Archive-name: postscript/faq/part1-4
Last-modified: 1993/05/21
Version: 2.1
-- PostScript --
Answers to Questions
(the comp.lang.postscript FAQ v2.1)
Jon Monsarrat
[email protected]
This FAQ is formatted as a digest.
Most news readers can skip from one question
to the next by pressing control-G.
Changes since the last version are marked with a '|' in the table
of contents and in the sections in the text-only format of the FAQ.
Now that there is Linux and BSD 386 UNIX IBM PC (and clone) users
can run any of the X-windows and UNIX programs in the utilities
section. See comp.os.linux. Also, there is now GhostScript for the
Macintosh.
Section 12, Utilities, will be posted in comp.sources.postscript
along with the global index from now on.
Please help fix the FAQ! All comments should be mailed to
[email protected]. My favorite way to receive a change suggestion is
when it is accompanied by a section of the FAQ that is edited and
mailed to me verbatim as an example. If you would like to
contribute, please read the section ``about the FAQ'' first. Thank
you!
Books and programs are referred to by name only. See the book
sections for book information, and the comp.sources.postscript FAQ
for a full list of all PostScript related programs. I have
archived a number of the small utilities in
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/postscript. You can get the
comp.sources.postscript FAQ from
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/comp.sources.postscript.
Related FAQs: comp.text, comp.text.tex, comp.fonts, comp.graphics,
comp.mac.sys.apps, comp.sources.postscript.
Table of Contents
This FAQ has 11 sections. It is available by anonymous ftp to
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/comp.lang.postscript/FAQ.txt in ASCII, and
there are also LaTeX, DVI, and PostScript formats.
1 General Questions
1.1 What is PostScript?
1.2 How can I tell how many pages my document will have?
1.3 How can I print just one page or a few pages from a big
1.4 How can I print more than one page per sheet of paper?
1.5 How can I edit a PostScript picture?
1.6 How can I print PostScript on a non-PostScript printer?
1.7 What other graphics languages are there?
2 Printers
2.1 How can I get my printer to talk back to me?
2.2 Should I leave my printer on?
2.3 How do I suppress the power-on start page?
2.4 How do I make a downloaded font ``persistent''?
2.5 How do I remove a persistent (``permanent'') downloaded font?
2.6 How do I reset the printer without power-cycling?
2.7 About saving files
2.8 What's the control-D business?
2.9 Why does the printer say ``still busy'' when my document is
2.10 How should I set up my spoolers?
2.11 What are PPD files?
2.12 What's a timeout error?
3 Formats and Conversions
3.1 How can I convert PostScript to some other graphics format?
3.2 How can I convert DVI to PostScript?
3.3 How can I convert HP Laserjet language (PCL) to PostScript?
3.4 How can I convert TeX PK format font to PostScript?
3.5 How do I embed PostScript into troff?
3.6 How do I embed PostScript into LaTeX or TeX?
3.7 How can I convert an image to PostScript?
3.8 How can I convert ASCII text to PostScript?
3.9 How can I convert PostScript to ASCII?
3.10 How do I convert between PFB, PFA, Mac, PFM, and AFM?
4 Fonts
4.1 What are .PFB and .PFA files?
4.2 How can I convert a PostScript font to TeX's PK format?
4.3 Why are Adobe fonts hidden?
4.4 How do I get bitmap representations of Adobe fonts?
4.5 What are some good ftp sites for fonts?
4.6 How can I re-encode a font?
4.7 What's the difference between a Type 1 and a Type 3 font?
4.8 What vendors sell fonts for PostScript printers?
4.9 What are ATM fonts?
4.10 What are Multiple Master Fonts?
4.11 Do I need a Level Two printer to use Multiple Master Fonts?
4.12 What are Type 4 fonts?
4.13 What are Type 5 fonts?
4.14 Is there an editor for Type 1 Fonts?
5 Books
5.1 Books
5.2 Publishers
6 About Adobe
6.1 How do I get in touch with Adobe?
6.2 What can Adobe do for me?
7 Programming in PostScript
7.1 What is PostScript level 2?
7.2 Should I learn level 2 PostScript?
7.3 Where can I find examples of PostScript code?
7.4 How do I get the physical size of a page?
7.5 Why can't I do a pathforall after a charpath ?
7.6 How do I center a string of text around a point?
7.7 How can I concatenate two strings together?
7.8 What do I do when I get stack overflow/underflow?
7.9 How can I print in landscape mode?
8 Computer-specific PostScript
8.1 Sun Workstations
8.2 IBM PC
8.3 Apple Macintosh
9 Encapsulated PostScript
9.1 What is Encapsulated PostScript?
9.2 What are EPSI and EPSF?
9.3 How do I convert PostScript to EPS?
9.4 How do I get the bounding box of a PostScript picture?
10 About The Comp.Lang.PostScript FAQ (and Usenet Guide to
10.1 The PostScript FAQ: What is it?
10.2 How to get the FAQ files
10.3 How to write a FAQ answer
10.4 The FAQ can contain LaTeX and PostScript inserts
10.5 Revising the FAQ
10.6 How to submit new information
10.7 How to add a program description to the FAQ index
10.8 How to add a book description to the FAQ
10.9 Questions that need answers
11 About PostScript 2
11.1 What printers support Level 2 PostScript?
11.2 What is PostScript Level 2?
11.3 [ Color Extensions ]
11.4 [ Composite Font Extensions ]
11.5 [ Display PostScript Extensions ]
11.6 [ Overview of Level 2 Features ]
11.7 Filters
11.8 Binary Encoding
11.9 Optimized graphics operators
11.10 Optimized text operators
11.11 Forms
11.12 Patterns
11.13 Images
11.14 Composite Fonts
11.15 New Color Spaces
11.16 New screening/halftoning technology
11.17 Improved printer support features
11.18 Interpreter parameters
11.19 Resources
11.20 Dictionaries
11.21 When did Level 2 products come available?
11.22 Are Level 1 and Level 2 implementations compatible?
Subject: 1 General Questions
Subject: 1.1 What is PostScript?
PostScript is a page description programming language.
It is perhaps the most versatile and loved language for printers,
being used in printers world-wide. It is capable of drawing to
computer screens and any kind of drawing device. PostScript is
interpreted, stack based and has latent typing. It somewhat
resembles the computer language FORTH.
A number of programmers write PostScript programs directly for a
variety of drawing applications. However, PostScript programs are
usually documents meant to be printed that have been generated by a
program written in some compiled language.
Subject: 1.2 How can I tell how many pages my document will have?
The easiest way to count pages is view your document on-line with a
PostScript previewer. Some previewers like Ghostview and GSPreview
count the pages for you. (See Section 12, ``PostScript Interpreters
and Utilities''.)
If your document is generated by a program compliant with the
Document Structuring Conventions, you should be able to just count
the number of ``%%Page:'' comments imbedded in the document.
With UNIX you can type
grep -c %%Page: document.ps
to do this counting. (See Section 9, ``Encapsulated PostScript''.)
The only completely reliable way to count pages is to ask the
printer after the job is printed. PostScript printers maintain a
page counter that can be queried before and and after the job is
printed, and the page count is a simple subtraction. This tends to
require rather sophisticated spooling systems and a communications
channel that is bidirectional. However, some printers allow you to
submit jobs on one port, and issue queries on another.
Send this PostScript through a bidirectional I/O port and you'll
get back the page count, nominally the total number of pages
printed since manufacture:
statusdict begin pagecount == end flush
Experts using a level 2 printer can use the SerialOff.PS and
SerialEHandlder.ps programs to communicate bidirectionally to the
printer.
Subject: 1.3 How can I print just one page or a few pages from a big
document? How can I print pages in reverse order?
Try using a host-specific program, like the UNIX command psrev,
which is part of the TranScript suite of software from Adobe
Systems. Or use the more general utilities Ghostview, psutils or
psxlate.
There is no guarantee that a given PostScript document can be split
in such a manner. The reason is that some programs which generate
PostScript code don't conform to the Adobe Document Structuring
Conventions (DSC). (See Section 9, ``Encapsulated PostScript''.) A
notable example of this is Microsoft Word.
Subject: 1.4 How can I print more than one page per sheet of paper?
Use psnup or pstext or enscript.
These programs redefine the PostScript ``showpage'' command to do
multiple PostScript pages per physical page. If one program doesn't
work with a complex document, try out other ones.
Some PostScript programs can't work with these programs because
they break the EPS conventions (See Section 9, ``Encapsulated
PostScript''.). The reason is that some Postscript operators (such
as initgraphics, the list is in the Red book) change the printer
state so "violently", that software trying to do things like n-up
will get confused. Theoretically, an EPS shouldn't have any of
these operators, but it may not really be an EPS, or there may be a
weird interaction between TeX, the EPS and the inclusion mechanism
that breaks psnup.
Subject: 1.5 How can I edit a PostScript picture?
If you know the PostScript programming language, just use any text
editor to edit the code directly.
If you want to do it visually, you can use Canvas on the Macintosh.
Subject: 1.6 How can I print PostScript on a non-PostScript printer?
You need a tool that converts to something that your printer knows
how to print. Use Freedom of Press, GhostScript, pageview, TScript,
or UltraScript PC. Or, use a printer cartridge if your printer
manufacturer sells one.
Subject: 1.7 What other graphics languages are there?
HPGL is for pen plotters. PCL is for HP Laser printers (and
compatibles). Both are by HP, and PCL5 is supposed to allow
inclusion of HPGL commands, preceded by an appropriate escape code,
however I have found this to give errors and abort even for simple
HPGL code that plots fine on a plotter.
Subject: 2 Printers
Subject: 2.1 How can I get my printer to talk back to me?
Experts using a level 2 printer can use the SerialOff.PS and
SerialEHandlder.ps programs to communicate bidirectionally to the
printer.
If you just need the error returns from the printer, you can spawn
a
cat < port >> logfile&
in your system startup. Then you will get a log of everything the
printer says. This works on any serial-port connected printer.
Subject: 2.2 Should I leave my printer on?
The consensus seems to be that most computer equipment lasts longer
if left on. This presents less thermal stress to the components.
Subject: 2.3 How do I suppress the power-on start page?
Disabling the start page is described in your printer's PostScript
supplement. The most common sequence is ``serverdict begin 0
exitserver statusdict begin false setdostartpage end''.
Subject: 2.4 How do I make a downloaded font ``persistent''?
%!PS-Adobe-2.0 ExitServer
%%BeginExitServer: 0
serverdict begin 0 exitserver
%%EndExitServer
% Test for existence of font, abort if present.
% This won't work on a printer with a hard disk!
/str 32 string def
/Eurostile dup FontDirectory exch known
{ str cvs print ( is already loaded!\n) print flush quit }
{ (loading font ) print str cvs print (\n) print flush }
ifelse
%% Font follows...
The part following ``%%EndExitServer'' is optional. If you use
it, change Eurostile to the name of the font. The default PFA
behavior is to use up additional VM for the new copy if another
copy has already been downloaded.
Subject: 2.5 How do I remove a persistent (``permanent'') downloaded font?
In PostScript Level 2, you can use the undefinefont operator to
remove fonts selectively.
The only reliable method in PostScript Level 1 is to restart the
printer, for example with:
serverdict begin 0 exitserver
systemdict /quit get exec
Of course, the real solution is just to not download persistent
fonts unless you really want them to persist indefinitely. If you
want them only for one job, download them as part of the job.
Subject: 2.6 How do I reset the printer without power-cycling?
Most printers can be reset by issuing ``serverdict begin 0
exitserver systemdict /quit get exec''.
Subject: 2.7 About saving files
Adobe recommends that driver writers do not put EOT (control-D)
into files when saving to disk. Normally, the EOT is a part of the
protocol for parallel and serial ports and never hits the
PostScript interpreter.
Drivers that do embed EOD can create problems for devices that
allow other communication methods (e.g. AppleTalk, Ethernet, and
SCSI) where the EOT is not part of the communications protocol. It
is useful to redefine EOT in these instances so that the
interpreter does not generate an error. The recommended
redefinition is:
(\004) cvn {} def
This should convert any stand-alone embedded EOTs into a null
procedure.
