Sending again, since the original was stopped by Yahoo. In fact, it was stopped twice. Hopefully this one will pass through. The 'barred' stuff below is my original message.

On 07Dec2011, at 10:19 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:

> Hi All,
>
> Version of Snow Leopard is the last 10.6.8 My printer is an HP 2605dn colour laser which is a postscript printer, if that is relevant.
>
> Checking the various Emails that I've kept with respect to PageStream 5058 and printing, I recalled that back on 18Nov2010 I was attempting to print, and experiencing all manner of problems, via
> <PageStream -> Preferences... -> General> and in the 'Interface' area had check-marked
> <Use System Printing>. So, wanting to print a 7 page doc that I had revised after bringing it over from the Amiga 4156, I tried to print this doc and experienced untold disasters and annoyances. Instead of 4 sheets being used, I must have printed over 20 sheets and still not had a single proper copy of the doc.
>
> Among the difficulties were:
>
> (A) One requiring a duplex print, the duplex sheets would be printed, but then followed by the same, or different, range of pages each printed on a separate sheet.
>
> (B) On attempting to do a 'manual' duplex job -- ie. print the even guys in reverse order, then the odd in normal order -- the even guys appeared followed by the entire file on single sheets.
>
> (C) Attempting to SAVE as a PDF file to some directory was denied and a print job was sent to the printer. Suddenly pages are flying out of the printer which were not asked for, not expected.
>
> (D) Attempting to PREVIEW the doc via the Mac application Preview.app, Preview.app never opened but a job was sent to the printer. On allowing the print to continue, there were font errors with a Courier looking font being used and screwing up the printout.
>
> At wits end, I returned to <PageStream -> Preferences... -> General> and turned OFF the option
> <Use System Printing> and returned to the malprinting doc. When PageStream's PRINT pane appeared there was a complaint about no PPD file. A quick trip to SETUP and selecting a POSTSCRIPT option somewhere brought up a PPD file.
>
> Cautiously a single page was tried without duplex! Success! The page was fine, no font problems. Tried a two page print along with duplexing (two-sided print), and that worked! Astounding! So gave the rest of the file a duplex rip, and all went well. What a relief after so much frustration and waste of paper
>
> So here, it appears that suddenly I can print nicely via the PageStream printing setup but the iMac system is useless. For me, this is okay, but for a 'REAL' Mac user it would not impress! However, if Deron wants regular Mac users to switch to PageStream, then PageStream needs to communicate properly with the Mac print system. Wonder how Lion will affect PageStream, it is raising all sorts of problems with other applications.

Added note on 9/Dec2011:

I forgot to add that when using the PageStream print process that when I specify that the job should be "Send to Printer" in the 'Print Setup" pane, then that is what happens, and I obtain a printout.

On the other hand, if I specify "Send to Postscript file", then assign a name and directory, then a .PS file is produced, but it was useless on my first attempt. TextEdit showed the file to be

PREFERENCE FILE
SETOUTPUT PostScript HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn
SETOUTPUT1 SOURCE Tray2 PAPER Letter 8.5\" 11\" 0\" 0\" PORTRAIT
SETOUTPUT2 PPD /var/folders/Sm/SmeRVLJvGAWB63EjDkWUUU+++TI/-Tmp-//4ee2aba791484 SENDTO DISKFILE
SETOUTPUT3 CYANSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT MAGENTASCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT YELLOWSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT BLACKSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT SPOTSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT
SETOUTPUT4 INCLUDEERRORHANDLER FALSE
SETOUTPUT5 FONTUNLOAD DOCUMENT UCR 80% GCR 100% DUPLEX DuplexNoTumble

and, no surprise, Preview.app will not open the above and complains with the message:

Postscript Conversion:
Warning: Postscript error. No PDF file produced.

My initial suspicions about Preview.app were wrong! It can read Postscript and it can save a PDF file as Postscript.

HOWEVER! If, in PageStream, one specifies "File -> Save as PDF...", then a PDF file is produced and Preview.app will open it. Comparing the PageStream version with the Preview.app version, they appeared to be identical -- at the visual level.

HOWEVER! There is another HOWEVER! I tried to repeat the above and on the second try, the PostScript file was created and weighted in at a beefy 684 KB whereas its PDF counterpart tipped the scales at 61 KB. Despite my poor knowledge of Postscript, it looked like a valid Postscript file. However, the first failure --- due to unknown errors on my part --- revealed that Preview.app does indeed transform the .PS file into .PDF and then opens the .PDF guy. The Postscript file started with
----------
%!PS-Adobe-3.0
%%Copyright: 1994-2009 GrasshopperLLC
%%Creator: PageStream5 5.0.5.8 (PostScript 1.2.0)
%%Title: MonthlyTemplate
%%Copyright: Copyright 2009 Green Dragon
%CreationDate: 2011-12-9 17:55
%%For: Don C Ferguson
%%DocumentMedia: (US Letter) 612 792 0 ( ) ( )
%%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
%%HiResBoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
%%Pages: (atend)
%%EndComments
%%BeginProlog
% $VER: PostScript.prolog 1.5 (25.5.0
%Copyright 1994-2008 GrasshopperLLC.

