This is an archive of CompuServe forum messages from 1985 to 1995, as saved in transcripts by John Foust.
Search Results (61 messages)
Phil, I'm assuming that you or someone else hand-coded your PostScript file that you want to place in Illustrator or PageMaker. Go to the Adobe Forum (GO ADOBE) and go the PostScript Library (can't remember the number offhand). Search for a document with the keyword of EPS or EPSF. It…
Whew, Bill, I guess a Compuserve forum can serve the function of a therapy group too . (Sometimes we just have to let it out.) I understand your frustration at seeing such a bad job coming in from an old customer. Hopefully the person supervising the corporate communications department will…
Bill, APOSTROPHES are the worst! It's amazing how many times you see them in headlines (typically in ads in computer publications like MacWeek) where they just jump out! ^Steve^
Jonathan, What you can get away with in flatness depends a lot on where the object is. If the path is obscured, you can probably push it up to 10. Otherwise, you can probably go up to 4 or 6. ^Steve^
Jonathan, System 7 will stay on one Mac in our shop (not in production) until it works with ATM, Suitcase, and most of the apps we most commonly output. I'm sure it'll be a few months after introduction before that comes about. We'll probably install it on one Mac for…
Jonathan, Adobe's solution to the flatness problem is automatic splitting of paths (introduced with version 1.8). In fact, some art works best with flatness changes, some with splitting of paths. And sometimes you can just remove unnecessary points in a curve. It's good to know all the techniques and use…
Jon, You're probably correct that it was too many points on a path that caused the problem if you got a "limitcheck…fill" error. Did you try increasing the flatness in Illustrator? I've found that that often solves the problem without noticeable changes in appearance. FreeHand automatically ups the flatness if…
Jon, The latest Seybold Report on Desktop Publishing arrived this week. In a long preview of System 7, it indicated that Apple had come to the realization that it had to make System 7 ATM-compatible. I think they've had too many major publishing and corporate users with large investments in…
typeset purch
Message #5842
Bruce, RIPMaster was initially developed to work _only_ with Linos. That's because the program uses some very implementation-specific PostScript code. It must pull status information from a variable in the RIP's "statusdict" dictionary which may not be used in other imagesetter's implementations. And it must modify the Sys/Start file to…
#ethrnet&typstrs
Message #5840
Thom, From my experience, for very simple text files, the PostScript processor in a RIP3 can process as fast as the Lino 300 can image, so the slowest point in the chain is the imagesetter engine. For "average" and for graphics-computation-intensive files PostScript files, the Lino's processor is the part…
Thanks, Carl, We have PSFontFinder. Nice little tool. You don't have to throw away the PostScript file. Many service bureaus (ours included) prefer PostScript disk files because it ensures that the output will match that of your printer. ^Steve^
Richard, In most cases a PostScript printer would require a board swap. It'll probably be up to each printer manufacturer to incorporate a newer version of a PostScript interpreter and to offer it to their customer base. We've had Linotronic RIPs since 1985, and we've gone from PostScript version 38…
Blaise, With 740K free on your RIP's hard disk, you didn't have much room for anything. You'll probably be able to image larger pages as well because the hard disk is also used to spool strips of the page for complex images. ^Steve^
Jon, We'll probably know a lot more about the current font capabilities of Type 1 fonts after the specs are published. Until then, what we're talking about is pretty speculative. The PostScript upgrade would be welcome. The SPS Association has quite an extensive list of extensions they would like to…
Craig, More technical questions should probably be directed to the Developer's desk at Adobe. But from the README file which came with my beta copy: "ATM does not support some of the more esoteric methods that QuickDraw can draw text. This means that in some applications (especially drawing and painting…
Jon, When I was at Seybold, I attended the meeting of the SPS Association (PostScript standards group). Mike Parker from the The Company, which is the US company which handles URW fonts and font technology, spoke on font developments in PostScript. When referring to the Royal fonts, he said that…
