lishka@uwslh.slh.wisc.edu (Chris Lishka (King Arthur's roommate) ) (07/15/90)
[Please forgive me if you have already seen this. Our local news software didn't seem to post it the first time (at least, not to our site). -- Chris] The LaserJet II PCL to PostScript translator I wrote (lj2ps, version 1.2) is now available at two anonymous-ftp sites. (For those who do not know about lj2ps, I have included at the end of this article the introduction posted with the source.) The ftp sites are: pokey.cs.wisc.edu (128.105.2.4): The files are lj2ps.?? (where ?? is a number from 01 to 13) in the directory "pub". These files are from the original distribution, and are in shar format (you will need a Bourne-shell or similar tool to unpack them). sun.soe.clarkson.edu (128.153.12.3): Change directory to "pub/lj2ps". The file you will want is "lj2ps.tar.Z". This is derived from the original distribution, but is repackaged so that it is all in one file. Note that you will need compress and tar to unpack it. A mail server is also available at sun.soe.clarkson.edu. Here are instructions on how to use it: A person can send mail to archive-server@sun.soe.clarkson.edu with "help" or "send lj2ps lj2ps.tar.Z" and it will uuencode and send it to him. (he can also change the max mail size and other stuff too) I have received one set of patches to lj2ps that fixes several bugs (from major to minor). I will send out a patch kit when either (a) more patches come in, or (b) sufficient time has passed to indicate that no more patches are coming. I will also placed updated versions of the lj2ps software on the two ftp archives listed above. I think that covers everything. I hope you enjoy lj2ps. Feel free to extend it and fix bugs! I would also be glad to hear comments from people, on what they thought about the program (both good and bad). .oO Chris Oo. Christopher Lishka 608-262-4485 "Dad, don't give in to mob mentality!" Wisconsin State Lab. of Hygiene -- Bart Simpson lishka@uwslh.slh.wisc.edu "I'm not, Son. I'm jumping on the bandwagon." uunet!uwvax!uwslh!lishka -- Homer Simpson ----- lj2ps A LaserJet PCL IV to PostScript Translator Revision 1.2, release version This new revision fixes two major problems with revision 1.1. (One person referred to the 1.1 distribution as a disaster! How true....) First, the files in the suite directories have now been properly uuencoded, so that hungry mailers do not eat the non-printable characters (i.e. escapes). Also, all filenames are now no longer than eight characters (with dot-extensions no longer than three characters) so that MS-DOS and System V UNIX don't choke. lj2ps is able to convert a subset of LaserJet PCL 4 that includes page motion, page setup, primary font selection, and text. It is not able to do macros, position stack commands, graphics (bitmap or patterns/grayscale), or downloadable fonts. However, the scanner *does* recognize all of the PCL 4 commands, and I have added many hooks for the unimplemented commands. Therefore, it should not be too difficult to add in the features you need. Included in this distribution is the source for lj2ps, documentation, a test suite, and a metrics suite. The source code for lj2ps is written in standard K&R C, should be very portable, and should run on everything from PC's to mainframes without much modification (although I have only tried it on a 4.3BSD Unix system). -- Christopher Lishka 608-262-4485 "Dad, don't give in to mob mentality!" Wisconsin State Lab. of Hygiene -- Bart Simpson lishka@uwslh.slh.wisc.edu "I'm not, Son. I'm jumping on the bandwagon." uunet!uwvax!uwslh!lishka -- Homer Simpson