🚀 go-pugleaf

jkimball@src.honeywell.com (John Kimball) writes:
: Apologies if this is a FAQ ...
: 
: I'm in several groups that periodically exchange documents by email.  Most
: people have started exchanging Postscript -- so that the text is typeset,
: so that figures can be included, etc.
: 
: But -- it seems that if more than three or so different sites send
: Postscript files to each other, at least one of those files won't work
: on the printers or viewers at the some of the other sites.  Typically one
: or more of the Postscript files will fail to print/display, or will lock up
: printers, or crash viewers, at some random subset of the recipients.
: Meanwhile, the errant file works fine at the sender's site (though the
: sender is probably having trouble with some file from another site).
: 
: This happens repeatedly with multiple groups trying to exchange Postscript.
: 
: There doesn't seem to be anything like "portable Postscript" -- a
: Postscript file seems to be like a tape written on a poorly-adjusted
: tapedrive, which is readable by that drive but no other.  It's a roll of
: the dice whether you'll be able to look at a file you get from some other
: site.
: 
: Is this considered acceptable behavior in the Postscript community?  If
: not, is there some way to judge if a given file is "portable Postscript",
: or are there Postscript implementations which are notorious for failing to
: interoperate (and should thus be avoided)?
: 
: 						John Kimball

First, no, this is not considered acceptable behavior in the PostScript
community.  With that out of the way,

o Most likely, you're running into an implementation limit on the
  interpreter.  Different printers allow different max array sizes,
  dictionary sizes, path sizes, etc.  I generally have found that if my
  code prints on a good ol' Laserwriter, it will print on anything,
  except...
  Some larger printers do their PostScript interpretation on an attached
  workstation (like a Sun), and dump vendor-proprietary bitmaps to the
  attached printer.  Sometimes, the huge size of the bitmaps will overflow
  the printer (too many that are too big).  I've actually had clean code
  that would print nicely (but slowly) on Laserwriters, but would give
  out-of-memory errors on 90-ppm behemoth printers.

o PostScript is a programming language.  Like any programming language,
  different implementations (different systems) can contain different
  bugs.  I've had my own code pass 5 of 6 printers here, and the 6th would
  fail miserably.  We'd send the PostScript code to the printer vendor,
  and they'd add it to their list of bugs to fix.  (They actually fixed
  it, too!)

o Many "PostScript" interpreters are not true Adobe PostScript (i.e.,
  clones).  This adds another layer of potential bugs beyond those
  already mentioned.

o Finally, if the PostScript is "home grown", there is a possiblilty that
  the originator has made use of a vendor's exten


PostScript is your best shot for this type of electronic documentation.
Keep on trying, and, if you have a file that works with one
interpreter but not another, don't be shy about sending the file to
the maker of the "broken" interpreter.

Good Luck,
                                    Gary
-- 
Gary J. Henderson
gary@iscnvx.lmsc.lockheed.com
#include <std/disclaimer.h>