SFINX software tree - PostScript
PostScript is a page description language designed by
ADOBE. Not only is it understood by printers, it
can also be incorporated into other documents or converted to other image
formats.
Most printers at the Observatory understand PostScript (and if they don't,
the driver software takes care of it).
Creating PostScript files
PostScript files can be produced by almost any package that can produce
graphical output.
See among others TeX and xv.
Text to PostScript conversion
We no longer support an automatic text to postscript conversion in the printer
software. You will have to use one of the
more sophisticated text to PostScript conversion programs:
- print
- This is our standard command. It tries to find out what the file is
(postscript, text, images), and calls a corresponding program to do
the conversion.
- Enscript / epr
- This converts the text to PostScript and prints it. Many options are
available for special effects, e.g. -2 for two columns,
-r for rotated (landscape), -G for nice
flashy headers, -B for no headers, -f
to select a different font (default Courier10) etc.
(Note: epr is a convenient alias, giving
enscript the proper options.
- a2ps
(Used by print and prn)
- This basically does the same things, the main difference being that
it puts a box around the pages, and it doesn't print the file
automatically.
- ascii2ps
- An older version
Conversion of other image formats to PostScript
This can be done using the tools from the
ImageMagic package, or from within
xv, using the Save or Print buttons.
NROFF files
On the Sun workstations, some utilities are available for converting NROFF
files to PostScript (NROFF files also include the UNIX
man-pages).
- psdit
- convert ditroff intermediate format to POSTSCRIPT format
- psroff
- ditroff to a POSTSCRIPT printer
- ptroff
- troff to a POSTSCRIPT printer
- pscat
- convert C/A/T files to POSTSCRIPT format
Note that for man-pages, you can also use the
a2ps command with the -m option.
Various graphics
- ps4014
- convert a Tektronix 4014 files to PostScript format. This is the file
format created when you select COPY in the Tektronix
window of xterm.
- psplot
- convert UNIX plot files to PostScript format
- fig2dev
- translates Fig code (from xfig) to
various graphics languages, including PostScript
Modify PostScript files
- psrev
- select or reverse page order of a PostScript file
- psselect
- select pages from a PostScript file
- psbook
- rearrange pages in PostScript file into format suitable for printing a
book
- pstops
- shuffle pages in a PostScript file
- psfixbb
- Calculates bounding box and includes it in the file:
psfixbb file.ps file.eps
- bbfig
- prepend bounding box postscript header
This prints the bounding box on paper, it doesn't put it in the file !
Is this useful ? Probably not !
- psconvert
- this is a program that uses gs (ghostscript)
to convert a PostScript file into a PostScript bitmap file, that is
guaranteed to work when included in TeX or
xfig.
Viewing PostScript files
This is most easily accomplished using the ghostview program.
It can also be done directly with gs (ghostscript), a
PostScript interpreter, but ghostview offers a nicer
interface.
Converting PostScript files to other formats
PostScript files can be read by xv and
xfig, so this is one way to convert them to other
formats. They can also be included in TeX files.
Additionally, the ImageMagic package (with
its local extensions) provides a way to convert PostScript files to other
image formats (albeit bitmaps, in stead of vector drawings).
These commands are pstoppm, pstogif,
pstototiff and pstoxbm.
David.Jansen@strw.leidenuniv.nl
Last modified: Thu Mar 18 09:38:01 1999