Subject: 2.8 What's the control-D business?
PostScript printers communicating over serial lines use control-D
as an end of job indicator. The host computer should then wait for
the printer to send a control-D back to indicate that the job has
finished. Managing the serial protocol between host and printer
should be done by some form of print service, but if you're unsure
whether your print service is doing it, it's an idea to send one
yourself.
PC type computers frequently do not have any kind of printer
manager and applications end up sending control-D characters to the
printer, sometimes before and after a job. PC applications
frequently embed a control-D as the first character in the print
file, presumably to flush out any other jobs, and thereby breaking
the Adobe Document Structuring Conventions.
If you want to prevent applications from doing this, you could use
a spooler which would look at the end of every outgoing file and
drop the control-D on the end if there happened to be one.
If you want a spooler, check out lprps.
Subject: 2.9 Why does the printer say ``still busy'' when my document is
done printing?
Sometimes when you finish a print job, the printer ``Ready'' light
keeps flashing for a minute or so. Somehow, the printer has
received some character(s) after the control-D which was sent
immediately after the PostScript file. The most common is that a
newline has been inserted after the control-D. The printer took
these character(s) to be another program, and eventually timed-out
while waiting for the rest of it. This can happen because of the
host not waiting for the printer to finish.
Subject: 2.10 How should I set up my spoolers?
Since PostScript usually is prefixed with ``%!'', it's easy to
educate your spooler to autoselect between passing raw PostScript
through to the printer or doing an ``ASCII-to-PostScript''
conversion first. There are many packages that will do this,
including Transcript and psxlate.
Unfortunately, many PostScript applications generate PostScript
without a proper ``%!'' magic cookie.
The spooler should be responsible for transmitting the ``job
termination code'' (a control-D on serially-connected printers) to
the printer, not the application. Do yourself a favor and disable
(or filter out) control-Ds in your applications and generate them
in the spooler. This will be far more reliable in the face of
arbitrary input.
Subject: 2.11 What are PPD files?
Adobe Postscript Printer Description (PPD) files describe how to
use the special features for a specific Postscript printer. They
are suppose to be human-readable, but they are really only readable
by PostScript gurus. It is the responsibility of the printer
manufacturer to supply PPD files. However, the Adobe mail server
has many of them. (see the Section 6, ``About Adobe'')
Subject: 2.12 What's a timeout error?
Paul Balyoz has this to say about timeout errors:
A timeout error means the the printer has decided to abort the
print job because one of its internal timers ran out. There are
three standard timers configured in a PostScript printer. These are
documented in appendix D of the Red Book*, but here's more detail:
job timeout
The maximum time a single print job is allowed to run, in
seconds. If it doesn't finish in this amount of time, it is
aborted, and the current page has a "timeout" error printed on
it. The rest of the job is thrown away, like with most PostScript
errors.
manual feed timeout
The amount of time the printer will wait for someone to
manual-feed a sheet of paper (or envelope) before giving up and
aborting the print job, in seconds.
wait timeout
The amount of time the printer will wait after it stops receiving
a flow of PostScript from the host before aborting the print job,
in seconds. The idea here is, "if the print job is still running
even though we haven't seen any new data for a long time, then
there may be a problem like an infinite- loop, so let's stop the
job."
We have two HP Laserjet III printers with the PostScript cards
installed (Level 1 PostScript). This printer has an 8 ppm print
engine with moderately slow PostScript (in my opinion).
For a long time we have had problems with large print jobs timing
out. Documents longer than about 9 pages would never come out
without some kind of timeout error every time. Single page graphics
such as screen snapshots would even fail from time to time! I knew
it wasn't a hardware failure, because both of our printers would do
it all the time. Calls to HP technical
flow-control and tried direct-connecting the printer, no
improvement.
The actual solution was to change the timeout values to:
0 60 0
In other words, no job timeout, and no wait timeout. The concept of
these timeouts makes no sense when you realize that a single
ordinary job could take a long time to print. I have a 1-page
graphic that takes >5 minutes of thinking time once it is sent to
the printer! If the printer is working and there's nothing wrong
with the job, why should it be aborted?
The wait timeout makes even less sense than the job timeout.
PostScript is a programming language, for goodness sake. A legal
print job that takes 10 seconds to send to the printer at 9600 baud
could generate 100 pages or more of full-page output, if it needed
too. That's going to take some time to print, but it took very
little time to transfer. Why require the computer to "keep sending
stuff", just so the job can complete?
And of course the reverse. Hugely complex drawings that compute for
a long time in the printer before ejecting even the first page. An
example of this would be a poster-sized drawing that's being
printed on ordinary paper, so that you can cut and paste with
scissors and tape to put it together. The usual way of doing this
is drawing the ENTIRE poster on each page of paper, and letting the
clipping algorithm remove the parts that won't fit on the page.
Then just reposition the origin for each page to get a different
portion of the big drawing on each page.
Faster PostScript print systems would help here, but only up to a
point. People usually want any size printout to work on their
printer, even if it has to take a long time. We have one faculty
person here who regularly prints things overnight, because it takes
about 4-6 hours (!) to print his whole document (10 - 20 pages).
All of these timeouts can be configured in the printer by talking
to it directly. There are two ways to change parameters: just for
the current print job, and as the default for all future print
jobs. The default settings stay set in the printer even during
power off; the printer usually has some kind of non-volatile memory
(probably RAM memory with a battery for power). Please see the Red
Book for details on changing these parameters (look for
"setjobtimeout" and "setdefaulttimeouts").
Subject: 3 Formats and Conversions
This section describes formats that can be converted to and from
PostScript, and how to convert them. Encapsulated PostScript and
Fonts have their own sections.
Subject: 3.1 How can I convert PostScript to some other graphics format?
Since PostScript is not just a picture-description language, but in
fact a complete programming language, you will need a complete
PostScript interpreter to convert or display a PostScript graphic.
See the comp.sources.postscript FAQ for an index of all PostScript
related programs.
Try using GhostScript.
Subject: 3.2 How can I convert DVI to PostScript?
Use dvips.
Subject: 3.3 How can I convert HP Laserjet language (PCL) to PostScript?
Use lj2ps for simple PCL. Alternatively, another lj2ps, from
psroff3.0, is a little more complete.
hp2pbm can convert all of PCL4 (up to and including rasters,
downloaded fonts and macros) into PostScript, G3 and any other
PBM-supposed format.
Subject: 3.4 How can I convert TeX PK format font to PostScript?
Psroff3.0 contains programs that can convert TeX PK format or HP
SFP format fonts into PostScript bitmap fonts along with
rearranging encoding, etc. While bitmap bfonts scale poorly, this
is sometimes of use in special circumstances.
Subject: 3.5 How do I embed PostScript into troff?
Most troffs can be ``coerced'' into including PostScript figures.
The best approach is a configuration that takes EPS PostScript and
can automatically scale it, or tell troff how big the picture is.
Groff and DWB 3 have this built in.
psfig is an add-on EPS inclusion handler that can add this
capability to other versions of troff, provided that a compatible
PostScript driver is used (Psroff 3.0 for ditroff or CAT troff,
Transcript for ditroff). See the comp.text FAQ for more detail.
Subject: 3.6 How do I embed PostScript into LaTeX or TeX?
You should use an add-on program for seamless PostScript inclusion.
Use psfig.
If your LaTeX is simple, but your PostScript is fancy, try using
LameTeX.
If you need a good compromise, use pstricks.
See the comp.text.tex FAQ.
Subject: 3.7 How can I convert an image to PostScript?
First determine what format your images are in. PBMPLUS will have
converters for most image formats.
To convert an image to PostScript in X windows, you can display the
image on the screen, and grab it with xv, which can save the image
in a PostScript file.
A more general alternative in X windows would be to use the PPM,
PGM and PBM utilities in the X11R4 and X11R5 distributions.
Subject: 3.8 How can I convert ASCII text to PostScript?
Unless your printer is smart about raw ASCII, you can't just send
the ASCII to a PostScript printer, because the printer will attempt
to interpret your ASCII file as PostScript code. You need a program
which will wrap some PostScript code around your ASCII file.
Try any of the following programs: asciiprint.ps, ato2pps, cz,
ETSR, i2ps, lpp, lwf, POSTPRN, printer, psf, psfx80, PSR, ps2txt,
pstext, swtext, text2ps, TranScript, spike.ps, enscript, nenscript,
a2ps, asc2ps, ascii2ps, crossword.ps, double.ps, landscape.ps,
numbered.ps, portrait.ps, or wide.ps.
If you want to make something fancy, why not use a word processor?
Most of them can ``include'' ASCII directly from a file and produce
PostScript.
Subject: 3.9 How can I convert PostScript to ASCII?
In general, when you say ``I want to convert PostScript to ASCII''
what you really mean is ``I want to convert MacWrite (which makes
PostScript output) to ASCII'' or ``I want to convert somebody's TeX
document (which I have in PostScript) to ASCII''.
Unfortunately, programs like these (if they're smart) do a lot of
fancy stuff like kerning, which means that where they would
normally execute the postscript command for
``print water fountain''
instead they execute the postscript command for
``print wat'' (move a little to get the spacing *just* right)
``print er'' (move a little to get the spacing *just* right)
``print foun'' (move a little to get the spacing *just* right)
``print tain'' (move a little to get the spacing *just* right)
So if I write a program to look through a PostScript file for
strings, like ps2ascii.pl, It can't tell where the words really
end. Here my program would see 4 strings
``wat'' ``er'' ``foun'' ``tain''
And it doesn't see any difference between the spacing between
``found'' and ``tain'' (not a word break) and the spacing between
``er'' and ``foun'' (a real word break).
The problem is that PostScript for text formatting is usually
produced machine generated by a text formatter. A PostScript
generator like dvips might have a special command like ``boop''
that differentiates between a real world break and a fake one. But
every text formatter that generates PostScript has their own name
for the ``boop'' command.
So you really want a ``PostScript to ASCII converter for dvips
output''.
The only general solution I can see would be to redefine the show
operator to print out the currentpoint for every letter being
printed, like gs2asc, and then make up an ASCII page based on this
by sticking ASCII characters where they go in a two-dimensional
array. That would convert PostScript to ASCII ``formatted''.
But even that wouldn't solve the problem, because special bitmap
fonts and and standard fonts like Symbol don't always print a ``P''
when you say the letter ``P''. Sometimes they print the greek Pi
symbol or a chess piece or a ZapfDingBat.
Use ps2a, ps2ascii, ps2txt, ps2ascii.ps or ps2ascii.pl.
Subject: 3.10 How do I convert between PFB, PFA, Mac, PFM, and AFM?
Write or call Y and Y Software, listed in the fonts section as a
vendor.
Subject: 4 Fonts
This section answers questions about fonts as they pertain to
PostScript. See the comp.fonts FAQ for more information about
fonts.
Subject: 4.1 What are .PFB and .PFA files?
``PFB'' stands for Printer Font Binary, and is a binary format in
which Adobe Type 1 font programs are usually distributed for IBM PC
and compatibles. Many application programs support fonts in this
format, and refer to them as ``downloadable''. The Macintosh uses a
different binary storage format than does the PC.
PFB files are encrypted and have a header, and as a result, cannot
be sent directly to a PostScript printer. Application programs like
dvips which use fonts in this format unencrypt the font before
sending it to the printer. If you would like to use a font which is
in PFB format, it is necessary to unencrypt it first to make a PFA
file. Adobe Systems supply a font downloader for PC's which turns
the PFB format into PFA format on the fly as it's being downloaded.
``PFA'' stands for Printer Font ASCII, which is the unencrypted
version of a PFB file. In PFB, the data is stored as-is. In a PFA,
it's stored as ``ascii hex''--meaning each byte of data is turned
into two ascii characters representing the hex value.
Once you have the PFA file, just send it to the printer ahead of
your file, and use the font like any other. There are several
programs which can do the conversion from PFB to PFA for you. Try
t1utils.
Subject: 4.2 How can I convert a PostScript font to TeX's PK format?
Use ps2pk or try out the GNU font utilities in fontutils.
