rjbeeth@kesrith.uucp (Rick Beetham) (06/01/91)
A friend of mine is trying to get a postscript printer working with
his SUN SparcStation. He has got the machine talking to the printer
and if he puts the printer into Emulation mode (LASERJET, PROPRINTER
etc) he has no problem getting output.
However until today when I sat down with him for a bit he could not
get any TEXT output while in postscript mode. For a while he
thought it was his printer so he connected it to another box that
was using a postscript printer with interleaf and voila it worked!
Further investigation showed that the other box has a compiled
printer interface supplied by INTERLEAF. His box has none and so he
will have to build one.
Experimentation has shown us that postscript is a completely
different kettle of fish from anything that we are presently used
to. I did succeed in helping him "discover" some of the commands
needed to get text output from the printer however - the docs are
HORRIBLE and do not even list what commands are available (commands
were gleaned from two small sample files). The printer comes with a
whole raft of friendly "setup tools" that run in MS DOS or on a MAC
but nothing for UNIX or SUN OS.
Can anybody offer us any script models or interface source that we
can modify and compile in order to get this beast working. If memory
serves me right the printer is a QMS if that helps.
Also if anyone can point me towards any documentation regarding
postscript printers in general (ie. commands, interfaces etc) I
would be most grateful.
Postings to this newsgroup or direct email is both appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
Rick Beetham
--
{...}isishq!kesrith!rjbeeth | Nepean, Ontario
rjbeeth@isishq.fidonet.orgclewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) (06/03/91)
In article <88937784D5.52.123460000@kesrith.uucp> rjbeeth@kesrith.uucp (Rick Beetham) writes: >A friend of mine is trying to get a postscript printer working with >his SUN SparcStation. He has got the machine talking to the printer >and if he puts the printer into Emulation mode (LASERJET, PROPRINTER >etc) he has no problem getting output. >However until today when I sat down with him for a bit he could not >get any TEXT output while in postscript mode. For a while he >thought it was his printer so he connected it to another box that >was using a postscript printer with interleaf and voila it worked! >Further investigation showed that the other box has a compiled >printer interface supplied by INTERLEAF. His box has none and so he >will have to build one. Yes, Postscript is an entirely different animal than ordinary printers. In that you cannot simply ship an ASCII text file to one and expect it to do something sane. The Interleaf software probably has a piece of software built in that automatically detects whether postscript or plain ascii is being sent to the printer, and if it's plain ascii, an text2ps converter of some sort is being invoked. There are literally hundreds of ascii-2-postscript converters out in the field. Before chasing one down, you should consider what additional things you want to do. There are simple converters that just do ascii2ps, and bigger packages that also do other things, such as permit you to use troff with your postscript printer. I'm most familiar with the latter (because I wrote one ;-). If you want an "all in one" package, you have a couple of choices. Adobe's Transcript package (commercial) does troff to postscript conversion, and has a rather fancy ascii2postscript converter (enscript) as well. I believe transcript can be setup to automatically call enscript when you send plain text to the printer. Psroff 3.0 does the same sorts of things, and has an automatic ascii2postscript/page flipper/n-upper utility in it as well as other types of printers (eg: HPLJIII). tpscript does similar things, but is limited to ditroff and postscript only. E-mail me if you want more information on psroff. >Also if anyone can point me towards any documentation regarding >postscript printers in general (ie. commands, interfaces etc) I >would be most grateful. Adobe has several books on Postscript: the Red Book (reference), Blue book (tutorial), and a few other more specialized works. These are usually available at technical book stores. There are several other good learning books. -- Chris Lewis, Phone: (613) 832-0541, Domain: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca UUCP: ...!cunews!latour!ecicrl!clewis; Ferret Mailing List: ferret-request@eci386; Psroff (not Adobe Transcript) enquiries: psroff-request@eci386 or Canada 416-832-0541. Psroff 3.0 in c.s.u soon!
wrp@PRC.Unisys.COM (William R. Pringle) (06/06/91)
In article <88937784D5.52.123460000@kesrith.uucp> rjbeeth@kesrith.uucp (Rick Beetham) writes: >A friend of mine is trying to get a postscript printer working with >his SUN SparcStation. He has got the machine talking to the printer >and if he puts the printer into Emulation mode (LASERJET, PROPRINTER >etc) he has no problem getting output. > >However until today when I sat down with him for a bit he could not >get any TEXT output while in postscript mode. For a while he (stuff deleted) >Can anybody offer us any script models or interface source that we >can modify and compile in order to get this beast working. If memory >serves me right the printer is a QMS if that helps. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Your printer is probably fine. You aren't sending it postscript encoded files, that's all. You have to convert text files to postscript. Sun has a package called transcript which provides postscript support for troff and text files. One of the programs is enscript, which converts a text file into postscript. These are all available to the normal user. There is also a printer filter that the System Administrator can install that looks at the first line of the file to see if it is a postscript file. (All postscript files begins with %!PS-Adobe-, or at least %!) If the file is postscript, it sends it to the printer unchanged. If not, then it runs it through enscript. If you don't need troff support, there are a number of PD text to postscript filters floating around. Use one to format text and/or install it as a printer filter. ----------------- ------------ > >Also if anyone can point me towards any documentation regarding >postscript printers in general (ie. commands, interfaces etc) I >would be most grateful. ^^^^^^^^^ The Postscript "bibles" are three books from Addison-Wesley and written by Adobe Systems. They are: Postscript Language Reference Manual (the red book) Postscript Language Program Design (the green book) Postscript Language Tutorial and Cookbook (the blue book) ---------- > >Postings to this newsgroup or direct email is both appreciated. > >Thanks in advance. > >Rick Beetham > >-- >{...}isishq!kesrith!rjbeeth | Nepean, Ontario >rjbeeth@isishq.fidonet.org
garvey@johnny5.uucp (Joe Garvey) (06/07/91)
In article <17921@burdvax.PRC.Unisys.COM>, wrp@PRC.Unisys.COM (William R. Pringle) writes: > In article <88937784D5.52.123460000@kesrith.uucp> rjbeeth@kesrith.uucp (Rick Beetham) writes: > >A friend of mine is trying to get a postscript printer working with > >his SUN SparcStation. He has got the machine talking to the printer > >and if he puts the printer into Emulation mode (LASERJET, PROPRINTER > >etc) he has no problem getting output. > ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ > Your printer is probably fine. You aren't sending it postscript encoded > files, that's all. You have to convert text files to postscript. > > Sun has a package called transcript which provides postscript support for > troff and text files. One of the programs is enscript, which converts a > text file into postscript. These are all available to the normal user. Transcript is an Adobe product. Sun resells/licenses it. They have since replaced it with Newsprint. It costs a lot less, and is a lot more intellingent about figuring out which filters to use. Some of it is netware. Hope this helps. -- Joe Garvey uucp: sumax!quick!johnny5!garvey J5 Research internet: quick!johnny5!garvey@sumax.seattleu.edu Bothell, Wa., 98021 AT&T: 206-481-8023