When I was doing my recent .37 beta tests at work I had to kill
printouts of simple documents a couple of times because the printer
would get hung up with HUGE files being queued whil my co-workers kept
looking at the queue and seeing their jobs sitting and waiting for
mine to finish. I have heard a couple of others talk about this.
Trying to provide something objective, I did a couple of experiments.
I made 5 simple docs, one with a gif, one with a jpg, one with a
simple table and two with a basic one month calendar. I then created
lookalikes of 4 of these with another program for comparison. I then
used a PDF printer driver here at work to do printouts from 4.1.5.8,
4.1.6.37, and the other program (if applicable) and also did native
exports of the documents from the PGS versions. I definitely found
that beta .37 is making some huge files, but it did not follow a rule
that I could figure out so I enclose here my test results showing file
sizes. The PDF print driver uses gs (ghostscript) and must go through
some ps file generation but I don't know the parameters. It works
well, though, and I assume it is a good tool to evaluate the PGS PS
printing output. Here is the data for what it's worth:

Experiment parameters:
- Similar documents between MS and PGS.
- All prints use same PDF print driver which uses gs.
- Same PGS document opened in 4.1.5.8 and .37 beta.
- All documents one page long.

1 b&w gif (line drawing, mostly white)
----------------------------------------
MS Word print to PDF driver: 86,748
PGS 4158 print to PDF driver: 80,656
PGS b.37 print to PDF driver: 172,846
PGS 4158 native PDF export: 47,091
PGS b.37 native PDF export: 47,109

1 color jpg
----------------------------------------
MS Word print to PDF driver: 28,504
PGS 4158 print to PDF driver: 22,411
PGS b.37 print to PDF driver: 3,112,211
PGS 4158 native PDF export: 250,004
PGS b.37 native PDF export: 250,022

small 3x5 table with text (no fills)
----------------------------------------
MS Word print to PDF driver: 19,142
PGS 4158 print to PDF driver: 32,136
PGS b.37 print to PDF driver: 35,995
PGS 4158 native PDF export: 2,010
PGS b.37 native PDF export: 4,390 -> lefthand line from boxes
missing

full page 1 month calendar (7x11 table with text & solid fills)
----------------------------------------------------------------
MS Visio print to PDF driver: 26,646
PGS 4158 print to PDF driver: 255,159
PGS b.37 print to PDF driver: 2,402,709
PGS 4158 native PDF export: 4,142
PGS b.37 native PDF export: 4,967 -> most of table is missing
in PDF

full page 1 month calendar (table, lines, text & solid fills)
----------------------------------------------------------------
PGS 4158 print to PDF driver: 216,426
PGS b.37 print to PDF driver: 2,502,985
PGS 4158 native PDF export: 5,286
PGS b.37 native PDF export: 13,176 -> lefthand line from boxes
missing

The beta printouts that are huge look like bitmaps when they load,
which I think I read here is what is happening. One question I have
is why simple tables come out so much larger in the external printouts
than in internal PDF generation. I guess that means that the internal
PDF generator is very efficient at what it does. Nice!

One bug that showed up is the missing lines in the beta 37 PDF export
of boxes and/or tables, which I had not noticed before.

Steve

Aaack! Here's a new one. Since I am having problems getting PGS
4.1.5.8 working with the HP 840C printer driver on my home PC (it
prints but leaves out pictures and stuff as I wrote before but nobody
has any suggestions as to why) and 4.1.6.37 *will* print with the
driver, I was trying to print out a couple of pages of mailing labels
using the beta.

This is a non-postscript printer under Windows XP. Well, the printout
was taking a long time to print out so I brought up the printer driver
queue and saw that the printout was over 37 MEGABYTES! This is a *two
page* document with a bit of Arial text (no bold or italics even) and
nothing else. Printed in grayscale. What could possibly cause such a
simple file to print so huge?

Fortunately I still had the old printer driver on my kids' computer
and was able to print just fine from there (after installing
everything there, etc).

Steve

P.S.

