wcwang@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Bill Wang) (07/03/90)
Does anyone know a working method to make the result of postscript printing
file (by holding down mouse while type K or F inside printing) on a Macintosh
TeXture (a version of TeX on the mac) to be more general? Specifically,
I want to make some PostScript files which can be printed from any postscript
printers and the saving file by TeXture contains some apple definitions which
can not be recognized by the generic ps printers.
Thanks in advance!
--
Bill Wang
US Mail = Psychology Department, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN 47405
UUCP = {rutgers, att, ames}!iuvax!wcwang
Internet = wcwang@iuvax.cs.indiana.edusahayman@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Steve Hayman) (07/03/90)
>Specifically, >I want to make some PostScript files which can be printed from any postscript >printers and the saving file by TeXture contains some apple definitions which >can not be recognized by the generic ps printers. maybe this will help. The "macps" and "prepfix" programs mentioned below are installed on iuvax. From mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!jik Tue Feb 20 15:59:15 EST 1990 Article 20876 of comp.unix.questions: Path: iuvax!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!athena.mit.edu!jik >From: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: printing postscript files Message-ID: <1990Feb20.201734.25453@athena.mit.edu> Date: 20 Feb 90 20:17:34 GMT References: <6461@cps3xx.UUCP> Sender: news@athena.mit.edu (News system) Reply-To: jik@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) Distribution: usa Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lines: 59 Several people have responded to the article asking how to print a Mac-generated PostScript(TM) file on a printer hooked up to a Unix box. However, I don't think anybody has given the "full story", so I'd like to try to bring everything together in one message. Most Mac programs which generate PostScript generate a special form of PostScript which is designed to be printed in conjunction with a "Laser Prep" header file which, in its original form, can be understood only by the Apple LaserWriter. When printed directly from a Mac to a LaserWriter, this isn't a problem because the LaserPrep file is downloaded to the printer directly, either beforehand or at the beginning of each job. In fact, I think the LaserPrep is designed in such a way that it checks to see if it's already been downloaded each time it is sent to the printer, and if it is already present in the printer, aborts the evaluation of the rest of the LaserPrep, which speeds things up quite a bit. If you want to print PostScript to a file instead of to the printer when using a Mac, there are two ways to do this, Command-f and Command-k. Using Command-f will give you a PostScript file without the LaserPrep file prepended to it, while Command-k will give you a file with LaserPrep prepended. Unfortunately, most printers besides the LaserWriter won't be able to print either of these as-is, for the reasons mentioned above (i.e. they won't be able to understand the LaserPrep header, and without the header the contents of the PostScript file won't make any sense to the printer). Another possible problem is that much of the software that is used to print to PostScript printers from Unix relies on "%!" being the first two characters in any PostScript file. If they are not, the file is considered a text file and *passed through a formatter to print it as text* before it is sent to the PostScript printer. The best solution to this problem I've seen is a package called "macps", written by Edward Moy (or, at least, he's the person who signs the mail sent out about it :-). This package includes several program. The two most importants ones are: 1. "prepfix", a program which will take a LaserPrep file uploaded to a Unix box and fix it so that printers besides the LaserWriter will understand it. You then install the fixed LaserPrep file(s) into a library directory so that the other important program can use them.... 2. "macps", a program that reads a PostScript file generated on a Mac using Command-f, figures out which version of LaserPrep it requires, pulls the fixed LaserPrep out of the library directory, prepends it to the beginning of the file and sends the output to its standard output -- you can then pipe this through lpr to print it to a PostScript printer. The most recent version of macps (version 2.2, I think) is available for anonymous ftp from the directory ~ftp/info-mac on the machine sumex-aim.stanford.edu (36.44.0.6). Jonathan Kamens USnail: MIT Project Athena 11 Ashford Terrace jik@Athena.MIT.EDU Allston, MA 02134 Office: 617-253-8495 Home: 617-782-0710
dhosek@sif.claremont.edu (Hosek, Donald A.) (07/03/90)
In article <49559@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>, wcwang@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (Bill Wang) writes... >Does anyone know a working method to make the result of postscript printing >file (by holding down mouse while type K or F inside printing) on a Macintosh >TeXture (a version of TeX on the mac) to be more general? Specifically, >I want to make some PostScript files which can be printed from any postscript >printers and the saving file by TeXture contains some apple definitions which >can not be recognized by the generic ps printers. Why, when you purchase a commercial product, don't you call the vendor and ask THEM? The guys at Blue Sky are very helpful (although Doug Henderson claims to be a worse bowler than he really is) and can probably give you a more definitive answer to the question than anyone else can. And they have a toll-free number so it won't even cost you anything. Now, assuming that you have a legitimate copy of Textures, you should also have the phone number. If you your copy is not legitimate, well... -dh --- Don Hosek TeX, LaTeX, and Metafont Consulting and dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu production work. Free Estimates. dhosek@ymir.bitnet uunet!jarthur!ymir Phone: 714-625-0147