EnigmA Amiga Run 1995 November/EnigmA AMIGA RUN 02 (1995)(G.R. Edizioni)(IT)[!][issue 1995-11][Skylink CD].iso/earcd/util/text/fwepspat.rea

Text File | 1995-08-22 | 12KB | 300 lines

Short:    Patch FW 1, 2, 3 and 4 to show and print EPS graphics with text
Author:   [e-mail] (Manuel Lemos)
Uploader: [e-mail] (Manuel Lemos)
Type:     text/print


DESCRIPTION

This archive contains a patch to FinalWriter init.ps that is used to
initialize the EPS interpreter enabling it to render EPS graphics that use
PostScript text fonts to screen and to non-PostScript printers.

Apparently the support for text fonts was deliberately disabled by Softwood.
This patches re-enables that support.


DISCLAIMER

With this document I make no warranties or representations, either
expressed or implied, with respect to the program described herein.  The
program and the information presented herein is being supplied on an `as
is' basis and is expressly subject to change without notice.  The entire
risk as to the use of the program and the information presented is assumed
by the user.  In no event will I be liable for direct, indirect,
incidental, or consequential damages resulting from any claim arising out
of the use of the program or the information presented herein, even if I
have been advised of the possibilities of such damages.


NOW SERIOUSLY...

This text provides you lots of information that you might not be aware.  If
somehow you know or feel the provided information is inaccurate or contain
mistakes, please warn me and apologize as my intention is only to help at
the exchange of nothing at all.

See below lots of hints that might be of real value to you.


INSTALLATION

Just run this Installer script included in this archive from the Workbench.
This script requires the Installer utility to run.  Please make sure you
have FinalWriter Disk1 in hand to run the installation script.


SO, WHAT WAS THE PROBLEM?

I found two problems:

1) The PostScript interpreter needs to know where in disk are located the
   fonts that it needs.  The file that initializes the interpreter
   (FWFiles/init.ps) had the lines that define that path in comment.

   This patch uncomments those lines, setting the font search path to
   PSFONTS:  directory.  You can edit the init.ps file after applying this
   patch to change this path to another directory.

   You need to have PostScript fonts (Type 1 and Type 3) installed in that
   directory.  If you don't have any PostScript fonts, you may find them in
   Fish Disk 828, 829 and 830.  The quality of these fonts is not very good
   but they'll do for the purpose of rendering EPS graphics to screen and
   to non-PostScript printers.

   You may use Adobe's ATM fonts as well.  These are very good although
   they take more to render.  You may also use any of those hundreds that
   come in CDs for a bargain (i.e. $20 each CD).

   Be careful to restore the original names of the fonts of those files.
   Some collections of fonts were meant to be used in MS-DOS machines, so
   their filenames are truncated.  There is an utility in Aminet that does
   that for you for Type 1 fonts that you have installed.

   /pub/aminet/text/font/PFBR.lha 2K+Type 1 PostScript Font Renaming Utility (v


2) The PostScript code in the init.ps file that defines ISOLatin1Encoding
   array was not very well defined.  This array defines the names of glyphs
   used by the character set that Amiga uses.

   This bug could lead to erroneous character mapping when an EPS file with
   text was being imported to FinalWriter.

   ISOLatin1Encoding table is only expected to be defined by Level 2
   PostScript interpreters.  Although FinalWriter's PostScript interpreter
   is not a full Level 2 interpreter, the init.ps file defines
   ISOLatin1Encoding table.

   Some EPS/PS files assume when ISOLatin1Encoding is defined, it is well
   defined which is not the case.  This patch fixes the definition of this
   table.

   Many EPS/PS files, generated by for instance Amiga programs, correctly
   redefine ISOLatin1Encoding table regardless if it is already defined, so
   they don't suffer from this fault of the FinalWriter init.ps.


HINTS

Summary:

· PostScript Fonts in other directories than PSFONTS:.
· Converting *ANY* PostScript file to EPS.
· Printing *ANY* PostScript file to non-PostScript printer.
· Viewing PostScript files.
· Using PostScript Type 1 fonts in *ANY* Amiga application.
· WYSIWYG Equation Editor with EPS and LaTeX output.
· Tables and Matrices WYSIWYG editors.


· PostScript Fonts in other directories than PSFONTS:.

  PostScript Fonts don't have to be necessarily installed in PSFONTS:
  directory.  As a matter of fact they can be installed anywhere in disk.

  All you have to do is find these lines below in the init.ps file,
  duplicate and change them as required.

  The named PSFONTS:  comes from the original post.library interpreter by
  Adrian Aylward that required PostScript fonts to be in PSFONTS: directory.

% If you want to search more than one directory, duplicate the following
% few lines for each additional font directory path.
% dup FontDirectory exch known not             % Not in FontDirectory?
% { dup (PSFonts:OtherFonts/) () loadfont      % Try PSFonts:OtherFonts
% } if


· Converting *ANY* PostScript file to EPS.

  If you want import *ANY* PostScript file in FinalWriter, all you have to
  do is convert it into EPS.  EPS is actually PostScript with a few special
  comment lines and an optional preview bitmap.

  Rendering the bitmap preview is usually faster that interpreting the
  PostScript file from which was generated that preview.

  There is a program for the Amiga named EPSLab by Alessandro Sala, that
  converts any PostScript file into EPS (EPSF/EPSI) adding if necessary
  preview bitmap.  This program is available in Aminet within the following
  path:

  EpsLab_1.02.lha util/conv 147K+Adds a preview image to EPS files.
  EpsLab_fix.lha  util/conv  36K+Bug-fix and German catalog for v1.02

  NOTE:  EPS graphics are single page graphics.  You may try convert any
  multi-page PostScript document to EPS, but EPSLab only considers the
  first page.

