On Sunday 13 September 2015 15:11:07 Gene Heskett wrote: > On Sunday 13 September 2015 06:17:04 Lisi Reisz wrote: > > On Saturday 12 September 2015 23:28:46 Gene Heskett wrote: > > > The filter is primarily because in order for the current gs to print > > > it, there needs to be a translation between a pdf and a ps. > > > > Thanks, Gene. But my question was why?? Why does it have to be > > translated? > > > > Lisi > > GS, aka Ghostscript, back in v5 days, had a very good pdf level 2 > renderer. It was also hell to compile, I did it twice on a big box > amiga in the '90's. > > Somewhere along the line, someone decided the best way to handle the > bloat was to excise the pdf stuffs from ghostscript and let it > concentrate on postscript only. Hence the need for a pipeing filter, > called pdftops, to translate and expand the pdf into postscript that gs > understands. > > Both are random access file formats, but pdf uses a second lookup depth I > haven't fully understood, and that must be translated and piped into gs > as pure postscript. > > FWIW, a properly done Level 3 pdf is the ultimate file compression when > applied to a large document. This particular file that generates a 740 > page, with lots of graphics, manual is just north of 121 megabytes. By > the time pdftops has unpacked it and sent it to gs, it is still quite > conmpressed, but the translation makes about 546 megabytes that gets > sent over the pipe to gs. The resultant data that flows down the cat5 > (or the slower USB if your printer doesn't have a network presence) to > the printer is probably in excess of 5 terrabytes. > > In the old days, I did not have a duplex capable printer, so I would > command gs to make a file per page, then wrote an arexx script to send > all odd pages to the printer, then when that was done, turn the pile > over and then then send all the even numbered pages. But that filled up > a 1Gb seagate drive , so had to be cleaned up if I wanted to do it to a > different big pdf, else it was out of disk. > > But I had to make the arexx script check the file size, and if it was > under 100 bytes, it was nothing but the setup and teardown for the page, > so rather than send that file to the printer, which if it was sitting at > TOF, ignored a formfeed, so I sent it a line feed to get it off of TOF > position, then the formfeed, which would eject the desired blank page, > keeping the printout in the order desired, even for a 500+ page > document. Without that, the binding ditch was fubar. Thats the space > at the left edge of an odd page, or the right edge of an even page where > a wider margin is used so the 3 hole punch misses the text. > > I had an extended, and fruitless discussion with the gs maintainer at the > time who couldn't conceive of a printer ignoring a formfeed if it was > sitting at the top of the page already, but every Merican printer I ever > had did ignore it including a couple Brother Daisy wheelers. Writing the > arexx script was less hassle than trying to convince that person that he > needed to add one linefeed byte in front of the formfeed. Sigh... > > Your daily dose of ancient ghsotscript trivia. ;-) > > Cheers Lisi, Gene Heskett :-)) If the hard way will do, why use the easy way, eh, Gene. ;-) The harder and more abstruse the better. :-) Lisi