Carl, This is a good suggestion for an upgrade for Illustrator. I think this feature should be built into ALL applications–not just Illustrator. QuarkXPress can give you such a listing and it's very useful. ^Steve^
David, I don't know about your service bureau, but on our imagesetters at least 80% of the jobs come from the Macintosh. And that's not because we don't support PC applications. We fully do, including printed documentation on how to create PostScript files from Ventura and PC PageMaker. I'm sure…
Blaise, Adobe Type Manager is a startup application (INIT) and cdev. It is copied into the System Folder, and is controlled in the Control Panel. It modifies the system to intercept font calls made by applications. When it does this, it first looks to see if there is an existing…
Blaise, Run the following piece of PostScript code to clear font cacheing on a Lino: /scratch 100 string def systemdict /filenameforall known { (FC/*) {deletefile} scratch filenameforall } if serverdict begin 0 exitserver systemdict begin quit The RIP should be reset at the end of the process, but if it…
Blaise, I manage the service bureau portion (called the Electronic Media Department) of a typesetting/graphics company called Central Graphics in San Diego, CA. We've chosen to focus primarily on the market in San Diego and southern Orange Counties in California. We do accept some files on our bulletin board system…
Eldor, I'd be glad to look at the output you got from the two different drivers. I haven't spent much time looking at the PostScript font calls from the two Windows drivers. What I need are (1) the header files from each driver and (2) the page description files from…
Michael, In PostScript, the information in a font (character shape, bounding box, etc.) is stored as a "dictionary," and certain entries in the dictionary are required. Among them is an entry called "FontType," which consists of an integer indicating the font format. Adobe uses a special encrypted format for storing…
Earl, Quite rightly, too. Your company produces superb font tools! ^Steve^
Jungle, If this is the "RIP fixer/Disk Restore" file you're sending: /scratch 100 string def systemdict /filenameforall known { (FC/*) {deletefile} scratch filenameforall } if serverdict begin 0 exitserver systemdict begin quit …then the reason everything goes into Never-Never Land immediately after this file is executed is that the last…
Earl, Adobe's ATM will work with any PostScript true Type I fonts. Currently that includes those of Adobe and its licensees, Agfa Compugraphic, Varityper, Monotype, etc. Since Adobe is opening up its Type I specs by the first of the year, undoubtedly all the vendors who are concerned about quality…
Barry, Actually the IBM line drawing characters (as well as the "happy face"!) are present in a few Adobe fonts, but they are not in the standard encoding. In Letter Gothic (and, I believe, Prestige Elite and Orator), there are almost all of the IBM extended character set. If you…
Nathan, Thanks for the correction. This is one of those poorly documented features in PostScript which demand clarification. Now I can add save/restore to my exitserver routines to clean up memory. ^Steve^
Blaise, It is NOT a good idea to proof on a laser printer with one set of fonts, and then print at a service bureau with another. (1) Even if the laser printer used fonts with allegedly the same width values as the imagesetter fonts, they might differ in more…
[continued] major parts of your system inaccessible. ^Steve^
Russ, Officially PrintMaster is only available with Varityper imagesetters. Unofficially, you might be able to get a copy from a friendly Varityper rep. Other advantages of PrintMaster from Southwest Software are: (1) A customizable job slug is printed at the beginning of a job. This helps to identify a job…
Mike, I've discovered by experience that you can combine multiple routines within an exitserver job. You can even print out a job outside the server loop. For example, I've set up a density strip for the Lino that changes to each of three resolutions, prints a density bug at each…
Glenn, You need to download the following file FIRST to set the Lino for negative and mirroring: serverdict begin 0 exitserver statusdict begin /negativeprint true def /mirrorprint true def end This condition will persist until the printer is turned off or reset. Or download the following file to return to…
Ill. 1.8.3 and SE/30
Message #13146