I find that Pagestream (maybe because it is stretched between so many
varying types of platforms) is very sensitive to printer drivers in a
way that no other Windows program is. Whether it is postscript or
not. At work there is a Canon laser printer/copier that I can not
print on using Pagestream also. 4.1.5.8 acts like it is printing on
the printer but nothing ever shows up in the queue. In either case,
(at home with the HP Deskjet or at work with the Canon), if there is
any data gathering I can do I would be glad to help. I know that
there is a lot of wierdness that can happen in Windows, but I would be
happier if Pagestream was not always alone in its dislike of certain
printer drivers while every other program thinks things are great....

>This is a non-postscript printer under Windows XP. Well, the printout
>was taking a long time to print out so I brought up the printer driver
>queue and saw that the printout was over 37 MEGABYTES! This is a *two
>page* document with a bit of Arial text (no bold or italics even) and
>nothing else. Printed in grayscale. What could possibly cause such a
>simple file to print so huge?

Not all printer drivers report actual needs, so PageStream ends up
supplying more information than it really needs. So far that seems to be
more with PostScript printers than others however. First, did it print
properly? Obviously first importance. Was the printer directly connected to
your computer or on a network? What is the native resolution of the printer
(300dpi, 720dpi, etc?)

>Fortunately I still had the old printer driver on my kids' computer
>and was able to print just fine from there (after installing
>everything there, etc).

So it didn't print, or just took too long for you?

>Steve
>
>P.S.
>I find that Pagestream (maybe because it is stretched between so many
>varying types of platforms) is very sensitive to printer drivers in a
>way that no other Windows program is.

Nothing really to do with the multiplatform issues as that portion is
specific to each platform, but more to do with PageStream having more
capabilities than Windows supports directly. The new 5.0 really goes beyond
standard Windows GDI and required a whole new output/display engine.

>Whether it is postscript or not. At work there is a Canon laser
>printer/copier that I can not
>print on using Pagestream also.

Does the new version print properly (perhaps slowly, but correctly?)

>4.1.5.8 acts like it is printing on
>the printer but nothing ever shows up in the queue. In either case,
>(at home with the HP Deskjet or at work with the Canon), if there is
>any data gathering I can do I would be glad to help. I know that
>there is a lot of wierdness that can happen in Windows, but I would be
>happier if Pagestream was not always alone in its dislike of certain
>printer drivers while every other program thinks things are great....

Deron Kazmaier - support@grasshopperllc.com
Grasshopper LLC Publishing -http://www.grasshopperllc.com
PageStream DTP for Amiga, Linux, Macintosh, and Windows

--- In PageStreamWindowsBeta@yahoogroups.com, PageStream Support
<support@g...> wrote:
> First, did it print properly? Obviously first importance.

I Don't know. I was late for the meeting where the document
was going to be used so I killed the job after what seemed like
several minutes of downloading and used the other computer. I
imagine that it probably would have printed eventually but am
not sure. (Though it is my impression that if PGS takes more
than a minute to do anything on my PC it generally is either
locked up or on the way to a crash since the code is generally
quick and efficient).

> Was the printer directly connected to your computer or on
> a network?

Directly connected (by USB).

> What is the native resolution of the printer (300dpi, 720dpi, etc?)

It says 300x300 in the current printer driver settings but I
found a web page where it says that it goes up to 600x600.

>> Fortunately I still had the old printer driver on my kids'
>> computer and was able to print just fine from there (after
>> installing everything there, etc).
> So it didn't print, or just took too long for you?

Yeah, it took too long in that instance so I killed it after
waiting for quite a while. Actually, printouts had been taking
a while to come out with that driver, but nothing like this one.
Not sure if it would have finished printing since I did kill the job.

By the way, as far as the Deskjet goes, the next day I stayed
up to 2:30 am and FINALLY got the old "HP DeskJet
840C/841C/842C/843C" printer driver (instead of the "840C
Family" one from HP that PGS didn't like) to install on my
computer and it now is printing graphics again (and much more
quickly, too!)
[I had to do detailed diffs of the c:\windows hierarchy between
two computers to finally find the files to delete....]

[---also---]

>> At work there is a Canon laser printer/copier that I can not
>>print on using Pagestream also.
>
> Does the new version print properly (perhaps slowly, but correctly?)

No. If I try to print on the Canon at work the latest .37 crashes
pretty much instantly.

Steve