[comp.lang.postscript] Any MacDraw to Postscript converters out there?

djd@eos (Daniel J. Dasaro) (10/25/90)

I know this group is turning into a group full of questions about converting
PS to something or something to PS but that's what I'm doing.  I have a
MacDraw document (small) that I want converted to PS.  Any way to do this?

-Dan

jgotobed@lpl.arizona.edu (Joe Gotobed x4549) (10/25/90)

I'm looking for a program that will convert a Postscript file  to
a raster file, either bitmapped, greyscale or rgb tuples. 

We have a Matrix QRZ film writer attached to a Sun and  drive  it
with  our  own  software that reads in raster files. I want to be
able to send files to it from our  PC  applications  like  Micro-
Grafix Designer & Apple's Mac-Draw. Postscript is a format all of
these applications can write so the idea at this point is to  use
a package that reads Postscript files and generates a raster file
for the QRZ.

Naturally we'll have to scale it appropriately for the resolution
of the Filmwriter and such.

I was hoping I could find a display postscript program and change
the  part  that writes to the frame buffer to write to a file in-
stead. Could anyone suggest some source code to  start  with,  or
even a commercial product?

I just hauled in a copy of ghostscript-2.0 is that a good start or
am I way off the nut?

In the long run want the sun to provide a "print  queue"  to  the
network  that  the  PCs  can send their postscript files to. This
queue will then run the PS files through the filter to generate a
raster  file  for the QRZ and call the driver to load it & expose
the film.

Any comments and suggestions on this  approach  or  an  alternate
method would be greatly appreciated. I'll be  happy to  summarize
to the net later.

Thanks
Joe

-------------------------------------------------
Joe Gotobed  (joe@arizona.edu)
Network & Systems Manager
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721  (602) 621-4549

djd@eos.arc.nasa.gov (Daniel J. Dasaro) (10/26/90)

I received mail with a solution that worked. Here's what I learned:

>From fed!m1pkd00@uunet.UU.NET Thu Oct 25 06:53:19 1990
>
>If you quickly depress k or f key right after you click <ok> on the print
>dialogue, then the program will print the file into a file called
>PostScript0 (left in the current or system folder [applications]) instead of
>sending the file to the printer. 

I tried both f and k and the files generated were identical.  I was using a
very small MacDraw document so the differences may only appear for larger
files.

I got another response but haven't tried it.  Here it is for information:

>From iuvax!melodian.cs.uiuc.edu!nelson Thu Oct 25 10:33:08 1990
>Hold down command-K when you print.  Or if macDraw doesn't like
>  that, resEdit your laserPrinterDriver to add the postScript Box.
>  (See macUser tips about 5 months back).


Thanks to those who replied,
-Danny