bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (10/30/90)
Some PostScript printers place their output face-down in the collector bin, and some place it face-up. Some producers of PostScript documents arrange "page 1" at the beginning of the file, and some put it at the end. The selection is really pretty arbitrary, because there's no way to know what sort of printer (face-up or face-down) the recipient will have. So it's often decided by what sort of printer the author uses. About half the time, this leads to wasting the recipient's secretary's time recollating the document. It's mind-numbingly dull work and they have better things to do. Adobe's TranScript package includes a program called "psrev" that can take any format-conformant PostScript document and (re-)reverse it, or even select page ranges for printing. I've looked through the sources of psroff, psf, a2ps, and groff and found nothing that looks promising. It's probably a quick hack (likely a Perl one-liner :-) and one of those wheels that shouldn't be reinvented. Has anyone written a freely available PostScript page reverser?
clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis) (10/31/90)
In article <BOB.90Oct30100901@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes: |Some PostScript printers place their output face-down in the collector |bin, and some place it face-up. |Adobe's TranScript package includes a program called "psrev" that can |take any format-conformant PostScript document and (re-)reverse it, or |even select page ranges for printing. I've looked through the sources |of psroff, psf, a2ps, and groff and found nothing that looks |promising. It's probably a quick hack (likely a Perl one-liner :-) |and one of those wheels that shouldn't be reinvented. But you don't want to use the quick hack unless you can help it (often an extreme memory hog). |Has anyone written a freely available PostScript page reverser? Yup. Psroff of course - why did you miss it? The psxlate utility will reverse pages provided that the document uses the document formatting conventions at level 1 or better. Psxlate is intended to be sort of a start to part of a generalized spooler for postscript. There are stubs in it for different kinds of collating. Psxlate has the advantage of not limiting the size of your document (well, disk limited not memory limited). -- Chris Lewis, Phone: TBA UUCP: uunet!utai!lsuc!ecicrl!clewis Moderator of the Ferret Mailing List (ferret-request@eci386) Psroff mailing list (psroff-request@eci386)
aas@boeygen.nr.no (Gisle Aas) (11/01/90)
In article <BOB.90Oct30100901@volitans.MorningStar.Com> bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes: > Adobe's TranScript package includes a program called "psrev" that can > take any format-conformant PostScript document and (re-)reverse it, or > even select page ranges for printing. I've looked through the sources > of psroff, psf, a2ps, and groff and found nothing that looks > promising. It's probably a quick hack (likely a Perl one-liner :-) > and one of those wheels that shouldn't be reinvented. > > Has anyone written a freely available PostScript page reverser? > I once wrote the following perl program. (Not quite a one-line :-) #!/usr/bin/perl # simple psrev-clone in perl. Written by Gisle Aas, NCC, Oslo, 1990 @psfile = <>; # slurp in the whole file unless ($psfile[0] =~ /^%!PS-Adobe-(.*)/) { printf STDERR "This is not a conforming PostScript file\n"; exit(1); } $version = $1; # Locate pages for ($i=0; $psfile[$i]; $i++) { if ($psfile[$i] =~ /^%%Page:(.*)(\d+)$/) { push(@pages,$i); push(@labels,$1); } } if ($#pages == 0) { print STDERR "This file contains no PostScript %%Page comments\n"; exit; } # Locate trailer $trailer = $#psfile; for ($i = $#psfile; $i > $pages[$#pages]; $i--) { if ($psfile[$i] =~ /^%%Trailer/) { $trailer = $i; last; } } # Output prolog for ($i=0; $i < $pages[0]; $i++) { print $psfile[$i]; } # Output pages in reverse order $pageno = 1; $prev_lineno = $trailer; while ($lineno = pop(@pages)) { printf "%%%%Page:%s%d\n",pop(@labels),$pageno++; for ($i = $lineno + 1; $i < $prev_lineno; $i++) { print $psfile[$i]; } $prev_lineno = $lineno; } # Output trailer for ($i = $trailer; $i <= $#psfile; $i++) { print $psfile[$i]; } -- Gisle Aas | snail: Boks 114 Blindern, N-0314 Oslo, Norway Norsk Regnesentral | X.400: G=Gisle;S=Aas;O=nr;P=uninett;C=no voice: +47-2-453561 | inet: Gisle.Aas@nr.no
aas@boeygen.nr.no (Gisle Aas) (11/01/90)
