murthy@algron.cs.cornell.edu (Chet Murthy) (02/23/90)
I'd like to render a postscript image on a NeXT machine in the 300dpi mode, and then grab it before it's printed, so I can convert the bitmap to postscript form and print it on a LaserWriter. You ask, _why_ would I want to do such a thing? Simple - the Laserwriter has this teensy memory, and I want to print stuff that takes more. So I figure that if I image it on a NeXT, and then print it on a LWII, it'll work. Anybody have any ideas? Thanks, --chet-- --chet-- murthy@cs.cornell.edu
wjs@fred.cs.washington.edu (William Shipley) (02/24/90)
I've considered writing a more general version of such a beast myself.
The way I figured it, one should create a new printer type (in the netinfo
printcap) and specify your program as a filter. Your program would simply
create an off-screen Bitmap Object of size 8.5 * xres by 11 * yres, lock the
focus to this object, and image the postscript page by page.
This would be exceedingly easy, made even easier by the on-line source to
a program that does something much similar ("Yap!" "Excuse you.").
Once you have a bitmap, where you put it would be your business.
If someone really got clever, they'd figure out a standard way to specify
the kinds of graphic commands dot-matrix printers take, put a bunch of
popular printers into a database, and sell a product that allows one to
print PostScript to any old cheap printer (for example, a $300 imagewriter
at 144dpi).
This would be the first time PostScript would be available on dot-matrix
printers, to my knowledge. It would also be illegal, I believe, since
I recall reading something about Adobe licensing PostScript only for use
on the monitor or the NeXT printer.
No surprise, really, considering that if someone wrote such a program
nobody would ever buy another LaserWriter, they'd just pipe all their
output through a NeXT.
-william shipley
future NeXT software engineer wannabe