary: Need help with Xps or Ghostscript or Psroff

I hate to do this, but I need a postscript previewer for X11R4.
The system I'm on is a Sun Sparcstation 1+.

I've gotten copies of Xps, Ghostscript, and Psroff.

Xps and Ghostscript have the same basic problem -- the font,
when printed onscreen, is basically unreadable.  With GS,
the only font I can get to work is ugly_r.gsf -- the
others that are supplied all produce errors.

But I thought, fine, I'll get a copy of Psroff -- I knew that
Psroff was supposed to convert troff output to ditroff output,
and X supplys a couple of different ditroff previewers.  So
I did, but while it seems to produce postscript output
just fine, it produces nothing but what I assume are header
lines with the ditroff output.  (I had a problem with the
file "dit2catwid.c"  it compiled fine, but dumped core when run.
I think that I fixed it, but not know much of what it is supposed
to do, I can only hope.)

So will some kind soul *please* help me?  I've spent days on this
with no results.

(yes, I know about pageview -- in fact, that's the clarity I'm
shooting for.  But pageview doesn't work under X11R4, and tvtwm
doesn't work under the xnews server.)

Sean.

---
Sean L. Gilley
attmail!ignats!slg  attmail!sgilley
201 805 9088 (h)    201 457 5403 (w)

stolcke@ICSI.Berkeley.EDU (Andreas Stolcke) (10/02/90)

In article <1990Sep28.202058.11576@cbnewsl.att.com>, sgilley@cbnewsl.att.com (The Idealistic Cynic) writes:
|> Xps and Ghostscript have the same basic problem -- the font,
|> when printed onscreen, is basically unreadable.  With GS,
|> the only font I can get to work is ugly_r.gsf -- the
|> others that are supplied all produce errors.
|> 

GS works just fine under X11R4, with both the MIT and the xnews server.
Just make sure you install the font code (packaged seperately, if I remember well) in the right place, i.e., in the directory GS looks for PS files.

Once having GS running, I would dump xps.

|> But I thought, fine, I'll get a copy of Psroff -- I knew that
|> Psroff was supposed to convert troff output to ditroff output,
|> and X supplys a couple of different ditroff previewers.  So
|> I did, but while it seems to produce postscript output
|> just fine, it produces nothing but what I assume are header
|> lines with the ditroff output.  (I had a problem with the
|> file "dit2catwid.c"  it compiled fine, but dumped core when run.
|> I think that I fixed it, but not know much of what it is supposed
|> to do, I can only hope.)

Psroff converts ditroff *input* to *postscript* output which is sent to the
printer. This is of absolutely no help if you want to preview PS.
However, if what you want is previewing ditroff output, all is not lost.
As with dvi files, it is much faster to use a previewer that reads ditroff
output directly.  Two reasonable ones (available on expo) are xtroff and
xproof.

|> (yes, I know about pageview -- in fact, that's the clarity I'm
|> shooting for.  But pageview doesn't work under X11R4, and tvtwm
|> doesn't work under the xnews server.)

tvtwm *does* work with xnews.  Make sure you have the lastest release
(OpenWindows 2.0).

---
Andreas Stolcke
International Computer Science Institute	stolcke@icsi.Berkeley.EDU
1957 Center St., Suite 600, Berkeley, CA 94704	(415) 642-4274 ext. 126