Hi, David, Illustrator 1.8.9 does NOT support Adobe Type Manager. From what I've heard, Adobe is planning a new release of Illustrator next month (free, I believe) to support ATM. ^Steve^
#apd
Message #13145
Hi, Mike, Welcome back from the West Coast and back on Compuserve. Actually I think you could create such a suite of setup files with LaserStatus. It permits you to create "sets" of PostScript files which are run sequentially. ^Steve^
Ill. 1.8.3 and SE/30
Message #13142
Actually, we use Disk Restore whenever we need to restart the RIP to free up memory fo^C p-89 10:37:47
After the SPS Association meeting I went to on Thursday night, I'm convinced it has to be Adobe working with the SPS Association to develop a PostScript standard. The SPS Association includes many Adobe licensees, it's not just the "clone people." BTW, it's not really surprising that Illustrator should not…
I also hope that the SPS Association (you and Scott put in an extra "s") and Adobe can get together. I was at the SPS Association meeting on Thursday night. It now includes about 70 major companies including many of the biggies (Aldus, Linotype, Agfa Compugraphic, Microsoft, Xerox, etc., etc.).…
Lori, You might also say hello to Esther from me. I enjoyed her presence on the Forum before she took on her new job. I might be up your way for another PostScript class again if all goes well. ^Steve^
Dale, There is a new product from Taylored Graphics called FontLiner. It will convert any Fontographer-generated font (which means all fonts on the Mac except those from Adobe and Bitstream) into an Adobe Illustrator file. The character set of the font is converted to an Illustrator graphic which can then…
Bill, I beg to disagree with you about whose responsibility it is to support how to use printer-specific functions. If you're having problems with how to change paper trays, it's your PRINTER MANUFACTURER'S responsibility to provide either software or panel controls to make such changes. It can't be Adobe's. There…
#7536-
#Reversed TIFF Files
Message #7548
What scanner software is producing the TIFF files that are not inverting properly? It may not be QuarkXpress' fault. I've seen it happen a couple times too, and it was in PageMaker as well. What I believe the problem is that the scanner software is incorrectly changing the "settransfer" function,…
I thought you might be interested in this quote from an excellent new book, Real World PostScript, just out, regarding Adobe's "hints". (Edited by Stephen F. Roth, Addison Wesley, 1988). It's from an essay, "Building Smart Fonts" by Michael Mace (founder of Century Software). "So how does Adobe do it?…
#7436-
Film Neg — Lino
Message #7487
To create negatives (inverted and mirrored), send this PS file (works with a Linotronic RIP with PostScript version 42 and later): serverdict begin 0 exitserver statusdict begin /negativeprint true def /mirrorprint true def end To return to normal printing (inversion and mirroring off), send this file: serverdict begin 0 exitserver…
#7388-
Pagemaker high bits
Message #7402
My expe%+\ce is that the interpreter in a PostScript RIP is expecting stings to contain "the printable subset of the ASCII character set, plus the characters space, tab, and newline" (Red Book). When I've sent Macintosh PageMaker PostScript files to a PostScript RIP from a PC compatible the higher order…
Brian, I'd suspect that the problem is in the RIP1's interpreter. We've been using the RIP2 for about a year now, and I'd forgotten some of the occasional problems we'd had with the RIP1. We had a few occasional PostScript errors which we could never track down. (It's been too…
#6835-
Illus.'88 & RSG 4.0a
Message #6860
Lance, The other workaround to your problem of the Casady font not printing in the Illustrator 88 EPS graphic is to select a spaceband in the ReadySetGo text and select the GatsbyDemiBold font. The font won't print (since it's only a spaceband), but the Macintosh Print Manager will be forced…
#6823-
#More Adobe NFNTs
Message #6859
Jim, Thanks again for the help. You've been a wealth of information. I quickly jumped out of Navigator to try out what you suggested with ResEdit. What's the significance of opening the FONT/NFNT resource with the Option key down? When do you hold down the Option key? It seemed to…
If I understand what you're doing with the re-encoded /Courier-D font, you're put /.notdef in all 256 positions of the array, then replacing one position with a composite character. It appears that you're also removing the components of the composite character. From the Tutorial and Cookbook, p. 200 (Blue Book):…
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