Subject: 4.3 Why are Adobe fonts hidden?
In PostScript level 1, Adobe's fonts were hidden because they
didn't want people pirating copies instead of paying for them.
That's why you can't do a pathforall on a charpath.
PostScript Level Two has removed the restriction, in the words of
the new Red Book, ``for most fonts''. There will still be some
vendors who will want to restrict access. Japanese font vendors,
for example, are concerned about piracy -- given the work that goes
into an 8,000-character Kanji font.
Subject: 4.4 How do I get bitmap representations of Adobe fonts?
On the IBM PC, use the Font Foundry program included with the font.
If you don't have it, contact Adobe for an upgrade.
Subject: 4.5 What are some good ftp sites for fonts?
ftp.cs.umb.edu
sumex-aim.stanford.edu
archive.umich.edu
ftp.cica.indiana.edu /pub/pc/win3/fonts
colonsay.dcs.ed.ac.uk /pub/postscript/fonts
For the NeXT platform, fonts are available on the NeXT-FTP-archives,
sonata.cc.purdue.edu :/pub/next/graphics/fonts
fiasko.rz-berlin.mpg.de :/pub/next/fonts
For Macintosh, look in sumex-aim.stanford.edu,
mac.archive.umich.edu, and ftp.cs.umb.edu (192.12.26.23), in
pub/tex/ps-screenfonts.tar.Z.
Color PostScript samples and many other PostScript programs are
available from irisa.irisa.fr.
Subject: 4.6 How can I re-encode a font?
See ddev.ps for an example for code that does this. You can find it
by ftp to wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/postscript/ddev.ps.
Subject: 4.7 What's the difference between a Type 1 and a Type 3 font?
The Type 1 font format is a compact way of describing a font
outline using a well-defined language that can be quickly
interpreted. The language contains operations to provide the
rasterizer with additional information about a character, known as
hints. The hints are additional information which describes how to
adjust the representation of the character to make it look good
when the font size is small compared to the device resolution. The
Type 1 font format is defined in the book ``The Adobe Type 1 Font
Format'', also known as the black book, for the colors on its
cover.
The Type 1 font format has nothing to do with TrueType, which is
another font format defined by Apple. The Type 1 font format has
been around quite a while, and is used on a wide variety of
platforms to obtain scalable fonts.
Most clone interpreters will not have Adobe's proprietary rendering
technology which interprets font hints to improve the appearance of
fonts shown at small sizes on low-resolution devices. The
exceptions (PowerPage and UltraScript) have their own hint
interpreters.
The Type 3 font format is a way of packaging up PostScript
descriptions of characters into a font, so that the PostScript
interpreter can rasterize them.
It is easier to create a Type 3 font program by hand than to create
the corresponding Type 1 font program. Type 3 font programs have
access to the entire PostScript language to do their imaging,
including the 'image' operator. They can be used for bitmapped
fonts, although that is certainly not a requirement. The Type 3
font format contains no provisions for 'hinting', and as such Type
3 font programs cannot be of as high a quality at low resolutions
as the corresponding Type 1 font program.
Both formats are scalable formats, and both can be run on any
PostScript interpreter. However, because of the requirement that a
Type 3 font program have a full PostScript interpreter around, Type
3 font programs cannot be understood by the Adobe Type Manager.
Only Type 1 font programs can.
Why bother making a font that's just made up of bitmaps? Once a
character from a font has been rendered, the bitmap will be saved
in a cache, and another instance of the same character at the same
size and orientation can be quickly drawn without recalculation.
Because of Adobe Type Manager's wide availability on a large number
of platforms (PC, Mac, and Unix), the Type 1 font format makes an
excellent cross-platform scalable font standard.
Subject: 4.8 What vendors sell fonts for PostScript printers?
PostScript font vendors are many and varied. Here is a partial
list.
Adobe Systems
sells a variety of fonts. With the huge number of third-party
Type 1 vendors, in recent years Adobe have specialized in
creating their own ``Adobe Originals'' -- high-quality fonts,
some of which are their renditions of classic faces (Adobe
Garamond) and some of their own devising (Stone, Utopia, ...).
Adobe Systems, 1585 Charleston Road, Mountain View, CA 94039.
(415) 961-4400
AGFA Compugraphic,
90 Industrial Way, Wilmington, Massachusetts 01887. (508)
658-5600.
Bear Rock Technologies
specializes in bar code fonts. 4140 Mother Lode Drive, Suite 100,
Shingle Springs California 95682.
Bitstream,
Athenaeum House, Cambridge, MA 02142. (617) 497-6222.
Casady and Greene,
22734 Portola Drive, Salinas, CA 93908. (408) 484-9228.
Ecological Linguistics,
specializes in non-Roman alphabets. Ecological Linguistics, P. O.
Box 15156, Washington D. C. 20003.
Emigre Graphics
4475 ``D'' Street / Sacramento CA 95819 (800) 944 9021 ] Over 70
faces, all PostScript Type 1 ATM compatible, including the
omnipresent Modula and infamous Template Gothic. Almost all faces
are ``must haves'' for graphic designers. Call for free catalog.
Image Club,
# 5 1902 11th St Southeast, Calgary, Alberta T2G 2G2, Canada.
(403) 262-8008.
Lanston
specializes in display faces.
Letraset
specializes in fancy kinds of script fonts, Letraset, 40
Eisenhower Drive, Paramus, New Jersey 07652. (201) 845-6100
Linguists Software
specializes in non-Roman alphabets (Farsi, Greek, Hangul, Kanji,
etc.) Linguists Software, P. O. Box 580, Edmonds, Washington
98020-0580. (206) 775-1130.
Monotype,
53 West Jackson Boulevard, Suite 504, Chicago, IL 60604.
Page Studio Graphics,
Chandler, Arizona, specialize in symbols fonts such as Mac icons,
keyboards, and others, Page Studio Graphics, 3175 North Price
Road, # 1050, Chandler, Arizona 85224. (602) 839-2763.
RightBrain Software,
Palo Alto, CA (415 326-2974) carry the Adobe Type library for the
NeXT platform. If you're working on NeXT, getting fonts in the
correct form with all the ancillary information and downloaders
and such is important. You can convert a Mac font to NeXT (PFA)
format, but the NeXT demands an AFM file as well, and many Mac/PC
font vendors omit AFM files because Mac/PC apps don't use them.
For Adobe fonts for the NeXT, save yourself a lot of hassle by
getting the fonts from RightBrain -- they often have sales.
The Font Company
TreacyFaces
URW
supplies high-quality fonts at low prices. They are also the
creators of the top of the line font creation and editing
software called Ikarus. URW, 4 Manchester Street, Nashua, New
Hampshire 03060. (603) 882-7445.
Y and Y Software
, 106 Indian Hill, Carlisle Massachusetts 10741 USA. (508)
371-3286. Sells a Font Metric Manipulation Package for DOS with
lots of interesting utilities.
Many more font vendors exist. Look in magazines and other sources.
Check the Usenet newsgroup comp.fonts. Look in U & lc, published by
ITC, for long lists of vendors.
Subject: 4.9 What are ATM fonts?
There has been a rash of misunderstanding about the nature of Type
1 fonts and what people call ATM fonts. ATM fonts are Adobe Type 1
fonts. ATM stands for Adobe Type Manager -- a utility to render
smooth characters on Macintosh and PC screens, from font outlines
(Type 1 fonts) instead of using bitmap fonts. In one sense, there's
no such thing as an ``ATM font'' -- ATM interprets Type 1 fonts, so
there's no need to create a new name. A correctly constructed Type
1 font can be interpreted by ATM.
Subject: 4.10 What are Multiple Master Fonts?
Multiple Master Fonts are an extension to the Adobe font format.
providing the ability to interpolate smoothly between several
``design axes'' from a single font. Design axes can include weight,
size, and even some whacko notions like serif to sans serif.
Adobes' first Multiple Master Font was Myriad -- a two-axis font
with WEIGHT (light to black) on one axis, and WIDTH (condensed to
expanded) along the other axis. In the case of Myriad, there are
four ``polar'' designs at the ``corners'' of the design space. The
four designs are light condensed, black condensed, light expanded,
and black expanded.
Given polar designs, you can set up a ``weight vector'' which
interpolates to any point within the design space to produce a
unique font for a specific purpose. So you can get a ``more or less
condensed, somewhat black face''.
Subject: 4.11 Do I need a Level Two printer to use Multiple Master Fonts?
No -- Multiple Master Fonts can be used on any PostScript printer.
Multiple Master Fonts need a new PostScript operator known as
makeblendedfont. The current crop of Multiple Master Fonts supply
an emulation of this operator so the printer doesn't need this
operator.
A short tutorial on Multiple Master Fonts and makeblendedfont
appears in PostScript by Example, by Henry McGilton and Mary
Campione, published by Addison-Wesley.
Subject: 4.12 What are Type 4 fonts?
Type 4 fonts are actually Type 3 fonts which contains a Type 1
font. They're stored on hard disk in a special way to save space
when they're loaded into printer RAM by findfont. Your interpreter
must have the extra PostScript operator CCrun to handle Type 4
fonts. They are usually used for Kanji (Japanese) characters.
Subject: 4.13 What are Type 5 fonts?
Type 5 fonts are actually Type 1 fonts, but stored in printer ROM
in a special compressed format. They're also known as CROM fonts
(for Compressed ROM fonts). The contents of the CharStrings entries
in Type 5 will probably be different from Type 1.
Subject: 4.14 Is there an editor for Type 1 Fonts?
Fontographer for the Macintosh is available from Altsys
Corporation, 269 West Renner Road, Richardson, Texas 75080 USA.
(214) 680-2060.
Ikarus-M is availble for the Macintosh from URW, Harksheider
Strasse 102, 2000 Hamburg 65, GERMANY. (040) 60 60 50 Or URW
Software and Type, 4 Manchester Street, Nashua, New Hampshire
03060. (800) 229-8791 in USA. (603) 882-7445 otherwise.
Acknowledgments
This FAQ was compiled based heavily on the contributions of and
with the help of Henry McGilton, Dick Dunn, Howard Gayle, Carl
Orthlieb, Ed Garay, Robert Lerche, Bruno Hall, Tom Epperly, and
Chris Lewis.
Also thanks to contributors Paul Balyoz, Karl Berry, Jerry Black,
Charles Cashion, Jim DeLaHunt, Leonard Hamey, Chris Herborth, Steve
Kinzler, Bill Lee, Timo Lehtinen, Carl Lydick, Otto Makela, Bill
Pringle, Tony Valsamidis, and Jamie Zawinski.
Special thanks to Ken Porter, who originally compiled and organized
this FAQ.
Ver Date Reason
----------------------------------------------------------------
1.00 12-18-90 Creation by Ken Porter
1.06 5-29-91 expanded on EPS explanation, general updates
2.00 10-25-92 Brought up to date and expanded, by Jon Monsarrat
2.1 5-21-93 Revised because of new comp.sources.postscript group.
This FAQ is copyright (C) 1993 by Jonathan Monsarrat. Permission is
granted to freely edit and distribute as long as this copyright
notice is included.
This document was written with the LaTeX language and formatted by
LameTeX, the PostScript hacker's LaTeX.
%! Jon Monsarrat
[email protected] moderator, comp.sources.postscript %!
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/y 3/z 5 3{R M mod 1 eq a}S x Q M y Q moveto 57 sub{3{y Q M x Q M 6 2 roll}S
curveto}S z{fill}{stroke}ifelse}S showpage
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Subject: PostScript monthly FAQ v2.1 05-21-93 [05-06 of 11]
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Summary: Useful facts about the PostScript graphics programming language
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Version: 2.1
-- PostScript --
Answers to Questions
(the comp.lang.postscript FAQ v2.1)
Jon Monsarrat
[email protected]
This FAQ is formatted as a digest.
Most news readers can skip from one question
to the next by pressing control-G.
Changes since the last version are marked with a '|' in the table
of contents and in the sections in the text-only format of the FAQ.
Please help fix the FAQ! All comments should be mailed to
[email protected]. My favorite way to receive a change suggestion is
when it is accompanied by a section of the FAQ that is edited and
mailed to me verbatim as an example. If you would like to
contribute, please read the section ``about the FAQ'' first. Thank
you!
