AmiGS cannot Print, because of missing "letter/A4" feature!

[abalaban]

@Michael & gerograph

I have no experience with PS file above loading it into Ghostscript/AmiGS. The aim was to compare your PS file using a text comparison tool and see if we can see any evident difference (and as such spot a particular cause).

[MichaelMerkel]

here you should be able to access my files:
testfiles

the original pagestream file is included.

the one PS of from the old pgs4 (68k).
the other one is from the pgs4 os4ppc version.

the latter is fine.

regards...
michael

[gerograph]

O.k. got that bastard indeed it is not a bug... it is a missing feature or something handled in an inconvinient way. Seems that PageStream for PPC /MichaelMerkls Version is the only one which can create AmiGS compatible files in DIN A4 papersize. All other programs including Microsoft Word and LibreOffice cannot create suitable A4 papersize Postscriptfiles. However at least MS Word created PS File is shown as A4 in Ghostview, whereas it isn't recognized as A4 in AmiGS. In order to make AmiGS recognize DIN A4, you have to put this line into your PS File:

%%DocumentMedia: Custom 595 842 0 ( ) ( )

Other Postscriptviewers on Windows seem to retrieve this information from somewhere else inside the Postcriptfiles. If you look with a Texteditor into a Word generated Postscriptfile, you will see many occurances of either the two values 595 842 or A4 !

So, please make AmiGS a bit more open minded, as most of our Amiga proggies seem to be unable to produce suitable Postscriptfiles !

regards, and thanks for you ongoing support

Gero

[gerograph]

By the way, the same problem occurs, when printing a pdf from Os4.1 included pdf viewer (using "letter" format). This is still really annyoing and must be fixed for the sake of good user experience.

[nbache]

Do you have the file postscript_init.ps in DEVS:? Is it readable and undamaged?

Best regards,

Niels

[xenic]

here you should be able to access my files:
testfiles

the original pagestream file is included.

regards...
michael

I guess I don't understand the problem (other than AmiGS always saying "letter size" at the top of it's window). I printed the pagestream file to a file using Pagestream4 with the Adobe Distiller PDF "PPD" file (A4 selected). When I loaded the Poscript file in AmiGS it was A4 (even though the AmiGS text says letter). I printed the file to a PDF file with AmiGS. When I open the PDF in AmiPDF it is A4 size.

[gerograph]

@xenic
Well, I guess if your Postscript file is properly printed, you won't have a problem (so either via a proper ppd, printerdriver etc.). Nevertheless I didn't manage to create proper PS Files through Final Writer and other older programs. So it's more a question to make AmiGS and AmiPdf more flexible, like the GSView/ghostscript and AdoberReader on Windows. Let's give an example:

I received a pdf file from Amigakit, which I wanted to printout. Sadly it was "letter format" and I could not print it from my Amiga.

[xenic]

@xenic
Well, I guess if your Postscript file is properly printed, you won't have a problem (so either via a proper ppd, printerdriver etc.). Nevertheless I didn't manage to create proper PS Files through Final Writer and other older programs. So it's more a question to make AmiGS and AmiPdf more flexible, like the GSView/ghostscript and AdoberReader on Windows. Let's give an example:

I received a pdf file from Amigakit, which I wanted to printout. Sadly it was "letter format" and I could not print it from my Amiga.

If old programs don't create proper postscript I don't think it's an AmiGS problem. How is AmiGS going to recognize an A4 paper size if it's not embedded in the postscriptfile? You can't always send a letter size document to an A4 printer. Letter size is wider than A4 and if the letter size document has no margins, the text (and images) would run off the edge of the A4 paper. I think you would need a feature in AmiGS allowing a document to be rescaled from one paper size to another when printed. To me it seems more like a missing feature than a bug.

I did some testing with FinalWriter and discovered the following:
If you set the postscript printer driver to A4 without changing the document size, it will produce a letter size postscript document. If you set the page size (menu Layout/Page) to A4 and the postscript printer prefs to A4, then FinalWriter produces an A4 size document but without the proper page size identification in the postscript file. I was able to get FW to produce an A4 document (with page size identification) by adding a user postscript procedure.

Here is how I got FW to produce an A4 postscript file:
1. Set the page size to A4.
2. Set the postscript driver prefs to A4.
3. Save the following code to a file named "user-def.ps" in the /FinalWriter/FWFiles/ directory.

Code: Select all

/UserBOP{
%%BeginFeature: *PageRegion A4
%%DocumentMedia: Custom 595 842 0 ( ) ( )

  2 dict dup /PageSize [595 842] put dup /ImagingBBox null put
setpagedevice
%%EndFeature
}def

4. Printed the document to a postscript file.


The resulting postscript file had A4 dimensions when opened with AmiGS. When I printed the document to a PDF file it was displayed as an A4 document in AmiPDF. I don't have a Postscript printer so I am unable to test if the document prints to an A4 printer but you can try it and see if it works. Let us know if it does.

You might be able to solve all your A4/Letter printing problems by changing the default papersize in GhostScript from Letter to A4 Read the documentation in SYS:Utilities/Ghostscript/Doc/Use.html and it tells how to change the pagesize on a per-document basis or permanently. There is the "GS Arguments" string gadget in the AmiGS Print setup window for entering GS arguments on a per-document basis..

[gerograph]

@xenic

If old programs don't create proper postscript I don't think it's an AmiGS problem.

Correct, that's what I said. But new programs like MS Word donnot create proper postscript files either... it's not a bug, as I thought beforehand. It turned out, during this thread, to be a problem with lot of software, and an "unflexible" AmiGS.
If you look e.g. at a MS Word/DPM Driver created Postscriptfile, there are several places where the pagesize (A4) and dimensions (measured in mm) is mentioned. Guess if AmiGS would look at other places as well (not only %%DocumentMedia: Custom 595 842 0 ( ) ( ) ), it would work like Windows GhostView.

And yes, regarding a "letter" pdf, we need a rescaling in AmiPDF

How is AmiGS going to recognize an A4 paper size if it's not embedded in the postscriptfile?

Well, as said there are several places where this information is embedded. AmiGS only looks at:
%%DocumentMedia: Custom 595 842 0 ( ) ( )
Whereas other Postscriptviewers seem to look at other places as well.

I'll check the other things, when I come back to my Amiga (X1000 is currently broken)...

thanx for hints, I'll call back

[gerograph]

@xenic
setting GS to a4 permanently or setting AmiGS on a "per document base" to A4 doesn't help...

Your FinalWriter idea helps, and prints out fine, as you mentioned, when converted to pdf, AmiPDF even states A4.
AmiGS doesn't state A4, but displays it as A4, and you can print... inserting a

%%DocumentMedia: Custom 595 842 0 ( ) ( )

via this method might even optimize the thing, I didn't try yet.

Concluding:
Donnot know what GhostView on Windows does differently, but AmiGS should have the possibility to insert the mentioned lines into an existing Postscriptfile and redisplay the file....

AmiPDF should have the possibility to scale e.g. letter to A4, in order to be able to print e.g. Amigakits pdfs (here: return slip) on my printer!

Thanks again for help, brings me (us) a bit further...