[comp.lang.postscript] SparcPrinter

rdong@MSRI.ORG (Rui-Tao Dong) (01/23/91)

	We have a SparcPrinter installed recently. It is supposed to be
able to print at 300 dpi or 400 dpi. My first question is how do I use the
400 dpi capability? I used dvips -D 400 to produce a PostScript file and
then sent it to the SparcPrinter by using lpr. The result was actually
worse than that at 300 dpi. I guess there should be an option to print it
at 400 dpi.

	I understand that at our installation, the SparcPrinter uses
OPENWIN on a Sparc II to do the rastering. My other question is can I use
the rastering to preview PostScript files on screen? PageView is not very
satisfactory to me. It sometimes shows a PostScript file upside down.
Fortunately, it doesn't happen to the printer.

Thanks!

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rberlin@birdlandEng.Sun.COM (Rich Berlin) (01/24/91)

In article <9101222213.AA17502@msri.org>, rdong@MSRI.ORG (Rui-Tao Dong) writes:
|> 
|> 	We have a SparcPrinter installed recently. It is supposed to be
|> able to print at 300 dpi or 400 dpi. My first question is how do I use the
|> 400 dpi capability? I used dvips -D 400 to produce a PostScript file and
|> then sent it to the SparcPrinter by using lpr. The result was actually
|> worse than that at 300 dpi. I guess there should be an option to print it
|> at 400 dpi.

The resolution is switchable from PostScript.  There are a number
of ways to handle it; the common one is to print using PreLimn
instead of lpr, e.g.

% pl myfile.ps :resolution400

(To use PreLimn, you need to add the NeWSprint "bin" directory to your
path, and set up the PL_PATH enviroment variable so PreLimn can find
its filter hierarchy.  I'll have to refer you to the manual, as I am
not an expert on PreLimn.  But I think it can do some interesting
things for you, so let me make a quick "pitch:" If you work with TeX a
lot, you may want to take advantage of the customizability of PreLimn.
If you add the "magic number" for dvi files to /etc/magic and make a
"dvi" directory for PreLimn, you can teach it to automatically convert
dvi files for you and add the :resolution400 switch.)

The above command has the effect of "injecting" a small PostScript
fragment into your document before printing it; the fragment is

    /SetResolution {
	/setres where {
	    /setres get exec
	}{
	    pop
	} ifelse
    } def

    %%BeginFeature *SetResolution 400
    400 SetResolution
    %%EndFeature

Another option would be to modify dvi2ps so that if you specify -D400,
the above fragment is automatically output as part of the
DocumentSetup section of the output file.

-- Rich

morrison@cs.ubc.ca (Rick Morrison) (01/24/91)

>In article <9101222213.AA17502@msri.org>, rdong@MSRI.ORG (Rui-Tao Dong) writes:
|> 
|> 	We have a SparcPrinter installed recently. It is supposed to be
|> able to print at 300 dpi or 400 dpi. My first question is how do I use the
|> 400 dpi capability? I used dvips -D 400 to produce a PostScript file and
|> then sent it to the SparcPrinter by using lpr. The result was actually
|> worse than that at 300 dpi. I guess there should be an option to print it
|> at 400 dpi.

Another response addressed printer customization but, in the case of
dvi, to obtain the best results it is also important that tex fonts
be generated (by Metafont) using a modedef for a 400 dpi device. 
In all likelihood, the resident fonts on your system were generated
for 300 dpi printers.
-----------------
Rick Morrison		 | {alberta,uw-beaver,uunet}!ubc-cs!morrison
Dept. of Computer Science| morrison@cs.ubc.ca
Univ. of British Columbia| morrison%ubc.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa
Vancouver, B.C. V6T 1W5  | morrison@ubc.csnet (ubc-csgrads=137.82.8.20)
(604) 228-5010