Books and programs are referred to by name only. See the book
sections for book information, and the comp.sources.postscript FAQ
for a full list of all PostScript related programs. I have
archived a number of the small utilities in
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/postscript. You can get the
comp.sources.postscript FAQ from
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/comp.sources.postscript.
Subject: 5 Books
There are many good books on PostScript language programming.
Descriptions of all known books are listed below. A listing of
publisher information follows.
The most commonly known books are the ``blue book'', ``big red
book'', and ``green book'' from Adobe, to be read in that order.
They are nicknamed according for their jacket colors.
Other books recommended to me include Thinking in PostScript,
which allows its examples to be freely distributed, and PostScript
by Example.
Subject: 5.1 Books
Adobe Accurate Screens
explains in detail all the issues and specifically covers Adobe
Accurate Screens -- Adobes' own screening technology. Peter Fink
is an expert on the subject of halftone screens as they relate to
color issues.
Author: Peter Fink
Publisher: Adobe Press, 1992.
ISBN 0-672-48544-3
Library Call # ???
Adobe Illustrator - The Expert Advisor Series
Author: Diane Burns, S. Venit, David Smith
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1989
ISBN: 0-201-14397-6
Cost: $ 22.95
Adobe Illustrator 3 Complete
Author: Sharyn Venit
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1991
ISBN: 0-201-57756-9
Cost: $ 24.95
Adobe Illustrator 3.0 - The Official Handbook for Designers
Author: Frederic Davis, Tony Bove, Cheryl Rhodes
Publisher: Bantam Books, 1991
ISBN: 0-553-35385-3
Cost: $ 26.95
The Adobe Illustrator 3.2 Designer's Guide
Author: David Holzgang
Publisher: Sybex, Inc., 1992
ISBN: 0-7821-1002-9
Cost: $ 24.95
Adobe Type 1 Font Format, ``the black book''
This is the specification for the Type 1 font format. Type 1
fonts are the standard outline format found in Adobe PostScript
printers, implementations of the Display PostScript system, and
available as downloadable fonts from the Adobe Type Library. This
document describes the syntax of the Adobe Type 1 font format,
including complete information regarding hints, encoding of
character outlines, and the charstring and eexec encryption
algorithms.
Author: Adobe Systems Inc
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1990.
ISBN: 0-201-57044-0
Build Your Own PostScript Laser Printer & Save a Bundle
Author: Horace LaBadie Publisher: T A B Books, 1991
ISBN: 0-8306-3738-9
Cost: $ 16.95
Creating Special Effects on the Macintosh
Author: David Holzgang
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1992
ISBN 0-201-57779-8
Design Essentials with Adobe Illustrator & Adobe Photoshop
Author: Adobe Press Staff
Publisher: Hayden, 1992.
ISBN: 0-672-48538-9
Cost: $ 39.95
Design Techniques with Adobe Illustrator
Author: Linda Miles, Betty Wilson
Publisher: Sams, 1992
ISBN: 0-672-30205-5 Cost: $ 39.95
Display PostScript Programming
Author: David A. Holzgang
Publisher: Addison Wesley, 1990
ISBN: 0-201-51814-7
Cost: $ 24.95
Encapsulated PostScript: Application Guide for the Macintosh and
the PC
has its focus is EPS. However, it is an excellent book full of
actual real life PostScript and Encapsulated PostScript
applications on Macs, PCs, Unix, IBM mainframe, and other
computer systems.
Author: Peter Vollenweider
Publisher: Prentice Hall 1990
ISBN: 0-13-275-843-1
Cost: $ 34.67
Graphic Design With PostScript
Author: Gerard Kunkel
Publisher: Scott, Foresman and Company, 1990
ISBN 0-673-38794-1
Library Call # Z286.D47K87
Halftoning with Adobe Accurate Screens
Author: Peter Fink
Publisher: Hayden, 1992
Cost: $ 29.95
Hands On PostScript
This is an introduction to PostScript for the novice or casual
user. PostScript programming principles are introduced in the
context of useful projects (e.g. greeting cards, letterhead,
multi-page posters). The book includes five PostScript driver
projects in Basic, Pascal, and C. A 3.5" DOS formatted diskette
is included with all the source code. It does not cover
PostScript level 2.
Author: Michael Spring and David Dubin
Publisher: Hayden Books, 1992
ISBN 0-672-30185-7
Library Call # 92-71207 Cost: $ 29.95.
Inside the Apple LaserWriter
Author: Roger Hart
Publisher: Scott, Foresman, 1989
ISBN 0-673-38064-5
Library Call # : TK7887.7.H38
Inside PostScript
essentially takes one on a tour of the standard internal
PostScript code in most printers. The author has worked
extensively with an interpreter. (in PostScript terms, no
low-level hardware stuff here like cexec and internaldict).
Author: Frank Merritt Braswell
Publisher: Systems of Merritt & Peachpit Press 1989
ISBN 0-938151-10-X
Library Call # QA76.73.P67 B73 1989
Cost: about $ 40.
Laserwriter Reference
Author: Apple Computer
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1988
ISBN: 0-201-19258-6
Cost: $ 19.95
Learning PostScript, A Visual Approach
is a tutorial on the PostScript language. It is very appealing,
very easy to follow and filled with examples. Each example
occupies two pages. A brief explanation and source code is on the
left page, and the resultant print-out is on the facing right
page. The book starts off very simply for beginners, and covers a
lot of material at the end for experts. It was written before
level 2 PostScript.
In the later half of the book, a few examples can executed only
if an additional disk is purchased.
The code for LPAVA is $ 20 from Smith Consultants, 834 Third St.,
Suite B, Santa Rosa, CA 95404, U.S.A. fax number: 415-524-9775
Author: Ross Smith
Publisher: Peachpit Press, 1990 ISBN 0-938151-12-6
Library Call # QA76.73.P67S55
Cost: $ 22.95
Linotronic Imaging Handbook
Author: James Cavuoto, Stephen Beale
Publisher: Micro Publishing Press, 1990
ISBN 0-941845-06-0
Cost: $ 27.95
Mastering Adobe Illustrator
???
Author: David A. Holzgang Publisher: Addison Wesley, 1988 ISBN
???
Library Call # ???
Mastering Adobe Illustrator 88
Author: Deke McClelland and Craig Danuloff
Publisher: Publishing Resources Inc.-Dow Jones Irwin 1988
ISBN: 1-55623-157-1
Cost: $ 27.95
Official Adobe Photoshop Handbook
Author: David Biedny
Publisher: Bantam Books, 1991
ISBN: 0-553-34876-0
Cost: $ 27.95
PostScript by Example
is a tutorial for PostScript people at all levels. It covers
level 2 PostScript. The book starts at novice level and works
through to Level Two composite fonts, patterns, forms, color,
halftones, Display PostScript rectangle operators and text
operators. It contains a chapter on practical issues of
downloading fonts, talking to printers, and error handling. 640
pages containing over 500 fragments of PostScript code and over
750 illustrations. A long-awaited ``upgrade'' to the Blue Book.
Henry McGilton can be reached by email as
[email protected].
Mary Campione can be reached by email as
[email protected].
A disk containing 13,000 lines of PostScript code from the book
can be ordered separately for $ 20 from: Trilithon Software, Two
Ohlone, Portola Valley, CA 94028, U.S.A.
Or, send email to
[email protected].
Authors: Henry McGilton and Mary Campione
Publisher: Addison Wesley, 1992.
ISBN 0-201-63228-4
Library Call # QA76.73.P67M34
A PostScript Cookbook
Author: Barry Thomas
Publisher: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1989.
ISBN: 0-442-23686-7
Cost: $ 9.98
Programming the Display PostScript System with Next Step
Author: Adobe Systems Inc.
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1991
ISBN: 0-201-58135-3
Cost: $ 26.95
Programming the Display PostScript System with X
is written specifically for developers using the X Window System.
It is intended to help X application developers improve quality,
optimize performance, and minimize development cost. Featuring a
Programming Guide with advice on how to write robust, efficient
Display PostScript applications, the book also contains a new
Toolkit manual and the standard Display PostScript reference
manuals.
Author: Adobe Systems Inc.
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Cost: $ 26.95
PostScript Font Handbook - A Directory of Type 1 Fonts
Author: Jonathan Grosvenor
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1992.
ISBN: 0-201-56893-4
Cost: $ 24.95
PostScript fuer Workstations
Dieses Buch ist in Deutsche geschrieben. Es beschreibt PostScript
fuer Workstations, mit Display PostScript, PostScript 2, und
Farben.
This book is written in German. It describes using PostScript on
workstations. It covers Display PostScript, PostScript Level 2,
and colors.
Author: Peter Vollenweider (
[email protected])
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1992.
ISBN 3-89319-459-2
PostScript Language Program Design, ``the green book''
is intended to teach the fundamentals of designing PostScript
language programs and to show how the language works, so the your
programs will be fast, well-behaved, easy to understand, and
portable.
Code Examples: $ 15 from the developer support hotline. Free from
the Adobe mail server (see Section 6, ``About Adobe'').
Author: Glenn Reid, Adobe Systems
Publisher: Addison Wesley 1988
ISBN 0-201-14396-8
Library Call # QA76.73.P67R45 1988
Cost: $ 22.95
PostScript Language Reference Manual (2nd ed), ``the big red book''
is the book that defines the PostScript language. The second
edition not only defines Level 1 PostScript, but also encompasses
the color, composite font, file system, and DPS extensions and
the PostScript language Level 2.
Author: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Publisher: Addison Wesley 1985, 1990
ISBN 0-201-18127-4
Library Call # QA76.73.P67P67 1990
Cost: $ 28.95
PostScript Language Reference Manual (1st ed), ``the old red book''
is the first edition of the reference manual. It describes
PostScript level 1 only. It is a subset of the PostScript level 2
book, but is still more common and costs less.
Author: Adobe Systems Inc.
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1985.
ISBN 0-201-10174-2
Library Call # ???
PostScript Language Tutorial and Cookbook, ``the blue book''
is the most common tutorial book on PostScript. It provides an
easy, informal introduction to the PostScript language and
graphics primitives. The cookbook is a collection of programs
that are offered as examples of PostScript usage. These samples
have been chosen both as illustrations of the functional range of
PostScript and as useful ingredients for inclusion in application
packages.
Code Examples: $ 15 from the developer support hotline. Free from
the Adobe mail server (see Section 6, ``About Adobe'').
Author: Adobe Systems Incorporated
Publisher: Addison Wesley 1985, 1990
ISBN 0-201-10179-3
Library Call # : QA76.73.P67P67 1985
Cost: $ 16.75
PostSCript Programmer's Reference Guide
is an authoritative guidance for programmers, developers, or
anyone who wants to get the most out of PostScript. It offers
clear instructions, a complete language reference section, and a
cookbook of hands-on sample routines. (avail for $ 20 extra on
disk) ... It includes complete information on PhoenixPage/PS,
Phoenix Technologies' fully PostScript-compatible language.
Author: David Holzgang
Publisher: Scott, Foresman & Co
ISBN 0-673-38574-4
Library Call # QA76.73.P67H64
Cost: $ 24.95
Programming the Display PostScript System with NeXTstep, ``The
Purple Book''
is written for the NeXT programming environment; however, much of
the information it contains applies to all Display PostScript
developers. The book explains the language extensions commonly
used within applications, describes many of the key aspects of
the PostScript language imaging model, and provides a framework
for creating Display PostScript language applications.
Author: Adobe Systems, Inc (principal author: Ken Fromm)
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
ISBN 0-201-58135-3
Library Call # QA76.73.P67P76
Cost: $ 26.95
Programming the LaserWriter
Author: David Holzgang
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1991
ISBN: 0-201-57068-8
Library Call # TK7887.7.H65
Cost: $ 24.95
Rapid Reference Guide To System 7, The Laserwriter Family,
Hypercard
Author: Michael Fraase
Publisher: DOWI, 1992
ISBN: 1556239025
Cost: $ 24.95
Real World PostScript: Techniques from PostScript professionals -
``The Orange Book''
is a collection of articles dealing with ``real world''
PostScript language issues and specific applications such as font
creation, color separation, kerning, halftoning, various other
topics.
