[comp.lang.postscript] side-by-side

stevens@hsi.UUCP (Richard Stevens) (07/10/89)

I would like to use troff and print 2 pages side-by-side (landscape mode)
on 8.5 by 11-inch paper.  This would make it easier to see how the final
copy will look and would also help in generating even page bottoms.

I'm using ditroff with Adobe's TranScript (psdit filter).  I would think
the best way to do this would be to modify the PostScript that is
output by psdit.  (Seems to me that PostScript would be ideal for
this.)  You could try and use a 2-column mode in the troff macros,
using a bigger than normal line length, but I don't think you'd
get an equivalent rendition of what you'd get if you took 2 normal
pages and put them side by side.  I want to make certain that what I
get in the side-by-side landscape mode is exactly equivalent (e.g., line
breaks and page breaks) to 2 normal pages placed side by side.

With 8.5 by 11-inch paper you could get 2 pages of a normal 7 by 9.25-inch
book format with about a 10% reduction, so you'd go from 10-point type
to 9-point, which would still be readable.  You could even use legal paper
and not have to reduce the point size at all.

Has anyone already done this ??

Note that I'm *not* talking about doing this with ASCII text files.
I can do that with "enscript -2r".

	Richard Stevens
	Health Systems International, New Haven, CT
	   stevens@hsi.com
           ... { uunet | yale } ! hsi ! stevens

jlo@elan.elan.com (Jeff Lo) (07/11/89)

In article <520@hsi86.hsi.UUCP> stevens@hsi.UUCP (Richard Stevens) writes:
>I would like to use troff and print 2 pages side-by-side (landscape mode)
>
>Has anyone already done this ??

Eroff does this for both PostScript and LaserJet printers.
I don't know if/how you can coax Transcript into doing it.
Call or mail us if you want more info on Eroff.
-- 
Jeff Lo
jlo@elan.com, ..!{ames,uunet}!elan!jlo
Elan Computer Group, Inc.
415-964-2200

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (07/11/89)

In article <520@hsi86.hsi.UUCP> stevens@hsi.UUCP (Richard Stevens) writes:
> I would like to use troff and print 2 pages side-by-side (landscape mode)
> on 8.5 by 11-inch paper.  This would make it easier to see how the final
> copy will look and would also help in generating even page bottoms.

	This should be on the "most frequently asked questions" list.  What
you need is "psnup" which was written by Ned Batchelder at U. Penn (I think
he's at DEC now).  It allows you to take any conforming ps file and render
it in N-up mode, where N can be 2, 4, 8, or 16.  We use it a lot, typically
something like "ptroff -t | psnup | lpr".  I find that normal troff output
(i.e. 10-pt Times) is a bit hard to read at the reduced size, but stuff
done in Courier is just fine.  I usually print RFCs that way.  This is on a
300 dpi Apple LaserWriter.

	I think it was on the info-postscript mailing list years ago; you
should be able to find it in the archives.  If not, I can mail it to
people.  The shar file is about 20k.
-- 
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (07/12/89)

In article <3848@phri.UUCP> I said I would be willing to mail a copy of
psnup to people.  Well, the response has been greater than I expected, so
I'm putting it up on goober.phri.nyu.edu (128.122.136.10) for anonymous
ftp.  If you can get it that way, please do so.  If not, I'll still be
willing to mail you a copy.
-- 
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"

aem@ibiza.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) (07/12/89)

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>In article <3848@phri.UUCP> I said I would be willing to mail a copy of
>psnup to people.  Well, the response has been greater than I expected, so
>I'm putting it up on goober.phri.nyu.edu (128.122.136.10) for anonymous
>ftp.  If you can get it that way, please do so.  If not, I'll still be
>willing to mail you a copy.

I've picked up a copy, and also have it available for ftping from
mthvax.cs.miami.edu (129.171.32.5).


It works real well.... I'm using it at this moment...


aem
a.e.mossberg - aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu/aem@umiami.BITNET - Pahayokee Bioregion
Beardsley's Warning to Lawyers: Beware of and eschew pompous prolixity.

ron@ron.rutgers.edu (Ron Natalie) (07/12/89)

Yes, I've hacked it to do something like this (I needed two up
format in a similar but different way).  In the postscript
prolog (pscat.pro or psdit.pro) you can hack the macros that
the formatter puts out to begin and output pages.  In pscat.pro
it's BP and EP, and in psdit.pro it looks a little more complicated
PE, PB and p.  What I did (for pscat) was to put a translate and
scale in the BP macro (superseding what was already in there) that
depended on a boolean that flipped on every page.  In EP the boolean
gets flipped and if you've done both halves of the page executes
a showpage.

-Ron

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (07/15/89)

	Davy@riacs.edu tells me that psnup is now also available on
WSMR-SIMTEL20.ARMY.MIL in PD2:<UNIX-C.POSTSCRIPT>PSNUP.TAR-Z.  You should
use use "type tenex" (not "type image" or "binary") to transfer it.
-- 
Roy Smith, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016
{att,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@alanine.phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"

caecompservb@uqvax.decnet.uq.oz (08/05/89)

In article <436@umigw.MIAMI.EDU>, aem@ibiza.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) writes:
> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes:
>>In article <3848@phri.UUCP> I said I would be willing to mail a copy of
>>psnup to people.  Well, the response has been greater than I expected, so
>>I'm putting it up on goober.phri.nyu.edu (128.122.136.10) for anonymous
>>ftp.  If you can get it that way, please do so.  If not, I'll still be
>>willing to mail you a copy.
> 
> I've picked up a copy, and also have it available for ftping from
> mthvax.cs.miami.edu (129.171.32.5).
> 
> 
> It works real well.... I'm using it at this moment...
> 
> 
> aem
> a.e.mossberg - aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu/aem@umiami.BITNET - Pahayokee Bioregion
> Beardsley's Warning to Lawyers: Beware of and eschew pompous prolixity.