[comp.lang.postscript] ACSII text to postscript

rustyh@wam.umd.edu (Michael Katzmann) (04/12/91)

All of the ways I have seen to print ascii on a postscript printer
seem to convert the text to postscript.  

A friend of mine wrote a programme IN postscript that executes in 
the printer, making it a "dumb" printer that will print straight text.
Changes in Margins/fonts/orientation/size etc is done by \\ "escapes".

The neat thing about it is that it is "host independent" and is 
just sent to the printer as a header. Also there is no extra stuff
tacked to the text, so it is faster to send to the printer.
If enough people are  interested I'll post it to the net. (or you can E-mail
me at the address BELOW.) (Note don't post to this machine!)

--
Michael Katzmann  (VK2BEA/G4NYV/NV3Z)   Please email to this address |
Broadcast Sports Technology                                          |
2135 Espey Ct. #4                                                   \|/
Crofton MD 21114-2442    (301) 721-5151      ...uunet!opel!vk2bea!michael

friedman@chekov.UU.NET (Barry Friedman) (04/16/91)

In article <1991Apr11.210439.19346@wam.umd.edu> rustyh@wam.umd.edu (Michael Katzmann) writes:
>All of the ways I have seen to print ascii on a postscript printer
>seem to convert the text to postscript.  
>
>A friend of mine wrote a programme IN postscript that executes in 
>the printer, making it a "dumb" printer that will print straight text.
>Changes in Margins/fonts/orientation/size etc is done by \\ "escapes".
>

Being in need of a program to allow our printers to handle postscript
and ascii transparently, I tried the 'dumb' ascii program recently 
posted by Michael Katzmann.  Unfortunately, either it or I am too
dumb :-) since it appears that once this program is loaded into a
printer there is no way to revert to normal postscript operation short
of powering off the printer.  Besides this the printer is extremely
slow since the code seems to process input a character at a time.

Come on guys, what is *THE BEST* unix solution to this problem?

--
Barry Friedman                INTERNET: chekov%friedman@uunet.uu.net
Phone: (613) 782-2389         UUCP: ...!uunet!chekov!friedman
Emax Computer Systems Inc.  440 Laurier Ave. W., Ottawa, Ont. Canada K1R 5C4

rustyh@wam.umd.edu (Michael Katzmann) (04/16/91)

In article <1991Apr16.002701.17403@bmers145.bnr.ca> friedman%chekov@uunet.uu.net writes:
>
>Being in need of a program to allow our printers to handle postscript
>and ascii transparently, I tried the 'dumb' ascii program recently 
>posted by Michael Katzmann.  Unfortunately, either it or I am too
>dumb :-) since it appears that once this program is loaded into a
>printer there is no way to revert to normal postscript operation short
>of powering off the printer.  Besides this the printer is extremely
>slow since the code seems to process input a character at a time.
>
>Come on guys, what is *THE BEST* unix solution to this problem?
>
If you send an EOF (ctrl D) to the printer, the read will return false
and the Finish routine will execute.  Problem solved!  Sorry I didn't
say this in the comments. 

Also strip off the comments to the programme and it will take 1/2 the
time to download it. (You can't win. sigh)


--
Michael Katzmann  (VK2BEA/G4NYV/NV3Z)   Please email to this address |
Broadcast Sports Technology                                          |
2135 Espey Ct. #4                                                   \|/
Crofton MD 21114-2442    (301) 721-5151      ...uunet!opel!vk2bea!michael

bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (04/17/91)

   From: friedman@chekov.UU.NET (Barry Friedman)
   Reply-To: friedman%chekov@uunet.uu.net

(By the way, you ought to fix that From: line.  Uunet turned off their
temporary support for that sort of stuff on June 1, 1990.)

In article <1991Apr16.002701.17403@bmers145.bnr.ca> friedman@chekov.UU.NET (Barry Friedman) writes:
   Come on guys, what is *THE BEST* unix solution to this problem?

Try a2ps version 3 by miguel@imag.imag.fr (Miguel Santana), released
on or about February 16 of 1990 as Volume 10 issue 73 of
comp.sources.misc.  We use it heavily.

haroldt@paralandra.yorku.ca (Harold Tomlinson) (04/19/91)

In article <1991Apr16.154707.9283@wam.umd.edu> rustyh@wam.umd.edu (Michael Katzmann) writes:

>    In article <1991Apr16.002701.17403@bmers145.bnr.ca> friedman%chekov@uunet.uu.net writes:
>    >
>    >Being in need of a program to allow our printers to handle postscript
>    >and ascii transparently, I tried the 'dumb' ascii program recently 
>    >posted by Michael Katzmann.  Unfortunately, either it or I am too
>    >dumb :-) since it appears that once this program is loaded into a
>    >printer there is no way to revert to normal postscript operation short
>    >of powering off the printer.  Besides this the printer is extremely
>    >slow since the code seems to process input a character at a time.
>    >
>    >Come on guys, what is *THE BEST* unix solution to this problem?
>    >
>    If you send an EOF (ctrl D) to the printer, the read will return false
>    and the Finish routine will execute.  Problem solved!  Sorry I didn't
>    say this in the comments. 
> 
>    Also strip off the comments to the programme and it will take 1/2 the
>    time to download it. (You can't win. sigh)

  Why not convert the text to postscript?  I picked up a nice converter
program called 'lwf'.  It could be modified to detect if the file is postscript
or not by looking for the %! at the start of the file or... 
 Write a shell script that will detect if it is postscript and pipe it through
lwf.

  I picked up the 'LaserWriter filter' in comp.sources.misc.  It was posted by
brachman@grads.cs.ubc.ca (or, at least then shar file was created by him).

  This program has worked for me on QMS's, HP's, and an Apple.

--
# Harold Tomlinson			##	haroldt@paralandra.yorku.ca #
# Computing & Communications Services	##	(416)736-5257-33802         #
# YORK UNIVERSITY, Ont, CANADA		##	########################### #

les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (04/19/91)

In article <BOB.91Apr16202038@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes:

>Try a2ps version 3 by miguel@imag.imag.fr (Miguel Santana), released
>on or about February 16 of 1990 as Volume 10 issue 73 of
>comp.sources.misc.  We use it heavily.

Did you make any local mods?  I like the 2-up layout most of the time
but sometimes I'd like to print 1-up with no borders and/or no headers,
and sometimes I would like to pass the header info on the command line.
Also, the tab and backspace interpretation doesn't seem to work
right.  There have been several other versions on the net as well and
each seems to have some flaw if you don't like the default output.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us

brachman@cs.ubc.ca (Barry Brachman) (04/19/91)

In article <HAROLDT.91Apr19085342@paralandra.yorku.ca> haroldt@paralandra.yorku.ca (Harold Tomlinson) writes:
> I picked up a nice converterprogram called 'lwf'.
> I picked up the 'LaserWriter filter' in comp.sources.misc.  It was posted by
> brachman@grads.cs.ubc.ca (or, at least then shar file was created by him).
>
>  This program has worked for me on QMS's, HP's, and an Apple.
>
>--
># Harold Tomlinson			##	haroldt@paralandra.yorku.ca #
># Computing & Communications Services	##	(416)736-5257-33802         #
># YORK UNIVERSITY, Ont, CANADA		##	########################### #

The newest version is available on cs.ubc.ca (137.82.8.5) as pub/lwf-2.2.shar.Z.

-----
Barry Brachman           | UUCP:     {alberta,uw-beaver,uunet}!ubc-cs!brachman
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Univ. of British Columbia|
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