It contains a text formatter written in PostScript, and
concentrates on doing very sophisticated things with fonts and
dictionaries.
Short overview of chapters:
PostScript As A Design Tool; PostScript As A Programming
Language; Writing Device Independent PostScript; Kerning,
Tracking And Letterspacing, Precise Character Bounding Boxes;
Building Fonts; Building Smart Fonts; Font Encoding Vector
Compatibility; Building A PostScript Typeface; PostScript Color
Operations; PostScript Color Separations; A Spread From Graphic
Perspective; A PostScript Four-Color Poster; Graphing And
Typesetting With PostScript; The Evolution Of A Complex Geometric
Logo
Author: Stephen F. Roth, editor.
Publisher: Addison Wesley, 1988.
ISBN: 0-201-06663-7
Library Call # Z286.D47R4 1988
Cost: $ 22.95
Running PostScript from MS-DOS, 5.1
provides a good and brief introduction to PostScript and has lots
of useful information on printing PostScript from PCs.
Author: Gary Glover
Publisher: T A B Books, 1989.
ISBN: 0-8306-0135-X
Library Call # : QA76.73.P67G56
Cost: $ 24.95
Taking Advantage of PostScript
is very graphically and visually oriented and includes a section
on PostScript Level 2.
Author: John F. Sherman
Publisher: Wm. C. Brown Publishers, 1991.
ISBN: 0-697-14032-6
Thinking in PostScript
is a guide to developing programming techniques and to learning
how to use the PostScript tool kit. In this book you can find
some useful techniques even if you think of yourself as an expert
PS programmer. It overlaps very little with existing material.
You can find there numerous practical examples in all areas of PS
language programming, including the Display PS system. In this
volume you will also find: (a) never-before-published information
on the PS language (b) useful algorithms for loops, conditionals,
and I/O (c) detailed coverage of files, strings, and dictionaries
(d) simple and elegant programming techniques
The books comes recommended by many. There are also exercises
after each Chapter with the results at the end of the book. You
can really find examples how to define new useful operators or
procedures which you cannot find in the Adobe books.
To get the examples from the book for free, send email to the
author,
[email protected].
Author: Glenn C. Reid
Publisher: Addison-Wesley, 1989
ISBN 0-201-52372-8
Library Call # : QA76.73.P67R46 Cost: $ 22.95
Understanding PostScript, 3rd edition
Author: David A. Holzgang
Publisher: Sybex, 1992
ISBN: 0-7821-1059-2
Cost: $ 29.95
Understanding PostScript Programming, Second Edition
???
Author: David Holzgang
Publisher: Sybex, 1988.
ISBN 0-89588-566-2
Library Call # : ???
The Verbum Book of PostScript Illustration
Authors: Michael Gosney, Janet Ashford, and Linnea Dayton
Publisher: M & T Books, 1990.
ISBN 1-55851-089-3
Library Call # : QA76.73.P67G57
Cost: $ 29.95
Subject: 5.2 Publishers
Most of the above books should be available in any big bookstore
that has a computer section. Or contact the publishers:
Addison-Wesley,
Retail Sales Group, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc., One
Jacob Way, Reading, MA 01867, U.S.A. Phone 800-447-2226 or
617-944-3700, Fax 617-942-1117.
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company,
2200 Powell Street, Emeryville, California 94608 U.S.A. Phone
(510) 601-4000
Adobe Press
???
Bantam Computer Books
New York, NY, U.S.A.
Wm. C. Brown, Publishers
Dubuque, IA, U.S.A.
Hayden Books,
11711 N. College Ave., Carmel, IN 46032.
Micro Publishing Press
21150 Hawthorne Boulevard, Suite 104, Torrance, California 90503
U.S.A.
Peachpit Press,
1085 Keith Ave., Berkeley, CA 94708, U.S.A. 800-283-9444, or
415-527-8555.
Prentice Hall
Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 07632
Scott, Foresman and Company
1900 East Lake Avenue, Glenview, IL 60025
Publishing Resources Inc.-Dow Jones Irwin
???
Sams
Carmel, IN, U.S.A.
Sybex
2021 Challenger Drive, # 100, Alameda, California 94501.
T A B Books
Blue Ridge Summit, PA, U.S.A.
Windcrest Books
Blue Ridge Summit, Pennsylvania 17294-0850
Van Nostrand Reinhold
New York, NY, U.S.A.
You can purchase the red, blue, green, and black books from Adobe
Systems by calling 800-83-FONTS.
Subject: 6 About Adobe
PostScript was created by Adobe Systems Incorporated, which offers
information and sells programs pertaining to PostScript.
Currently the only large PostScript company that I have information
on is Adobe. I would be happy to include information about others.
Subject: 6.1 How do I get in touch with Adobe?
Adobe Systems Incorporated Main phone: +1-415-961-4400
1585 Charleston Road Main FAX: +1-415-961-3769
P.O. Box 7900
Mountain View, CA 94039-7900
If you want technical help using Adobe retail products (e.g. ATM,
Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Fonts): Adobe forum on CompuServe, call
1-408-986-6500 (for Macintosh) or 1-408-986-6530 (for Windows,
Unix) Also use this number to report bugs in retail products. Adobe
also has an automated tech support line, which will fax technical
notes and product literature to you, and attempt to answer common
questions via a menu-driven system. That number is 1-800-235-0078.
For sales information on Adobe retail products (prices, catalogues,
etc.), call +1-800-235-0078 (fax-back brochures) or +1-800-833-6687
(applications sales)
The Developer's Hotline is +1-415-961-4111 (Voicemail) (note:
members have priority, but they'll take questions from general
public.) Also use this number for information about the ADA or
Adobe SDK's.
To suggest product enhancements, write or fax to ``Product Manger,
product name' at address above.
In Europe: Adobe Systems BV, Europlaza, Hoogoorddreef 51a, 1101 BE
Amsterdam Z-O, NETHERLANDS. TEL +31-20-65-11-200. FAX
+31-20-65-11-300.
In the eastern United States: Adobe Sys. Inc., 24 New England
Executive Park, Burlington MA 01803. TEL +1-617-273-2120. FAX
+1-617-273-2336.
In Japan: Adobe Systems Japan, Swiss Bank House, 4-1-8 Toranomon,
Minato ku, Tokyo 105 JAPAN. TEL +81-3-3437-8950. FAX
+81-3-3437-8968.
Subject: 6.2 What can Adobe do for me?
Adobe is just one of many companies producing products for
PostScript, but it does produce a lot of the best.
Adobe offers two resources for software developers.
1. Membership in the Adobe Developers Association (ADA) ( $
195/year)
2. PostScript Language Software Development Kit (SDK) ( $ 500, $ 250
for ADA)
The Developer's Association is Adobe's way of knowing who has a
serious interest in technical information. Membership includes
monthly technical newsletter, phone technical support, discounts on
software and hardware. Membership is $ 195/year for each
individual.
The PostScript Language Software Development Kits collect all
Adobe's technical literature for a given platform into a single
package. There are four versions, for the Mac, MS-DOS/Windows,
NeXTStep, and X/Windows. Each SDK is $ 500 list, $ 250 for ADA
members.
A selection of technical documents is available from Adobe's file
server, including the aforementioned EPS specification. Programs
are also available, including level 1 emulations for the level 2
color operators. For more information on this, send the one-word
message ``help'' to
[email protected]. Or you can ftp to
ftp.adobe.com. These documents are also available by mail; call the
Developers Line and ask for the documents catalog.
The ps-file-server contains some specs, tech notes, sample
programs, plus a large collection of AFM files and PPD files. Send
a message containing ``help'' to
[email protected] for more
information. You can get these files for free with email.
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,comp.answers,news.answers
Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!brunix!doorknob!jgm
From:
[email protected] (Jonathan Monsarrat)
Subject: PostScript monthly FAQ v2.1 05-21-93 [07-10 of 11]
Message-ID: <
[email protected]>
Followup-To: poster
Summary: Useful facts about the PostScript graphics programming language
Sender:
[email protected]
Supersedes: <
[email protected]>
Reply-To:
[email protected] (PostScript FAQ comments address)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1993 14:49:49 GMT
Approved:
[email protected]
Expires: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 00:00:00 GMT
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Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.lang.postscript:20984 comp.answers:2225 news.answers:13376
Archive-name: postscript/faq/part7-10
Last-modified: 1993/05/21
Version: 2.1
-- PostScript --
Answers to Questions
(the comp.lang.postscript FAQ v2.1)
Jon Monsarrat
[email protected]
This FAQ is formatted as a digest.
Most news readers can skip from one question
to the next by pressing control-G.
Changes since the last version are marked with a '|' in the table
of contents and in the sections in the text-only format of the FAQ.
Now that there is Linux and BSD 386 UNIX IBM PC (and clone) users
can run any of the X-windows and UNIX programs in the utilities
section. See comp.os.linux. Also, there is now GhostScript for the
Macintosh.
Section 12, Utilities, will be posted in comp.sources.postscript
along with the global index from now on.
Please help fix the FAQ! All comments should be mailed to
[email protected]. My favorite way to receive a change suggestion is
when it is accompanied by a section of the FAQ that is edited and
mailed to me verbatim as an example. If you would like to
contribute, please read the section ``about the FAQ'' first. Thank
you!
Books and programs are referred to by name only. See the book
sections for book information, and the comp.sources.postscript FAQ
for a full list of all PostScript related programs. I have
archived a number of the small utilities in
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/postscript. You can get the
comp.sources.postscript FAQ from
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/comp.sources.postscript.
Subject: 7 Programming in PostScript
Subject: 7.1 What is PostScript level 2?
(See the Section 11, ``About PostScript 2''.)
Subject: 7.2 Should I learn level 2 PostScript?
Yes, because Level Two will soon become the standard. Application
developers using PostScript need to become aware of the new
capabilities and how to take advantage of them.
There are many good books on PostScript 2. (See Section 5,
``Books''.)
Subject: 7.3 Where can I find examples of PostScript code?
Many other books on PostScript make example PostScript code
available. ``Thinking in PostScript'', by Glenn Reid, is the only
book I know of that allows its examples to be freely distributed.
(See Section 5, ``Books''.)
All the examples in ``the blue book'' are available from the Adobe
file server (See Section 5, ``Books''.)
See the question ``How can I browse through PostScript programs?''
in the comp.sources.postscript FAQ.
Subject: 7.4 How do I get the physical size of a page?
The initial clipping path gives you the size of the imagable area.
Use ``clippath pathbbox'' to get these coordinates. If you must
know the size of the device's imageable area, use the sequence
``gsave initclip clippath pathbbox grestore'', but this will
prevent an enclosing application from using the clippath to achieve
some special effects (such as multiple pages per page).
Subject: 7.5 Why can't I do a pathforall after a charpath ?
(See Section 4, ``Fonts'', question ``Why are Adobe fonts
hidden?''.)
Subject: 7.6 How do I center a string of text around a point?
Level 1 PostScript has two operators that can extract information
about the metrics of characters: ``stringwidth'' and ``charpath''.
The ``stringwidth'' operator returns the advance width of its
string operand. This is the distance the current point would be
moved by a ``show'' operation on the same string. ``stringwidth''
returns two numbers on the stack, representing the x and y
components of the advance width. Usually the y component is zero
because most fonts are displayed along a horizontal line, moving
the current point only in the x direction.
Also note that the ``stringwidth'' usually does not give an exact
measure of the area of the page that will be touched by its
operand. The letters can either project a little over the
boundaries or fall a little within (leaving a touch of whitespace).
If all that an application requires is horizontal centering of a
long string of text, the result returned by ``stringwidth'' is
sufficient. A common technique is
x y moveto
(string) dup stringwidth pop 2 div neg 0 rmoveto show
(This code makes the assumption that the y component of advance
width is irrelevant.)
The ``charpath'' operator extracts the graphic shapes of its string
operand and appends them to the current path in the graphic state.
These shapes can then be processed by other PostScript operators.
