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-
- ------------------------------------------------------------
- A P S F I L T E R V 4.9.1 - "The name of the game"
- ------------------------------------------------------------
-
- copyright Andreas Klemm 1993, 1994, 1995
-
- andreas@knobel.gun.de
-
- Sun Sep 25 15:56:08 MET 1994
-
- ---------------------------------------
-
- co-author Thomas Bueschgens
-
- sledge@hammer.oche.de
-
- ---------------------------
-
- WHAT IS APSFILTER
- =================
-
- APSFILTER is a lineprinter input filter for systems with a BSD-like
- printing mechanism (lpd, /etc/printcap), that saves users a lot of work
- when printing different file types no matter whether compressed or not !!!
-
- Additionally it enables non Postscript printers, that are supported
- by the free (in the terms of the GPL) postscript emulator
- "ghostscript" (gs), to print postscript files !
-
- With the new apsfilter Version 3.0 its now possible to print
- *compacted* documents directly without unpacking !!!
- The wanted packers/unpackers have to be already installed on your system.
-
- o Supported packers:
-
- GZIP, PACK, COMPRESS, FREEZE/MELT
-
- o Supported file types:
-
- Postscript
- TeX DVI
- Ascii
- Data (PCL,...)
- GIFF
- TIFF
- Sun Rasterfiles
- FIG
- PNM (pbmplus)
-
- GENERAL FEATURES
- ================
-
- - support for monochrome and color PS and non_PS printers
-
- - customizeable by a system wide and a personal apsfilterrc file
- ( /etc/apsfilterrc and $HOME/.apsfilterrc ). This file is now
- well documented and so selfexplanatory ;-)
-
- - .apsfilterrc file lets you determine another dvi-file print program.
-
- - you can print compressed files without unpacking them first !
-
- - apsfilter comes with the installation script SETUP, that
- does nearly _everything_ for you !
-
- - SETUP creates spool directories as needed and with sane permissions
-
- - SETUP compiles and installs the add on utilities a2ps and rewindstdin
-
- - SETUP creates printcap entries, no matter whether you have a
- serial or a parallel printer.
-
- - SETUP creates all symbolic links for you that are needed
- to switch on or off certain filter features (color, monochrome,
- skip filetype autorecognition, force filter to treat german
- text as ascii text)
-
- - SETUP guides you more or less (;-) through the step, which
- of gs's printer driver to use ...
- Note: its up to you to have a gs binary, which has all
- drivers you need compiled in !!!!
-
- - SETUP allows you to install apsfilter for use with
- real postscript Printers ! So apsfilters interesting features
- remain no matter whether you use gs or not !
-
- - apsfilter knows about the following print METHODS:
-
- - 'auto': determine file type automatically
-
- - 'ascii': treat file as an ascii file even if it
- seems to be a data file (german texts
- with ``Umlauten'')
-
- - 'raw': print ascii files directly to the printer
- without postprocessing (using a2ps and gs)
- for fast listings !
-
- - apsfilter knows about the following a2ps FEATURES.
- These are options user-customizeable by a $HOME/.apsfilterrc
- file ! A template file can be copied from
- $APS_BASEDIR/template/apsfilterrc to $HOME/.apsfilterrc.
-
- - 1: print 1 page on one sheet with header
- - 1n: print 1 page on one sheet without header
- - 2: print 2 pages on one sheet with header
- - 2n: print 2 pages on one sheet without header
-
- - modified a2ps ! The page header now contains Filename and
- the username !!!
-
- - supports dvips' feature to include postscript files into
- TeX/DVI Documents (i.e. X11 screenshots using xgrab or
- xfig images !!! The TEXINPUTS variable has to contain
- the paths, where such PS pictures reside. We use
- xgrab 2.3 to produce such nices pictures from within the
- X11 desktop.
-
- - No searchdatabase - updated via cron - anymore. Each user
- may modify his TEXINPUTS path in his own $HOME/.apsfilterrc
- file !
-
- - apsfilter doesn't use tmp file. That saves space.
- Only one exception ... compressed dvi files printed via
- dvips.
-
-
- Add on software that comes with apsfilter 3.0
- =============================================
-
- Be sure to compile the two utilities in the src tree (a2ps and
- rewindstdin).
-
- Without these utilities you cannot use apsfilter.
-
- enhanced A2PS
- =============
-
- All filters after aps-20 use a2ps to print ascii files. I patched a2ps
- so you can select paperformat, print margins, filename and username on the
- commandline instead of compiling it in.
- I mailed the diffs to the author of the package, but still received no answer.
- Therefore alls apsfilter releases above aps-22 come with the patched source
- ready for compiling it. The diffs are also included.
-
- CHARACTER SETS, GERMAN "Umlaute"
- ================================
-
- Using a2ps' -8 option enables the printing of the ISO Latin Characterset.
- So its no problem to print special characters ;-)
-