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- Up, a PostScript print utility
- hacked together with a two-by-four by J Greely
- (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu)
-
-
- This package allows you to print conforming PS files n-up, with the
- scaling, rotation, and page positioning code kept in a readable
- configuration file. It has successfully been used on the output of
- ptroff, enscript, psdit (all from Adobe's TranScript package), and the
- Adobe documentation supplied with NeXT release 1.0, and should work on
- any file that obeys the rules the way I assume (note: it does not
- currently work with any known dvi-to-PS converter; I'm making some
- changes to make it work with dvips 4.2 (available for anonymous ftp at
- labrea.stanford.edu), but they're not done yet). The major feature is
- the ability to create your own layouts, with arbitrary scaling,
- translations, and rotations. The output can be fed back through, for
- further reduction/destruction.
-
- Warning: if you don't have Larry Wall's Perl language installed,
- this utility will be useless to you. It's not hard (ok, trivial) to
- convert it to Nawk or C, and I'll probably get around to it soon, but
- for now you need Perl (version 3.0). Debates on the merits of Perl as
- a programming language are discouraged by the author. If Perl is not
- located in /usr/bin, you'll need to change the first line of each
- executable.
-
- To use, unpack the shar file somewhere, edit the top of Makefile to
- indicate where things should go, and type "make install". It will
- install several symlinks to the script, as well as a general
- configuration file, which can be overridden by the user.
-
- Currently, it installs links to print 2, 4, 6, and 16 pages per
- sheet, and the supplied configuration file has sample layouts for
- doing (among others) 8-up, 4-up in greeting-card positions, 10-up in a
- shrinking spiral, and more. 4up and 16up simply scale the page by .5
- and .25, respectively (white lie; read my excuse in the config file).
- 2up and 6up are rotated, and the page positioning is given below:
-
- +-----+-----+ +---+---+---+
- | | | | 1 | 2 | 3 |
- | 1 | 2 | +---+---+---+
- | | | | 4 | 5 | 6 |
- +-----+-----+ +---+---+---+
-
-
- Note to NeXT users: both Preview and Yap can be used to preview
- output under release 1.0. Previous versions wouldn't work quite
- right.
-
- Note to people in general: after I finished writing this, someone
- told me of at least one other n-up utility. The one I've seen works
- by what might be called elegant PostScript hacking, but I think mine
- solves a different problem.
-
- Bugs, suggestions, offers of money and sacrifices, and anything
- interesting done with this package will be cheerfully accepted.
- Despite rumors to the contrary, I am *not* a black hole for e-mail.
-
-
- Additional utilities supplied:
-
- parr - Page ARRanger. For arbitrary reordering of pages in a
- conforming PS file. Switches are provided to automatically
- do signature-order printing for two-up, left-to-right
- layouts ("up -n pup"). Pages can be printed more than once
- or not at all, and blank pages may be inserted anywhere.
-
- makeup - generates numbered test pages, for debugging new layouts
-
- --
- J Greely (jgreely@cis.ohio-state.edu; osu-cis!jgreely), 89/10/23
-