To get the actual size of the area touched by a character a simple
approach is
gsave
newpath
0 0 moveto
(X) false charpath flattenpath pathbbox
grestore
This code places four numbers on the stack, representing the
coordinates of the lower left and upper right corners of the
bounding box enclosing the character ``X'' rendered with the
current point at (0,0). Leaving the flattenpath out will cause it
to be less accurate, but it will take up less memory and be faster.
There are two things to be careful about when using the code shown
above:
1. There are severe limits on the size of the string operand,
related to the limit on the number of elements in a graphic path.
The PostScript Language Reference Manual recommends taking
``charpath''s one character at a time.
2. If user space is rotated or skewed with respect to device space,
the result from ``pathbbox'' may be larger than expected;
``pathbbox'' returns a rectangle oriented along the user space
coordinate axes, which fully encloses a (possibly smaller)
rectangle oriented along the coordinate axes of device space. If
user space is rotated at an integer multiple of 90 degrees these
two rectangles will be the same, otherwise the rectangle in user
space will be larger.
So, to center text vertically one must get the bounding boxes of
all the characters in the string to be displayed, find the minimum
and maximum y coordinate values, and use half the distance between
them to displace the text vertically. This still may not do a very
good job, since this provides centering based on extrema, not on
the optical center of the string (which is more related to a sort
of ``center of mass'' of the text).
If an application does this repeatedly, it would be wise to store
the bounding boxes in an array indexed by character code, since
``charpath'' is a slow operation.
Font metric information is available outside of a PostScript
printer in font metrics files, available from the font vendor. A
program generating PostScript output can obtain metrics from these
files rather than extracting the metrics in the printer.
Subject: 7.7 How can I concatenate two strings together?
%% string1 string2 append string
% Function: Concatenates two strings together.
/append {
2 copy length exch length add % find the length of the new.
string dup % string1 string2 string string
4 2 roll % string string string1 string2
2 index 0 3 index
% string string string1 string2 string 0 string1
putinterval % stuff the first string in.
% string string string1 string2
exch length exch putinterval
} bind def
Subject: 7.8 What do I do when I get stack overflow/underflow?
These errors are among the most common in PostScript.
When I get a stack overflow, that is usually a sign that a routine
is leaving an object on the stack. If this routine gets called 2000
times, it leaves 2000 objects on the stack, which is too many.
When I get a stack underflow, that is a sign that either: (A) one
of the routines in the program doesn't work, and never has or (B)
one of the routines in the program works, but expects to be called
with some arguments left on the stack.
There is no such thing as a PostScript debugger right now. For now,
the best that you can do to debug your program is to put in lots of
print statements. Learn to use the PostScript pstack command, and
use an online interpreter so you don't have to run to the printer
for each debugging cycle.
Use an error handler to learn more about what exactly is happening
when your program crashes. (see the comp.sources.postscript FAQ for
a list of all PostScript related programs.)
If your code has never worked yet (i.e. you are still writing it)
then I find that it helps to put little comments in the margin
about the state of the stack. Like this:
Heart pathbbox % lowerx lowery upperx uppery
exch 4 -1 roll % lowery uppery upperx lowerx
I generally put these comments in originally, and then take them
out when the program works. Maybe this is a bad practice, in case I
ever want to go back and look at the code to modify it!!
Subject: 7.9 How can I print in landscape mode?
Landscape (the opposite of portrait) means that the page is turned
on its side. You can redefine showpage in terms of the current
definition of showpage.
Do something like:
/oldshowpage /showpage load def
90 rotate llx neg ury neg translate % for the first page
/showpage
{
oldshowpage
90 rotate llx neg ury neg translate
} def
This won't work if the PostScript file you're editing uses
initgraphics or grestoreall.
Subject: 8 Computer-specific PostScript
This section describes PostScript information specific to a
particular type of computer or operating system.
Subject: 8.1 Sun Workstations
What is NeWS?
NeWS is Sun Microsystems PostScript-based window system for the Sun
Workstation. NeWS was a project within Sun (started around 1985) to
create a window system to supplant SunView (a very successful
kernel-based window system). NeWS is a client-server model window
system (like X) but among many of NeWS novel features was the use
of PostScript as the language to describe the appearance of objects
on the screen. NeWS has many features in common with Display
PostScript, but NeWS predates Adobe Display PostScript and was
neither connected with Adobe Display PostScript nor endorsed by
Adobe. NeWS is not an Adobe product, nor is it a Sun/Adobe joint
venture.
As of October 1992, Sun management signed a deal with Adobe to
adopt Display PostScript for the Sun. The future of NeWS is still
undecided (but it looks bad).
And how does PostScript run on them?
PostScript runs on NeWS, although NeWS is not a fully-compliant
PostScript interpreter. There were incompatibilities between the
NeWS PostScript interpreter and ``official'' PostScript
interpreters as defined by Adobe and the Apple LaserWriter family
of printers, such that many PostScript files which would print fine
on a LaserWriter would not render under NeWS. The most critical
incompatibility was the lack of support for Adobe Type 1 fonts, Sun
having gone with their own font format known as F3.
Subject: 8.2 IBM PC
You can find nenscript for OS/2 1.x--2.0 and MSDOS on
ftp-os2.nmsu.edu in pub/uploads/nensc113.zip.
There are rumors that Word Perfect and Microsoft Word don't produce
``clean'' PostScript that follows the DSC conventions (See Section
9, ``Encapsulated PostScript''). This means that a lot of
PostScript utilities like Ghostview and psnup, etc., that require
the DSC conventions, will not work on them.
Creating a PostScript file from MS Word
Install the LaserWriter driver that comes with Windows.In the
printer setup, select a PostScript printer. Then click on the setup
button to get that pop-up. Then clik the Options button. Then
select the print to Encapsulated PostScript File. If you don't
specify a file name, Word will prompt you for one when you tell it
to print.
When printing Microsoft Windows files that have been captured on a
PC's LPT port, you mostly need to define two ctrl-d's in a row as
well to remove all of them in the document:
(\004\004) cvn {} def
Subject: 8.3 Apple Macintosh
For more details about printing with the Macintosh, read the
comp.sys.mac.apps FAQ.
How can I convert a PostScript file created with a UNIX program to
the Mac?
A way that is clumsy, but works, is this:
1. Display the UNIX-based PostScript file on screen
2. Use window dumping facility to get a bitmap file
3. Convert the above bitmap file to TIFF format and then export it
to Adobe Illustrator on the Mac.
The PostScript section of the FAQ for the Macintosh newsgroup
comp.sys.mac.app (maintained by Elliotte Harold) answers the
following questions:
* How do I make a PostScript file?
* How do I print a PostScript file?
* Why won't my PostScript file print on my mainframe's printer?
Full documentation of this process provided with a utility called
macps.
* Why are my PostScript files so big?
Subject: 9 Encapsulated PostScript
Subject: 9.1 What is Encapsulated PostScript?
Encapsulated PostScript (EPS) is a standard format for importing
and exporting PostScript language files in all environments. It is
usually a single page PostScript language program that describes an
illustration. The purpose of the EPS file is to be included as an
illustration in other PostScript language page descriptions. The
EPS file can contain any combination of text, graphics, and images.
An EPS file is the same as any other PostScript language page
description, with some restrictions.
EPS files can optionally contain a bitmapped image preview, so that
systems that can't render PostScript directly can at least display
a crude representation of what the graphic will look like. There
are three preview formats: Mac (PICT), IBM (tiff), and a platform
independent preview called EPSI.
An EPS file must be a conforming file, that is, it must conform to
the Adobe Document Structuring Conventions (DSC). At a minimum, it
must include a header comment,%!PS-Adobe-3.0 EPSF-3.0, and a
bounding box comment,%%BoundingBox: llx lly urx ury, that
describes the bounds of the illustration.
(The specification does not require the EPSF version, but many
programs will reject a file that does not have it.)
The EPS program must not use operators that initialize or
permanently change the state of the machine in a manner that cannot
be undone by the enclosing application's use of save and restore
(eg. the operators starting with ``init'' like initgraphics). As a
special case, the EPS program may use the showpage operator. The
importing application is responsible for disabling the normal
effects of showpage.
The EPS program should make no environment-sensitive decisions (the
importing application may be trying to attain some special effect,
and the EPS program shouldn't screw this up), although it can use
some device-dependent tricks to improve appearance such as a
snap-to-pixel algorithm.
The complete EPS specification is available from Adobe (see the
section on Adobe). Read Appendix G (Document Structuring
Conventions, V3.0) and Appendix H (Encapsulated PostScript File
Format, V3.0) in the new PostScript red book: PostScript Language
Reference Manual, Second Edition.
An optional component of an EPS file is a ``preview'' image of the
file's content. The preview image is a bitmapped representation of
the image which may be displayed by programs using the EPS file
without having to actually interpret the PostScript code.
The recommended form for a preview image is ``Interchange'' format
and is described fully in the ``red book'', second edition.
Interchange format represents the image as a series of hex strings
placed in the EPS file as PostScript comments. The entire file
remains an ASCII file.
That book contains all of the information that you need to fix your
program to correctly output EPS. It is what I use for our software.
A variation of EPS embeds the preview image and PostScript text in
a binary file which contains a header and the preview image in
either a TIFF or MetaFile format. The header defines where in the
file each section (EPS, TIFF, or MetaFile) starts and ends. On the
Macintosh, the preview is stored as a PICT in the file's resource
fork.
Subject: 9.2 What are EPSI and EPSF?
EPSI is EPS with a device independent bitmap preview. EPSI is an
all ASCII (no binary data or headers) version of EPS. EPSI provides
for a hexadecimal encoded preview representation of the image that
will be displayed or printed.
EPSF is a version of EPS with a TIFF preview instead of a bitmap
preview.
Subject: 9.3 How do I convert PostScript to EPS?
Use pstoepsi, or do it by hand.
To convert from PostScript to EPS, one must guarantee that the
PostScript file meets the above requirements. If the actual program
conforms to the programming requirements, then one can simply add
the required comments at the top of the file saying that the file
is EPS and giving its BoundingBox dimensions.
Optional comments include font usage (%%DocumentFonts: or%%
DocumentNeededResources: font), EPSI preview comments (%%
Begin(End)Preview:) extensions (%%Extensions:) and language
level (%%LanguageLevel:).
There are some operators that should not be used within an EPS
file:
banddevice cleardictstack copypage erasepage
exitserver framedevice grestoreall initclip
initgraphics initmatrix quit renderbands
setglobal setpagedevice setshared startjob
These also include operators from statusdict and userdict operators
like legal, letter, a4, b5, etc.
There are some operators that should be carefully used:
nulldevice setgstate sethalftone setmatrix
setscreen settransfer undefinefont
To convert a PostScript file to EPS format, you must edit the file
using a text editor or word processor to add lines that will define
the file as an EPS-format file.
1. Using your normal method of printing, print the PostScript file
to a PostScript printer. You can choose to view it on the screen
instead, but keep in mind that all the below distance
measurements assume that you are printing on a normal-sized piece
of paper.
NOTE: If the PostScript image does not get displayed properly, it
probably will not work either once you have converted it to EPS
format. Correct the PostScript program so that it works before
you convert it to EPS format.
2. Use a tool (see below) to find the bounding box, which shows how
much space the PostScript image occupies when printed. You
specify the dimensions of the bounding box when you convert the
PostScript file to EPS format.
3. If you don't have a bounding box tool, you can just use a ruler
and draw one on your printout. With two horizontal lines and two
vertical lines, draw a box around the image that includes the
entire image while minimizing white space.
This box represents your bounding box. You may want to leave a
small amount of white space around the image as a precautionary
measure against minor printing problems, such as paper stretching
and paper skewing.
4. Measure distance ``a'' from the lower-left corner of the image to
the left edge of the paper.
5. Write the measurement in points. If your ruler does not show
points, calculate the total number of points: 1 inch = 72 points,
1 cm = 28.3 points, and 1 pica = 12 points. Designate this
measurement as ``measurement a.''
6. Measure distance ``b'' from the lower-left corner of the image to
the bottom edge of the paper.