  If you want any page from a PostScript document other than the first, you
  have to extract it from the main document first.

  There are utilities that can do that for you, but they require that the
  main PostScript document conforms with Adobe's Document Structure
  Conventions (DSC).

  There are programs that don't generate DSC conforming PostScript output,
  and so it is unlikely that you will be able extract middle pages from a
  multi-page document.

  You may want to check PSUtils archives in Aminet and other ftp sites to
  see what can be done to split you PostScript documents.

  PSUtils.lzh text/print 65K+Cli utilities for manipulating PS files

  You can try also PostSplit for PageStream PostScript files.

  PostSplit.lha text/dtp 38K+Pagestream Postscript file splitter. V1.05


· Printing *ANY* PostScript file to non-PostScript printer.

  If you to print a PostScript file to a non-PostScript printer, you may
  want to try PSPRT:  filesystem handler by Daniel Weber
  ([e-mail]).  It works like PRT:  but interprets the input
  as PostScript input.

  psprt10.lha text/print 6K+PostScript printer handler for non-postscr


· Viewing PostScript files.

  If you want to see PostScript (EPS or not) graphics without having to
  import them into a DTP/WP program, you may use either one of these
  programs:

- Post originally by Adrian Aylward, but today is maintained by Heinz Wrobel
  ([e-mail]).  There was also Post enhanced but it doesn't seem to
  be maintained today.


- PostView by Ralph Schmidt ([e-mail]).

  PostView1.2.lha text/print 36K+Shows PS files. **A2410 Tiga** support


- MultiView if you have Amiga OS 3 or higher, with PostScript datatype
  (PS/EPS/EPSF) by Heinz Wrobel ([e-mail]).  The PostScript
  datatype is part of the HWGPOST archive (See below).

  There was also a PostScript datatype written by Swen Stullich, but it
  didn't seem very stable.  Heinz Wrobel rewrote it from scratch and it
  works with binary EPS (EPSF) files too.

  All these programs require post.library.  Heinz Wrobel reworked and
  maintains post.library.  Today, Heinz's version of post.library is more
  stable and closer to a full Level 2 PostScript interpreter.  This
  archives includes working PostScript datatypes.

  HWGPOSTbeta6.lha text/print 261K+PostScript Library with many Level 2 features


· Using PostScript Type 1 fonts in *ANY* Amiga application.

  If you want to use PostScript Type 1 fonts in your system like any other
  kind of standard fonts, check out type1.library in Aminet by Amish S.
  Dave ([e-mail]).

  This library is compatible with bullet.library that is used by the Amiga
  OS to support AGFA Compugraphic fonts.  All the Amiga programs that can
  use CGFonts, can use PostScript type 1 fonts as well with type1.library.
  This requires OS 2.1 or higher version of diskfont.library.

  It comes with font manager (Type1Manager) that provides similar
  functionalities as CGFont Managers Fontain and Intellifont that come with
  Amiga OS.

  type1beta5.lha util/libs 255K+Type1library - postscript font engine

  Gordon Fecyk ([e-mail]) is working on a package
  that will provide Adobe Type Manager (ATM) like, to Amiga OS.  Currently
  is working on beta version 5.  The package that was previously named ATM.
  But for copyright reasons, it was renamed Amiga Type Engine (ATE).


· WYSIWYG Equation Editor with EPS and LaTeX output.

  If you are looking for a nice WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get)
  Equation Editor that generates EPS output, try EqEd in Aminet by Brian
  Aagaard Petersen ([e-mail]).  There's also an WWW page at
  http://meyer.fys.ku.dk/~aagaard .

  If you are a TeX fanatic and don't believe that WYSIWYG Equation Editors
  are any good, there's some hope for you.  EqEd can save the output in
  LaTeX format.

  If you still want use an Equation edited in EqEd and laid out by LaTeX, in
  FinalWriter or other program that imports EPS, all you have to do is to
  convert LaTeX output to PostScript, convert it to EPS with EPSLab (see
  above) if necessary, and there you are.


· Tables and Matrices WYSIWYG editors.

  If you are looking for a usable Tables and Matrices editor, beta version
  0.95 Brian EqEd already supports a basic form of tables and matrices,
  although they still lack of optional frames.

  You can also create tables with ProCalc.  ProCalc can do nice frames for
  the tables using the Borders menu.  It's a bit limited but it works.

  If you want to export to EPS to use in FinalWriter or other program that
  imports EPS, make sure you only use fonts that have PostScript support
  such as Courier.  Those fonts are marked with 'p' character on the right
  side of the ProCalc's font requester.


HISTORY

17.02.1995 - First Release.

21.02.1995 - spatch executable included
           - Patch file for FinalWriter 3 init.ps file included. Softwood
             just bumped the revision from Release 1 and 2 to Release 3.
           - Added an installer script for dummies.
           - Added a few hints to FinalWriter PostScript/EPS users.

19.08.1995 - Generated a new patch file FinalWriter 4. Again, Softwood just
             bumped the revision from Release 3 to Release 4.  The patched
             file will result the same as for previous FinalWriter
             releases.

           - Updated some of the hints section of this text.

           - MESSAGE TO SOFTWOOD:  I, Manuel Lemos, Amiga developer declare
             that, you, Softwood, are have my permission to include the
             patched EPS init file in any future release of FinalWriter or
             any other program that you might write for the Amiga
             computers, at no expense for yourselves (although a free copy
             of FinalCalc would be a nice compensation :-) ).  I am fully
             open to provide any help that you might need to develop Amiga
             applications.

Manuel Lemos
19.08.1995
[e-mail]
Apartado 391
3800 AVEIRO
PORTUGAL