[comp.lang.postscript] Illustrator 88, EPS, Printing

usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) (08/29/89)

What have I missed. We have a MAC II and Illustrator 88. I assumed
that we could save a drawing in EPS, encapsulated postscript,
transfer the file to our unix box and just print it on our 
Laser Writer Plus. Silly me. It resets the printer every time.

Do I need some kind of interpreter to print a file in this format
or what? How would I get output from Illustrator into a ditroff
document. We have access to both DEVPS and Transcript. 

John Mireley

bhall@pbs.uucp (Dark Star) (08/29/89)

In article <4341@cps3xx.UUCP>, usenet@cps3xx.UUCP (Usenet file owner) writes:
> What have I missed. We have a MAC II and Illustrator 88. I assumed
> that we could save a drawing in EPS, encapsulated postscript,
                                       ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> transfer the file to our unix box and just print it on our 
> Laser Writer Plus. Silly me. It resets the printer every time.

The "encapsulated" is the problem.  This includes a Macintosh QuickDraw
"preview" in the file.  You need to use the "Save as..." option and click
the "None" option for "Include preview".  This will give you an ordinary
ASCII file of PostScript code that a PostScript printer should be able
to handle.

-- 
Bruce Hall
Public Broadcasting Service
703/739-5048
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amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) (08/29/89)

In article <1051@pbs.uucp>, bhall@pbs.uucp (Dark Star) writes:
> The "encapsulated" is the problem.  This includes a Macintosh QuickDraw
> "preview" in the file.  You need to use the "Save as..." option and click
> the "None" option for "Include preview".  This will give you an ordinary
> ASCII file of PostScript code that a PostScript printer should be able
> to handle.

Close, but no cigar.  The Macintosh preview option doesn't affect the text
portion at all.

I don't know why it's resetting the printer (memory problems, maybe?), but
it sure won't print unless you tack a "showpage" onto the end.  Since
Illustrator documents are designed to be included in other things, they
don't do the "showpage" themselves--they just image the drawing...

--
Amanda Walker
InterCon Systems Corporation

amanda@intercon.uu.net    |    ...!uunet!intercon!amanda

cplai@daisy.UUCP (Chung-Pang Lai) (08/30/89)

In article <1415@intercon.UUCP> amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) writes:
]In article <1051@pbs.uucp>, bhall@pbs.uucp (Dark Star) writes:
]> The "encapsulated" is the problem.  This includes a Macintosh QuickDraw
]> "preview" in the file.  You need to use the "Save as..." option and click
]> the "None" option for "Include preview".  This will give you an ordinary
]> ASCII file of PostScript code that a PostScript printer should be able
]> to handle.
]
]Close, but no cigar.  The Macintosh preview option doesn't affect the text
]portion at all.

I think Dark Star is correct.  The preview image may contain some binary
data.  Frame Technology sells a filter called FrameEPSF on macintosh.  It
takes an EPSF with mac preview image and translates it into EPSI for the
unix system.  EPSI is a pure ASCII format unlike the EPSF.

-- 
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Daisy Systems Corp, 700B Middlefield Road, Mtn View CA 94039.  (415)960-6961

amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) (08/31/89)

In article <3436@daisy.UUCP>, cplai@daisy.UUCP (Chung-Pang Lai) writes:
> I think Dark Star is correct.  The preview image may contain some binary
> data.  Frame Technology sells a filter called FrameEPSF on macintosh.  It
> takes an EPSF with mac preview image and translates it into EPSI for the
> unix system.  EPSI is a pure ASCII format unlike the EPSF.

On a Macintosh, files have two separate byte streams, called "forks"--the
"data fork" and the "resource fork".  A text file has an ASCII stream in
the data fork.  An EPSF file has an ASCII stream in the data fork and a
"PICT" resource (the standard Mac graphics interchange format) in the
resource fork.  Most file transfer programs will let you (some, in fact,
will *only* let you) transfer the data fork of a file as text.  If this
is what you do, it doesn't matter whether or not you've saved the preview
image or not.  The *only* difference between a Mac text file and a Mac EPSF
file is the presence or absence of this PICT resource.  Now, if you save
the file in PC EPSF format, you get a binary header followed by the text
and a bitmap...

--
Amanda Walker
InterCon Systems Corporation

amanda@intercon.uu.net    |    ...!uunet!intercon!amanda

bezanson@adobe.COM (Brian Bezanson) (08/31/89)

In article <3436@daisy.UUCP> cplai@daisy.UUCP (Chung-Pang Lai) writes:
>In article <1415@intercon.UUCP> amanda@intercon.uu.net (Amanda Walker) writes:
>]In article <1051@pbs.uucp>, bhall@pbs.uucp (Dark Star) writes:
>]> The "encapsulated" is the problem.  This includes a Macintosh QuickDraw
>]> "preview" in the file.  You need to use the "Save as..." option and click
>]> the "None" option for "Include preview".  This will give you an ordinary
>]> ASCII file of PostScript code that a PostScript printer should be able
>]> to handle.
>]
>]Close, but no cigar.  The Macintosh preview option doesn't affect the text
>]portion at all.
>
>I think Dark Star is correct.  The preview image may contain some binary
>data.  Frame Technology sells a filter called FrameEPSF on macintosh.  It
>takes an EPSF with mac preview image and translates it into EPSI for the
>unix system.  EPSI is a pure ASCII format unlike the EPSF.

Amanda is correct in her reply. An EPS file on the Macintosh has a data fork of 
ascii text - you can open it up with MS Word, QUED, and probably some other
word processors. The one piece of information not mentioned is that when
you do a 'Save As' with some preview, it changes the file type from 'TEXT' to
'EPS '. Word processors are designed to open files of specific types (theirs,
someone elses, or plain TEXT). 'EPS ' isn't a standard for text editors, so
you need to use QUED's option to open anything, or Word similar option (shift-
Open). If you the save this from these applications to a text file, with the
type of 'TEXT' - the default when you do a save as text, this file can be
simply downloaded and printed after a showpage is added (see below).

The PICT preview image is just a binary image in the resource fork of the file.
Depending on how the file was transfered down to the UNIX machine, the 
resource fork may/may not have been sent. My guess is that it was somehow 
appended to the beginning or end of the file.

The correct way to send Illustrator file around the PostScript world :-)
  Adobe Illustrator's native file format is just plain 'TEXT'. Just save your
file as a regular Illustrator file. Then run your word processor and open it
up, if you move the the end of the file you will see some commands that say
something like this:

%%Trailer
Adobe_Illustrator881 /terminate get exec
Adobe_customcolor /terminate get exec
Adobe_cshow /terminate get exec
Adobe_cmykcolor /terminate get exec

  You want to insert a showpage command before the %%Trailer comment - otherwise
the last 4 lines remove the image from the printer's VM. This technique works
for me and has worked for others, should work for you too.

--
Brian Bezanson
Adobe Systems