Designate this measurement in points as ``measurement b.''
7. Measure distance ``c'' from the upper-right corner of the image
to the left edge of the paper.
Designate this measurement in points as ``measurement c.''
8. Measure distance ``d' from the upper-right corner of the image to
the bottom edge of the paper.
Designate this measurement in points as ``measurement d.''
9. Using any text editor, open the PostScript file for editing.
You'll see several lines of text. These lines are the PostScript
description of the image. The lines at the top of the file are
the header.
10. Add these lines to, or modify existing lines in, the header (the
first group of lines in any PostScript file):
%!Adobe-2.0 EPSF
%%Creator: name
%%CreationDate: date
%%Title: filename
%%BoundingBox: a b c d
Note: Make sure that the first line in the file is ``%
!Adobe-2.0 EPSF.'' Also, do not separate the header lines with a
blank line space. The first blank line that PostScript encounters
tells it that the the next line begins the body of the program.
For ``name,'' type your name or initials. For ``date,'' type
today's date using any format (for example, MM-DD-YY, MM/DD/YY,
July 5, 1987, and so on). For ``filename,'' type the name of the
PostScript file. After ``BoundingBox: ,'' type the measurements
you took in steps 3, 4, 5, and 6, separating each with a space:
``a'' is the measurement from Step 3, ``b'' is the measurement
from Step 4, ``c'' is the measurement from Step 5, and ``d'' is
the measurement from Step 6.
11. Save the file in text-only format.
If you are interested in learning how to further edit your
PostScript files, these books are available at most bookstores:
Understanding PostScript Programming and the green book.
Encapsulated PostScript is discussed in Appendix C of the old red
book. The new red book has a lot of information about Encapsulated
PostScript.
There will be a technical note available from Adobe called
``Guidelines for Specific Operators'' that will talk about why some
operators are prohibited and how to use the others.
Subject: 9.4 How do I get the bounding box of a PostScript picture?
Use bbfig or epsinfo.ps.
Or if you would rather construct the bounding box by hand, use
Ghostview, which has a continuous readout of the mouse cursor in
the default user coordinate system. You simply place the mouse in
the corners of the figure and read off the coordinates.
Subject: 10 About The Comp.Lang.PostScript FAQ (and Usenet Guide to
PostScript)
Subject: 10.1 The PostScript FAQ: What is it?
The PostScript FAQ is a set of answers to frequently asked
questions (FAQs) that have appeared on the Usenet newsgroup
comp.lang.postscript. It is broken into many useful sections.
The Usenet Guide to PostScript is a larger set of help and answers
to PostScript questions, plus a tutorial for new users. It is still
in the process of being created. There is one file ``Exactly What
Does a Transformation Matrix Do?'', that is definitely not part of
the FAQ. Please send more!
I need help writing and revising answers for common questions
relating to PostScript. Almost all of the information in the
documents has been written by kind volunteers. The answers will be
published in either or both documents. A very long answer in the
Usenet Guide may be summarized, referred to briefly, or not
mentioned at all in the FAQ.
Subject: 10.2 How to get the FAQ files
The FAQ is available by anonymous ftp to
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/comp.lang.postscript/ You can get it
formatted in plain text ASCII, LaTeX, or PostScript.
I would be happy to email a copy of the FAQ in any format to you if
you do not have FTP.
Subject: 10.3 How to write a FAQ answer
I greatly appreciate your time and effort to help improve the
quality of the FAQ. Thank you for being willing to contribute!
* Please check to see if the topic is already in an FAQ. Perhaps
you really mean to submit a revision to an existing section.
* Start with a clear statement about what problem you are solving.
* Write for novice users, in ``tutorial format'', even if the
answer is meant for experienced programmers.
* Be specific when you make references.
* Be complete, and take the time to look over your draft and
revise.
* Answers should not be too wordy, unless you intend to write a
long answer for the Usenet Guide and have a shorter summary or a
pointer to the description placed in the FAQ. If you want to
write the summary yourself, thanks!
* Obviously, I cannot accept copyrighted material without
permission. Don't write the FAQ by paraphrasing from a
copyrighted book!
Subject: 10.4 The FAQ can contain LaTeX and PostScript inserts
The FAQ is actually written with LaTeX, so feel free to submit with
that text formatting language. There is a PostScript version of the
FAQ also, so feel free to send along PostScript pictures to
include.
Subject: 10.5 Revising the FAQ
Suggestions and comments are welcomed. My favorite way of receiving
a change suggestion is if you make a copy of the FAQ, edit the
copy, and mail me the modification, or a context diff (include the
version number).
Subject: 10.6 How to submit new information
If you know something that you think is worthwhile to be put in a
FAQ, definitely send it to me!
Don't hold back if your information is very specific. If there's
too much information to post I will archive it at an ftp site and
place a pointer to it in the FAQ.
Subject: 10.7 How to add a program description to the FAQ index
If the program is original, please send it to me, or tell me where
I can get it. Please put your name and email address at the top of
each file. Your program will be doubly useful if you clean up the
program so that other people can use it as an example to learn.
If the program was written by someone else, please send me just the
title, description, and where to get it. I may already have it.
For programs the FAQ needs to know:
* What is the name of the program?
* What does it claim to do, and does it do it well? Is it worth
using?
* Where is it available? What ftp sites can I get it from?
* How much does it cost? Is it free?
* What kinds of computers does it run on?
* Who is the author and does the author give an email address?
* Does it handle PostScript 2?
* What packages does it rely on?
If the program is a PostScript interpreter, then the FAQ also needs
to know:
* Does it let you go backwards one page?
* Does it display the number of pages in the document?
* Does it let you print PostScript to a non-PostScript printer?
* What formats can it convert to?
Subject: 10.8 How to add a book description to the FAQ
For books the FAQ needs to know:
* What is the name of the book or document?
* What does it claim to do, and does it do it well? Is it worth
using?
* Can I get it on-line?
* Who wrote it? Does the author give an email address?
* Who is the publisher, and what is the copyright date?
* Does the publisher list an address and phone number or fax
number?
* What is the ISBN number of the book?
* What is the library call number of the book?
* How much does the book cost?
* Does it cover PostScript 2?
* Are coding examples from the book available by email or anonymous
ftp?
* Do the authors sell the coding examples on a diskette?
Subject: 10.9 Questions that need answers
1. Where are ftp sites that have PostScript freeware?
2. What vendors sell fonts for PostScript printers? Where are the
free ftp sites for them?
3. What are TrueType fonts?
4. Are there any free encapsulated PostScript converters?
5. What is the charter for comp.lang.postscript?
6. What questions should the FAQ have?
7. What book information is wrong or missing in the FAQ?
8. What program information is wrong or missing in the FAQ?
9. What ftp site have good examples of PostScript code?
Newsgroups: comp.lang.postscript,comp.answers,news.answers
Path: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu!bloom-beacon.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!uunet!brunix!doorknob!jgm
From:
[email protected] (Jonathan Monsarrat)
Subject: PostScript monthly FAQ v2.1 05-21-93 [11 of 11]
Message-ID: <
[email protected]>
Followup-To: poster
Summary: Useful facts about the PostScript graphics programming language
Sender:
[email protected]
Supersedes: <
[email protected]>
Reply-To:
[email protected] (PostScript FAQ comments address)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Date: Sat, 9 Oct 1993 14:51:43 GMT
Approved:
[email protected]
Expires: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 00:00:00 GMT
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Xref: senator-bedfellow.mit.edu comp.lang.postscript:20986 comp.answers:2227 news.answers:13378
Archive-name: postscript/faq/part11
Last-modified: 1993/05/21
Version: 2.1
-- PostScript --
Answers to Questions
(the comp.lang.postscript FAQ v2.1)
Jon Monsarrat
[email protected]
This FAQ is formatted as a digest.
Most news readers can skip from one question
to the next by pressing control-G.
Changes since the last version are marked with a '|' in the table
of contents and in the sections in the text-only format of the FAQ.
Please help fix the FAQ! All comments should be mailed to
[email protected]. My favorite way to receive a change suggestion is
when it is accompanied by a section of the FAQ that is edited and
mailed to me verbatim as an example. If you would like to
contribute, please read the section ``about the FAQ'' first. Thank
you!
Books and programs are referred to by name only. See the book
sections for book information, and the comp.sources.postscript FAQ
for a full list of all PostScript related programs. I have
archived a number of the small utilities in
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/postscript. You can get the
comp.sources.postscript FAQ from
wilma.cs.brown.edu:pub/comp.sources.postscript.
Subject: 11 About PostScript 2
Subject: 11.1 What printers support Level 2 PostScript?
* Apple LaserWriter IIf
* Apple LaserWriter IIg
* Apple LaserWriter Pro 600 (with ram upgrade to get 600 DPI)
* Apple LaserWriter Pro 630 (True 600 DPI)
* Apple Personal LaserWriter NTR
Apple sells an upgrade to the IINTX to turn it into a IIf/IIG for
instance.
* Compaq PAGEMARQ 20
* Compaq PAGEMARQ 15
* Data Products LZR 960
* Data Products LZR 1560
* Hewlett-Packard PostScript CartridgePlus, which works with the HP
Laserjet III, IIID, and IIIP.
* Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 4M
* NEC SilentWriter 95
* QMS 1725 Print System
* QMS 860 ``Hammerhead''
* QMS ColorScript 210 and 230
* Tektronix Phaser III PXi
* Tektronix Phaser II (all models)
* Tektronix Phase 200e
* Texas Instruments microLaser Turbo
* Texas Instruments microLaser XL Turbo
This rest of file contains a description of PostScript 2 written by
Carl Orthlieb from Adobe. The text has not been changed, but some
paragraphs have been deleted for brevity. Comments by me are in
square brackets, and these were not written by Adobe.
Subject: 11.2 What is PostScript Level 2?
Since its introduction in 1985, the PostScript language has been
considerably extended for greater programming power, efficiency,
and flexibility.
Typically, these language extensions have been designed to adapt
the PostScript language to new imaging technologies or system
environments. While these extensions have introduced new
functionality and flexibility to the language, the basic imaging
model remains unchanged.
PostScript Level 2 integrates the original PostScript language, all
previous language extensions, and new language features into the
core PostScript language imaging model.
Subject: 11.3 [ Color Extensions ]
The color extensions were added to the language in 1988 to provide
more complete color functionality. With the original PostScript
language, color could be specified using the red-green-blue (RGB)
and hue-saturation-brightness (HSB) color models.
The color extensions include cyan-magenta-yellow-black (CMYK) color
model, black generation and undercolor removal functions, screen
and transfer functions for four separate color components, and a
colorimage operator for rendering color sampled images. The color
extensions are currently found in PostScript color printers from
Canon, QMS, Oce, and NEC as well as all implementations of the
Display PostScript system.
Subject: 11.4 [ Composite Font Extensions ]
The composite font technology is a general solution that extends
the basic PostScript language font mechanism to enable the encoding
of very large character sets and handle non-horizontal writing
modes.
A Type 1 PostScript font has room for encoding only 256 distinct
characters. A typical Japanese font has over 7,000 Kanji, katakana
and hiragana characters. The composite font technology allows you
to create one ``composite'' font that is made up from any number of
``base'' fonts. In addition, the composite font technology allows
you to include two sets of metrics (character spacing details) in
the font: one for a horizontal-writing mode, and one for a
vertical-writing mode.
Subject: 11.5 [ Display PostScript Extensions ]
The Display PostScript extensions address the needs of using the
PostScript language imaging model in a display environment. It
includes extensions to deal specifically with displays and
windowing systems as well as many optimized operators to increase
performance which is critical in an interactive display environment
[ (and printers) ] .
Subject: 11.6 [ Overview of Level 2 Features ]
Subject: 11.7 Filters
* A filter transforms data as it is being read from or written to a
file. The language supports filters for ASCII encoding of binary
data, compression and decompression, and embedded subfiles.
Properly used, these filters reduce the storage and transmission
cost of page descriptions, especially ones containing sampled
images. Benefits: Reduced storage requirements, greater
performance.