In article <AAS.90Oct31191354@boeygen.nr.no> aas@boeygen.nr.no (Gisle Aas) writes: > I once wrote the following perl program. (Not quite a one-line :-) Since then I have learned not to write C for loops in perl. So here you have a rewrite of my psrev program, done the perl way. #!/usr/local/bin/perl # Simple psrev clone in perl. Reverses pages of conforming postscript files. # Author: Gisle Aas, NCC, Oslo. email: <Gisle.Aas@nr.no> @psfile = <>; # Slurp in the whole file die "This is not a conforming PostScript file" unless $psfile[0] =~ /^%!PS-Adobe-(.*)/; $line = $[; # Locate pages for (@psfile) { if (/^%%Page:(.*)(\d+)$/) { push(@pages,$line); push(@labels,$1); } $line++; } die "This file contains no PostScript %%Page comments\n" if $#pages < $[; $trailer = $#psfile; # Locate trailer for (reverse(@psfile)) { last if /^%%Trailer/; $trailer--; } print @psfile[$[..$pages[0] - 1]; # Output prolog $pageno = 1; # Output pages in reverse order $to_line = $trailer - 1; while ($from_line = pop(@pages)) { printf "%%%%Page:%s%d\n", pop(@labels), $pageno++; print @psfile[$from_line + 1 .. $to_line]; $to_line = $from_line - 1; } print @psfile[$trailer .. $#psfile]; # Output trailer __END__ -- Gisle Aas | snail: Boks 114 Blindern, N-0314 Oslo, Norway Norsk Regnesentral | X.400: G=Gisle;S=Aas;O=nr;P=uninett;C=no voice: +47-2-453561 | inet: Gisle.Aas@nr.no
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) (11/01/90)
In article <BOB.90Oct30100901@volitans.MorningStar.Com>, bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes: > Adobe's TranScript package includes a program called "psrev" that can > take any format-conformant PostScript document and (re-)reverse it, or > even select page ranges for printing. I've looked through the sources > of psroff, psf, a2ps, and groff and found nothing that looks > promising. It's probably a quick hack (likely a Perl one-liner :-) > and one of those wheels that shouldn't be reinvented. > > Has anyone written a freely available PostScript page reverser? Frustrating, isn't it? I wrote a page reverser specifically for Microsoft Word -- and there's the rub. Unless you are capable of interpreting PostScript, you can't write a PostScript page reverse which is generally useful -- you end up building one for a particular application. Building one for a particular application is enough work that no one does it for free -- and no one is going to build a program that works for any arbitrary PostScript program and give it away. -- Clayton E. Cramer {pyramid,pixar,tekbspa}!optilink!cramer Alcohol prohibition didn't work; drug prohibition doesn't work; gun prohibition won't work. You must be kidding! No company would hold opinions like mine!
bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) (11/02/90)
In article <4772@optilink.UUCP> cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes:
Unless you are capable of interpreting PostScript, you can't write
a PostScript page reverse which is generally useful -- you end up
building one for a particular application.
If the PS document is conformant enough with Appendix C of the Red
Book, then it is page-reversible. If an application produces a PS
program that is so non-conformant as not to be page-reversible, then
that application can be considered broken.
Building one for a particular application is enough work that no
one does it for free -- and no one is going to build a program that
works for any arbitrary PostScript program and give it away.
I have been generously provided with several PS page reversers (thanks
to all for the pointers!) that work with conformant documents. If an
application produces non-conformant PS documents, then its author has
the choice of either fixing the application or writing a custom
reverser and all the other necessary PS handling tools. If the author
fixes the application, then {s}he won't have to write a custom
reverser and decide whether to give it away.rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (11/02/90)
cramer@optilink.UUCP (Clayton Cramer) writes: > bob@MorningStar.Com (Bob Sutterfield) writes: > > Adobe's TranScript package includes a program called "psrev"... > >...Has anyone written a freely available PostScript page reverser? > Frustrating, isn't it? I wrote a page reverser specifically > for Microsoft Word -- and there's the rub. Unless you are capable > of interpreting PostScript, you can't write a PostScript page > reverse which is generally useful ... Not true. You can write a page-reverser that will work for the output of any application that generates output conforming to the Document Struc- turing Conventions. (Bob's article alluded to "conformant" apps.) In fact, page-reversal is one of the reasons those conventions exist! More- over, the conventions contain constraints which guarantee that you don't have to interpret the PostScript to figure out how to reverse it. It's nothing more than a simple copying-about of chunks of text...a simple one could be written in an hour or so, if you didn't mind some wasted motion. This is just one more reason to insist that the PostScript-generating apps you buy (or write) conform to the conventions. -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd Boulder, CO (303)449-2870 ...but Meatball doesn't work that way!