[comp.windows.open-look] Looking for a postscript page viewer

sz@cci632.cci.com (Stephen Zehl) (06/14/91)

	I've been trying to use pageview to display b&w and color postscript
files generated by Island Write.  Whenever I generate a document greater than
one page in length, pageview displays all the pages at once. 

	I'd like to find another postscript viewer to determine if it's 
pageview or Island that is the problem.  Or find someone who has seen this 
problem before and possibly knows of a solution.

	If you know what the problem is, or can point me in the direction of
an FTP site with a postscript viewer, please send me e-mail at the address
below.  Thanks.

					Steve.

 CCCC  CCCC IIII     Stephen Zehl           Internet: sz@cci.com
CC    CC     II   Computer Consoles. Inc.     Usenet: uupsi!cci632!sz
CC    CC     II    Rochester, New York.         or  : uunet!ccicpg!cci632!sz
 CCCC  CCCC IIII       DISCLAIMER: I speak for myself, not for my employer.

dab@ubitrex.mb.ca (Danny Boulet) (06/14/91)

In article <1991Jun13.205654.27616@cci632.cci.com> sz@cci632.cci.com (Stephen Zehl) writes:
>
>	I've been trying to use pageview to display b&w and color postscript
>files generated by Island Write.  Whenever I generate a document greater than
>one page in length, pageview displays all the pages at once. 
>
>	I'd like to find another postscript viewer to determine if it's 
>pageview or Island that is the problem.  Or find someone who has seen this 
>problem before and possibly knows of a solution.
>
>	If you know what the problem is, or can point me in the direction of
>an FTP site with a postscript viewer, please send me e-mail at the address
>below.  Thanks.
>
>					Steve.

pageview suffers from quite a few problems although we've never run into
this one.  If anybody knows of any commercial quality postscript viewers,
please post.

Steve:  You might have a look at ghostscript, a GNU tool available from
lots of places.  It isn't exactly commercial quality but it may solve
your problem (it isn't stable enough to solve ours).

>
> CCCC  CCCC IIII     Stephen Zehl           Internet: sz@cci.com
>CC    CC     II   Computer Consoles. Inc.     Usenet: uupsi!cci632!sz
>CC    CC     II    Rochester, New York.         or  : uunet!ccicpg!cci632!sz
> CCCC  CCCC IIII       DISCLAIMER: I speak for myself, not for my employer.

paulr@planetten.Aus.SUN.COM (Paul Rosham ) (06/17/91)

In article <1991Jun13.205654.27616@cci632.cci.com> sz@cci632.cci.com (Stephen Zehl) writes:
>
>	I've been trying to use pageview to display b&w and color postscript
>files generated by Island Write.  Whenever I generate a document greater than
>one page in length, pageview displays all the pages at once. 
>
>	I'd like to find another postscript viewer to determine if it's 
>pageview or Island that is the problem.  Or find someone who has seen this 
>problem before and possibly knows of a solution.
>
Pageview finds out about the pagination of PostScript Documents via the
Adobe PostScript Document Structuring Convention comments, which should reasonably
be assumed to be present and correct in "commercial grade" PostScript. It  does
not do so via the `showpage' PostScript operator, which I guess (not being a
development kind of guy ;->), was a design decision.

Most PostScript code emitted from "commercial grade" application is, however,
rarely conformant to either version 1.0 or 2.0 of the structuring conventions
(see $OPENWINHOME/demo/PostScript/{psstruct,EPSF}.ps ).


You might try Glenn Reid's "distill" program to restructure your PostScript
document and insert conforming comments.

Best of Luck!

Paul Rosham
Systems Engineer
Sun Microsystems Australia Pty.Ltd.
(My comments are generally ignored by management)

len@retina.mqcs.mq.oz.au (Len Hamey) (06/17/91)

pageview relies upon the Adobe document structuring conventions rather than
the showpage commands in order to separate pages from each other.
Otherwise, they could not render the last page without first rendering
all the intermediate pages. You need document structuring level 2.0,
which is a shame since some programs produce level 1.