* ASCII encoding of binary data: ASCII/85 (represent binary data in
ASCII format with only a 125 % expansion of data), and ASCII/HEX
(current method of representing binary data in ASCII format but
with a 200 % expansion of data). Benefits: Compact representation
of binary data in a portable ASCII representation.
* Compression and decompression filters: CCITT Group 3 & 4
(monochrome images), run-length encoding (monochrome and
grayscale images), LZW ( 2:1 compression of text files), DCT
(20-200:1 compression of color images using the proposed JPEG
standard). Benefits: Improved performance due to reduced
transmission times. PostScript files on disk can also be made
much smaller, saving disk space.
Subject: 11.8 Binary Encoding
In addition to the standard ASCII encoding, the language syntax
includes two binary-encoded representations. These binary encodings
improve efficiency of generation, representation, and
interpretation. However, they are less portable than the ASCII
encoding and are suitable for use only in controlled environments.
Benefits: performance, compactness.
Subject: 11.9 Optimized graphics operators
* Rectangle operators. New operators for filling, clipping and
stroking rectangles; all highly optimized. For example, rectfill
is 3 times faster than an equivalent moveto, lineto, lineto,
lineto, closepath, fill. Benefits: performance and convenience.
* Graphics state objects provide a fast way to switch between
graphics states, which define the current line weight, color,
font, etc. In existing printers, graphics states are stored on a
stack, so accessing an arbitrary graphics state is somewhat
cumbersome. With graphics state objects, the graphics state can
be associated with a name, and retrieved by simply requesting the
name. Benefits: Performance, convenience.
* Halftone specification. New halftone dictionaries provide a more
precise way of specifying the halftone dots, and makes switching
between halftone screens faster. (The spot function is not
reinterpreted.) Benefits: Performance, convenience, enhanced
functionality.
* User paths are self-contained procedures that consists entirely
of path construction operators and their coordinate operands.
User path operators perform path construction and painting as a
single operation; this is both convenient and efficient. There is
a user path cache to optimize interpretation of user paths that
are invoked repeatedly. Benefits: Performance, convenience.
* Stroke adjustment. For very thin lines, there is a trade-off
between perfect positioning and consistent line width. Depending
on the placement of such a line, it could end up being rendered
as either 1 or 2 pixels wide, which is a noticeable difference.
To account for this, PostScript language programs often include
logic to slightly alter the coordinates of lines for consistent
rendering. With automatic stroke adjustment the interpreter
performs this adjustment to ensure consistent widths. Doing it in
the interpreter rather than in the PostScript language program is
20 - 30 % faster. Benefits: Performance, convenience, improved
quality.
Subject: 11.10 Optimized text operators
* The xyshow operator provides a more natural way for applications
to deal with individual character positioning. Allows
simultaneous track kerning, pair kerning, and justification.
Benefits: Performance, convenience.
* The selectfont operator optimizes switching between fonts. It
does the work of 3 Level 1 operators: findfont, scalefont, and
setfont and has been optimized by using a caching mechanism.
Benefits: Performance, convenience.
Subject: 11.11 Forms
* A form is a self-contained description of any arbitrary graphics,
text, and sampled images that are to be painted multiple times on
each of several pages or several times at different locations on
a single page.
* With the new forms feature, you can define a base form whose
representation stays cached between pages, so only information
that changes between forms will need to be interpreted for each
page. The representation used to cache the form may vary from
device to device depending on the available resources, such as
memory and/or hard disk space. In some cases, the actual
rasterized form will be saved, in other cases, an intermediate
representation (such as a display list) may be saved. Benefits:
End-users will benefit by improved performance.
* This makes forms processing faster and provide a natural
framework for ISVs implementing a forms functionality in their
application. Benefits: Convenience for ISVs.
* Besides the traditional concept of ``forms,'' some other examples
of forms include: Letterhead, stationary, overhead presentation
backgrounds, repetitive symbols in a CAD drawing such as screws
(mechanical drawing) or windows (architectural drawing), complex
background blends in 35mm slides. Benefits: Enhanced
functionality and application of PostScript printers in a variety
of different environments.
Subject: 11.12 Patterns
* The new pattern color space provides the ability to establish a
pattern as the current color. Subsequent use of operators such as
fill, stroke, and show apply ``paint'' that is produced by
replicating (or tiling) a small graphical figure called a pattern
cell at fixed intervals in x and y to cover the areas to be
painted. The appearance of a pattern cell is defined by a
PostScript language procedure, which can include any arbitrary
graphics, text, and sampled images. The shape of the pattern cell
need not be rectangular, and the spacing of tiles can differ from
the size of the pattern cell. Benefits: Enhanced functionality,
performance, convenience.
* For efficiency, the representation of the pattern cell may be
cached. When cached, the execution of the procedure that defines
the pattern need be done only once for the current pattern. The
pattern cache is similar to the font cache. Benefits:
Performance.
* Multiple colors can be specified in the pattern or the pattern
can be used as a mask to paint a color defined in some other
color space. Benefits: Enhanced functionality
* For display environments, this feature will allow patterns to be
represented in a resolution independent manner. Until now,
patterns have typically been represented by arrangements of
pixels. This resolution-dependent representation does not work
well when trying to image the pattern at a variety of different
resolutions.
Subject: 11.13 Images
There are several enhancements to the facilities for painting
sampled images: use of any color space, 12-bit component values,
direct use of files as data sources, and additional decoding and
rendering options. Benefits: Convenience, performance, quality.
Subject: 11.14 Composite Fonts
* Provides the basic machinery for non-Roman character sets.
Enables the encoding of very large character sets and
non-horizontal writing modes. Benefits: Enhanced functionality.
* Provides a page description language for international business.
Composite font technology makes printers more international. The
same font technology can be used worldwide, and will provide
support for companies that must work in today's international
business environment. Benefits: Enhanced functionality.
* Advantages not limited to foreign languages - also useful for
strictly Roman printers: allows the creation of a single
composite font that combines two or more fonts. For example, you
may wish to combine a textual font (such as Times-Roman) with a
graphical font (such as Zapf-Dingbats), and have all characters
at their disposal within a single font. Other uses of composite
fonts: IBM extended character set, and expert sets (such as Adobe
Garamond). Benefits: Enhanced functionality and increased
performance by minimizing switching between fonts.
Subject: 11.15 New Color Spaces
* CMYK color model and support for color images. Enhanced
functionality. This will encourage more ISVs to use the color
operators, because the operators will be widely available (The
printer itself may not be able to print in color, but the
PostScript language program won't generate errors when the
operators for CMYK color are used.)
* PostScript Level 2 supports several device-independent color
spaces based on the CIE 1931 (XYZ)-space. CIE-based color
specification enables a page description to specify color in a
way that is related to human visual perception. The goal of the
CIE standard is that a given CIE-based color specification should
produce consistent results on different color output devices,
independent of variations in marking technology, ink colorants,
or screen phosphors. True device-independent color specification.
Improved color matching between devices.
* PostScript Level 2 supports three classes of color spaces: device
independent, special, and device dependent.
The following device independent color spaces are standard:
The CIEBasedABC color space is defined in terms of a two-stage,
non- linear transformation of the CIE 1931 (XYZ)-space. The
formulation of the CIEBasedABC color space models a simple zone
theory of color vision, consisting of a non-linear trichromatic
first stage combined with a non-linear opponent color second stage.
This formulation allows colors to be digitized with minimum loss of
fidelity; this is important in sample images.
Special cases of CIEBasedABC include a variety of interesting and
useful color spaces, such as the CIE 1931 (XYZ)-space, a class of
calibrated RGB spaces, a class of opponent color spaces such as the
CIE 1976 (L*a*b*)-space and the NTSC, SECAM, and PAL television
spaces.
The CIEBased A color space is a one-dimensional and usually
achromatic analog of CIEBasedABC.
The following special color spaces are standard:
* The Pattern color space enables painting with a ``color'' defined
as a pattern, a graphical figure used repeatedly to cover the
areas that are to be painted. See the discussion of patterns for
more information.
* The Indexed color space provides a way to map from small integers
to arbitrary colors in a different color space such as a device
independent color space.
* The Separation color space provides control over either the
production of a color separation or the application of a device
colorant, depending on the nature and configuration of the
device.
The following device dependent color spaces are standard:
* The DeviceGray color space is equivalent to the existing
PostScript language's gray color model.
* The DeviceRGB color space is equivalent to the existing
PostScript language's red-green-blue (RGB) color model.
* The DeviceCMYK color space is equivalent to the existing
PostScript language's cyan-magenta-yellow-black (CMYK) color
model.
Subject: 11.16 New screening/halftoning technology
* Improved algorithms for determining the angles and frequencies
used for halftone screens. The improvements fall into two primary
categories: general improvements, and improvements specific to
color separations.
* General improvements: (1) The new algorithms yield a 10 %
improvement in the speed of the setscreen and image operators;
(2) Earlier version of PostScript software could produce halftone
screens only for certain angle and frequency combinations. Enough
of these combinations were available so that any requested screen
could be fairly well approximated by one of the available angle
and frequency combinations. In contrast, the improved halftoning
algorithms can provide as much as a ten-fold increase in the
number of angle-frequency combinations that are available,
depending on the device resolution and the available memory.
Benefits: Increased performance and higher quality halftone
screens.
* Improvements specific to color separations: An additional feature
is available that enables PostScript software to generate
extremely accurate screen angles and frequencies. The screens
produced by this method can achieve an angular accuracy of within
05 degrees or better, depending on such parameters as exact
screen angle requested, device resolution, and memory available
for use by the algorithm. Benefits: Extremely high-quality color
separations that approach the quality that previously was
available only from high-end, color electronic pre-press systems.
Subject: 11.17 Improved printer support features
* Page device setup provides a device independent framework for
specifying the requirements of a page description and for
controlling both standard features, such as the number of copies,
and optional features, such as duplex printing, paper trays,
paper sizes, and other peripheral features.
* Applications developers will be able to write a single driver for
a variety of different PostScript printers. The same code can be
used to address printer specific features whether the features
exist in the printer or not. If the feature is not in the
printer, the application can decide how to best respond to the
lack of the feature. Benefits: Enhanced functionality. ISVs
benefit by having a more uniform method for accessing printer
specific features. End users benefit by having software that will
take advantage of their printer's features.
Subject: 11.18 Interpreter parameters
Administrative operations, such as system configuration and
changing input-output device parameters, are now organized in a
more systematic way. Allocation of memory and other resources for
specific purposes is under software control. For example, there are
parameters controlling the maximum amount of memory to be used for
VM, font cache, pattern cache, and halftone screens. Benefits:
Flexibility.
Subject: 11.19 Resources
* A resource is a collection of named objects that either reside in
VM or can be located and brought into VM on demand. There are
separate categories of resources with independent name spaces -
for example, fonts and forms are distinct resource categories.
* The language includes convenient facilities for locating and
managing resources.
Subject: 11.20 Dictionaries
Many Level 2 operators expect a dictionary operand that contains
key-value pairs specifying parameters to the operator. Language
features controlled in this way include halftones, images, forms,
patterns, and device setup. This organization allows for optional
parameters and future extensibility. For convenience in using such
operators, the PostScript language syntax includes new tokens,
<< and >>,
to construct a dictionary containing the bracketed key-value pairs.
Benefits: Convenience, extensibility.
Subject: 11.21 When did Level 2 products come available?
The first Level 2 products were available in early 1991. Level 2
printers will soon be much more common.
Subject: 11.22 Are Level 1 and Level 2 implementations compatible?
[ Mostly, but not fully. The incompatibilities are of sufficient
magnitude that when QMS introduced its first Level 2 compatible
printer, it provided a ``Level 1'' mode for backward compatibility,
for handling jobs which wouldn't run in Level 2. This should not be
taken as too much of a criticism...some of the incom- patibilities
from Level 1 to Level 2 involved fixing design mistakes in Level 1,
or tightening up definitions which had been loose in Level 1 (where
careless application writers had made use of the looseness, writing
not to the language specification but to particular
implementations.) ]
(C) 1990 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All rights reserved.
PostScript, Display PostScript, and Adobe are trademarks of Adobe
Systems Incorporated registered in the U.S. All other product names
are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective
