ghost@aladdin.com (L. Peter Deutsch) (05/18/91)
In article <9105171154.aa03216@art-sy.detroit.mi.us>, j chapman flack
suggests adapting a freely available PostScript interpreter to drive
an inexpensive printer, specifically the Canon BJ10-e, and/or produce
bitmap files.
Ghostscript, from the Free Software Foundation, already has drivers
for 9-pin Epson-compatible printers, the BJ10-e, and the H-P DeskJet
and LaserJet, as well as an unsupported driver for the PaintJet. The
BJ10-e was added in version 2.1, released in January 1991. Release
2.2, which should be out in just a couple of weeks, will include a
driver for 24-pin Epson-like printers, a greatly improved LaserJet
driver, and a supported PaintJet driver.
Ghostscript runs on MS-DOS systems, on a very wide variety of Unix
systems, and on VMS.
Ghostscript also already has the ability to produce bitmap files
either in PPM format or as a single PostScript 'image'. Release 2.1
has a restriction that the entire bitmap must fit in memory, which
makes the facility less useful on MS-DOS machines. Unfortunately, I
won't quite have time to integrate the new "band list" facility,
which lifts this restriction, into release 2.2 in a way that makes it
work with bitmap file output. (Band lists do work with printers in
2.2.) Producing bitmaps in any other format is literally a matter of
writing just one C procedure. I plan to add TIFF in the future, if
some user doesn't beat me to it.
Ghostscript is available for anonymous FTP from
prep.ai.mit.edu:/pub/gnu/ghostscript*. Send e-mail to the address
below if you would like to get Ghostscript and don't have FTP.
L. Peter Deutsch :: Aladdin Enterprises :: P.O. box 60264, Palo Alto, CA 94306
ghost@aladdin.com ; ...decwrl!aladdin!ghost ; (415)322-0103 <<< new phone #
"Implementation is the sincerest form of flattery."