		Len Hamey
		Lecturer in Computing
		Macquarie University  NSW 2109  AUSTRALIA

marc@sequoia.cray.com (Marc Bouron) (06/17/91)

In article <1991Jun13.205654.27616@cci632.cci.com>, sz@cci632.cci.com (Stephen Zehl) writes:
> 
> 	I've been trying to use pageview to display b&w and color postscript
> files generated by Island Write.  Whenever I generate a document greater than
> one page in length, pageview displays all the pages at once. 
> 
> 	I'd like to find another postscript viewer to determine if it's 
> pageview or Island that is the problem.  Or find someone who has seen this 
> problem before and possibly knows of a solution.
> 
> 	If you know what the problem is, or can point me in the direction of
> an FTP site with a postscript viewer, please send me e-mail at the address
> below.  Thanks.
> 
> 					Steve.
> 
>  CCCC  CCCC IIII     Stephen Zehl           Internet: sz@cci.com
> CC    CC     II   Computer Consoles. Inc.     Usenet: uupsi!cci632!sz
> CC    CC     II    Rochester, New York.         or  : uunet!ccicpg!cci632!sz
>  CCCC  CCCC IIII       DISCLAIMER: I speak for myself, not for my employer.

PageView is quite picky when it comes to structured PostScript comments.  I
don't recall the details, but someone out there knows, since this has come up
before.  Might even be a FAQ by now?

[M][a][r][c]


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#  +44 344 485971 x2208     #  M.Bouron@uk.co.cray    (JANET)  #     |   |     #
#                           #  ...!ukc!crayuk!M.Bouron (UUCP)  #               #
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brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) (06/17/91)

In article <1991Jun14.145200.16873@ccu.umanitoba.ca> dab@ubitrex.mb.ca (Danny Boulet) writes:
<In article <1991Jun13.205654.27616@cci632.cci.com> sz@cci632.cci.com (Stephen Zehl) writes:
<>
<>	I've been trying to use pageview to display b&w and color postscript
<>files generated by Island Write.  Whenever I generate a document greater than
<>one page in length, pageview displays all the pages at once. 
<>
<>	I'd like to find another postscript viewer to determine if it's 
<>pageview or Island that is the problem.  Or find someone who has seen this 
<>problem before and possibly knows of a solution.
<>
<>	If you know what the problem is, or can point me in the direction of
<>an FTP site with a postscript viewer, please send me e-mail at the address
<>below.  Thanks.
<>
<>					Steve.
<
<pageview suffers from quite a few problems although we've never run into
<this one.  If anybody knows of any commercial quality postscript viewers,
<please post.
<
<Steve:  You might have a look at ghostscript, a GNU tool available from
<lots of places.  It isn't exactly commercial quality but it may solve
<your problem (it isn't stable enough to solve ours).

It may be possible that Island has a problem in that it isn't producing
PostScript Document compliant code and pageview can't stop at page breaks
because it doesn't know where they are.
-- 
harvard\
  ucbvax!uwvax!astroatc!ftms!brown
rutgers/
INTERNET: spool.cs.wisc.edu!astroatc!ftms!brown

jacquier@gsbsun.uchicago.edu (Eric Jacquier) (06/18/91)

brown@ftms.UUCP (Vidiot) writes:

><>	I've been trying to use pageview to display b&w and color postscript
><>files generated by Island Write.  Whenever I generate a document greater than
><>one page in length, pageview displays all the pages at once. 

>It may be possible that Island has a problem in that it isn't producing
>PostScript Document compliant code and pageview can't stop at page breaks
>because it doesn't know where they are.

So, SAS has the same problem, or rather PAGEVIEW. When I preview SAS
postcript output with PAGEVIEW, it displays all the pages at once.
Really a bummer!!
Eric

lwv27@CAS.BITNET (Larry W. Virden) (06/18/91)

I believe that earlier in the year someone mentioned that there were
similar problems with FM 2.0.  There is an undocumented program in
/usr/openwin/bin called fixframe2.0 - I seem to remember a note indicating
that postscript fed into this critter would result in postscript fixed
for pageview.

So, I am going to test that out!  Hang on.... Okay, it appears that
fixframe2.0 ensures that there are FM fonts defined and adds a Page
and a Trailer comment section.  You might try this tool on your
files to see if that helps any.
--
Larry W. Virden                 UUCP: osu-cis!chemabs!lwv27
Same Mbox: BITNET: lwv27@cas    INET: lwv27%cas.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.Edu
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