[comp.text.tex] Can't print large PS file derived from a dvi file..

yfisher@gandalf.nosc.mil (Yuval Fisher) (07/19/90)

I wonder if anyone can help me with a horribly annoying problem 
I am having printing out a postscript file on an apple laserwriter.
I convert a dvi file to postscript using dvi2ps on a sun. The
original TeX has PS figures included, some are Mac generated and 
some are raster images I converted to postscript. I can
print out short documents with both types of figures, and I can 
print out longer documents with only the Macintosh 
generated postscript included. But when I try to print out 
the whole thing, the laserprinter stops printing mid-way through.

I guess this means I am running out of memory in the laserprinter, 
somehow. 

Has anyone encountered this type of problem? Any suggestions ? 

Thanks buckets and buckets in advance... 

 Yuval Fisher.

hess@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Caleb Hess) (07/19/90)

You didn't mention what your host system is.  If you are using a Unix system,
there may be a maximum job size limit for the printer.  Look in /etc/printcap
for a field like :mx#1000:.  The number is the maximum number of blocks
that will be printed in a single job.  Changing this field to :mx#0: 
allows unlimited job size (not necessarily a good idea, as the spooler will
require disk space for a copy of the file).

miller@cam.nist.gov (Bruce R. Miller) (07/19/90)

In article <2518@nosc.NOSC.MIL>, Yuval Fisher writes: 
> 
> I wonder if anyone can help me with a horribly annoying problem 
> I am having printing out a postscript file on an apple laserwriter.
> I convert a dvi file to postscript using dvi2ps on a sun. The
> original TeX has PS figures included, ...
> 
> I guess this means I am running out of memory in the laserprinter, 
> somehow. 
> 
> Has anyone encountered this type of problem? Any suggestions ? 
> 

Sure have. Symptom is printer prints till it gets stuffed, then no
more output for that job.  It seems ANY size pure DVI->PS works, but as
soon as there's some ps included, only small files work.
I also have access to another printer (QMS) which has more memory: it
will handle larger/more complex jobs, but eventually the effect is the
same!

I suppose there are two `solution's

  1) put more memory in the printer. I also suppose this is also a case
of printing complexity increasing to (over)fill available memory!

  2) Probably the structure of the included postscript has a major
effect. But, I'm neither an expert postscript programmer, nor do I
really want to get into the guts of the postscript generator of my
graphics system.

The only other workaround I've found is to print the pages in sections. Worst
case was a long paper with lots of hairy illustrations: I had to print
each page with a figure separately! and of course each run of pages
without figures!

bruce

bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral) (07/20/90)

How old is your LaserWriter?  Early models are notorious for not being
able to print large ps-from-dvi files.  You have to have the original
dvi and convert pieces of it at a time, printing each piece separately,
and cycling the power on the printer at odd intervals since it still locks
up now and then (blinks but does nothing).

I've not seen this problem at all since I got an NTX II.

Paul DuBois
dubois@primate.wisc.edu

bochner@flare.harvard.EDU (Harry Bochner) (07/20/90)

In article <2785@uakari.primate.wisc.edu>, bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain
in Neutral) writes:
 > How old is your LaserWriter?  Early models are notorious for not being
 > able to print large ps-from-dvi files.  You have to have the original
 > dvi and convert pieces of it at a time, printing each piece separately,
 > and cycling the power on the printer at odd intervals since it still locks
 > up now and then (blinks but does nothing).

Another possible solution is to get a better dvi->ps converter. We used to have
this problem regularly when printing large dvi files to old
LaserWriters, when we
were using dvi2ps (which the original poster says he's using).

We've eliminated the problem by switching to dvips (w/o the '2'), by Rokicki at
stanford: it can be configured so it knows about how much room each printer has
for downloaded characters, and will flush the memory and start over if it's
running out of room.  When properly configured it should be able to send
any dvi
file to any printer in one operation (unless there's a single page that's too
complex to handle).
It's got other great features too: I recommend it.

Harry Bochner
bochner@endor.harvard.edu

chris@sage1.gsfc.nasa.gov (Chris P. Ross) (07/20/90)

In <51457@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> hess@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Caleb Hess) writes:

>You didn't mention what your host system is.  If you are using a Unix system,
>there may be a maximum job size limit for the printer.  Look in /etc/printcap
>for a field like :mx#1000:.  The number is the maximum number of blocks
>that will be printed in a single job.  Changing this field to :mx#0: 
>allows unlimited job size (not necessarily a good idea, as the spooler will
>require disk space for a copy of the file).

  Unless, of course, you do an "lpr -s"...  This will create a symbolic
link in the printer's spool directory to the file to be printed.  Always
a good idea with big files...

                                        - Chris

--
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  Chris P. Ross    (301)/286-7242   | InterNet: chris@sage0.gsfc.nasa.gov
  EGRET Programmer, NASA / GSFC     |           chris@olgao.umd.edu
-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-=*=-

wilker@euclid.math.purdue.edu (Clarence Wilkerson) (07/22/90)

You might check the size of the spool file available on the SUN. 1 meg limits
are not uncommon.

shaig@mush.huji.ac.il (Shai Guday) (07/23/90)

In article <2518@nosc.NOSC.MIL> yfisher@gandalf.nosc.mil or yfisher@UCSD.edu (Yu
val Fisher) writes:
%
%I guess this means I am running out of memory in the laserprinter,
%somehow.
%
%Has anyone encountered this type of problem? Any suggestions ?
%
%Thanks buckets and buckets in advance...

One simple solution that comes to mind is to use the
dvi2ps page numbering flags and break the postscript
file into two smaller files. That should enable you
to get around the memory problem on the laserwriter.

% Yuval Fisher.

yfisher@gandalf.nosc.mil (Yuval Fisher) (07/25/90)

In article <2518@nosc.NOSC.MIL> yfisher@gandalf.nosc.mil  (Yuval Fisher) 
blathers:
>I wonder if anyone can help me with a horribly annoying problem 
>I am having printing out a postscript file on an apple laserwriter.
	.
	.
	.


Later he responds, red faced:

It turns out that it was a problem with the actual PS file, not 
its size (which was a not insignificant 1.8 Meg). Since I am not
the only idiot in town, it may be worth while explaining the problem.

I used \psfig to include the postscript into my TeX document. 
The syntax I used was : 

\psfig{figure=psfilename, height=hsizeyouwanthere}

The correct syntax is:

\psfig{figure=psfilename,height=hsizeyouwanthere}

It is not too different, the distinction being that innocent
looking space. But it was enough to hang the printer. 

Thanks for the many buckets of useful suggestions anyway. 

Yuval Fisher