/AsphaltDict dup 200 dict def load begin
----------
which looks familiar, and ended up with
----------
EndPage
showpage
EndTile
%%PageTrailer
EndDocument
%EndDocument: MonthlyTemplate
%%Trailer
%%Pages: 7
end
%%EOF
----------
The above reads well, but on attempting to print page 1 from Preview.app, there was a problem. When the PRINT pane opened, the file --- with ALL active --- was claimed to be 3 pages in length!!! Yet seven pages in thumbnail format were displayed in the right margin. When I tried to specify a range of pages to print, matters got worse. To shorten the sad story, I tried to print pages 1 and 2, without duplexing, and obtained page 2!?!?!? The printed version of page 2 was good, but ... It appears that Preview.app has trouble with the Postscript file that PageStream produced!!

I'm wondering how all this would work if one does not have a Postscript printer??? I recall people on this list noting that when one transforms a PageStream file to PDF format using PageStream, then something is lost because PDF does not handle everything that a Postscript file will. Something about layers, or gradients, or ... I'm not sure.

Anyway, I'm glad that I don't have to rely on everything Mac! Especially this ridiculous mail program Mail.app. I should not knock Mail.app too harshly because it cooperates with the browser Safari beautifully. But when you are revising a mail message, it is really stupid, in my non-humble opinion.

My next project on the Mac involves PageStream! Just received my new, massive, hulking, quantum busting, big ass, inkjet printer and want to begin some photo album stuff. But .... on the Mac it seems that everyone uses some version of Adobe's PhotoStop or Shop! Whatever! I will prepare the album with PageStream and will see what happens.

Ok, let's see if this missive passes through the portals of Yahoo.

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca

Hi Don!

You have passed the barriers of Yahoo!

Op 10-12-2011 3:05, Don Green Dragon schreef:
> Sending again, since the original was stopped by Yahoo. In fact, it was stopped twice. Hopefully this one will pass through. The 'barred' stuff below is my original message.
>
> On 07Dec2011, at 10:19 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Version of Snow Leopard is the last 10.6.8 My printer is an HP 2605dn colour laser which is a postscript printer, if that is relevant.
>>
>> [...]
>>
>> I'm wondering how all this would work if one does not have a Postscript printer??? I recall people on this list noting that when one transforms a PageStream file to PDF format using PageStream, then something is lost because PDF does not handle everything that a Postscript file will. Something about layers, or gradients, or ... I'm not sure.

I thought it was the other way around. PGS can handle things PDF can't do.
Gradients in PGS should (!) be made as a bitmap to see that in a PDF.
PGS cannot do that at the moment.

>> [...]
>>
>> Don Green Dragon
>> fergdc@Shaw.ca
>>
>>

Theo

--
PageStream Pro 5.0.5.8 on Windows 7 Pro 32 bits (Dutch), Python 2.7.1 and PySide 1.0.5
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor at 2.70 GHz and 2 GB RAM

Hi list, Hi Deron!

adjusting single element in a pgs document (text frame, square, circle,
lines...) would be possible to have a solution for the lay-out aiding
like the one in microsoft publisher?

for example: dragging or nudging a text frame, in near/proximity to
another one (or in near of a pictures, a square et c.), a violet
non-printing lines appear when the two text frames are exactly
orthogonally aligned.

ciao!
best regards

/paolo

--
publied | net.tv, 3D&publishing

Hi Theo! Hi Don!

On Dec 10, 2011, at 01:49 AM, Theo Zweers <tjzwrs@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Don!
>
> You have passed the barriers of Yahoo!
>
> Op 10-12-2011 3:05, Don Green Dragon schreef:
> > Sending again, since the original was stopped by Yahoo. In fact, it was stopped twice. Hopefully this one will pass through. The 'barred' stuff below is my original message.
> >
> > On 07Dec2011, at 10:19 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:
> >
> >> Hi All,
> >>
> >> Version of Snow Leopard is the last 10.6.8 My printer is an HP 2605dn colour laser which is a postscript printer, if that is relevant.
> >>
> >> [...]
> >>
> >> I'm wondering how all this would work if one does not have a Postscript printer??? I recall people on this list noting that when one transforms a PageStream file to PDF format using PageStream, then something is lost because PDF does not handle everything that a Postscript file will. Something about layers, or gradients, or ... I'm not sure.
>
> I thought it was the other way around. PGS can handle things PDF can't do.
> Gradients in PGS should (!) be made as a bitmap to see that in a PDF.
> PGS cannot do that at the moment.

PDF started out as a subset of postscript so there were definitely things you could do with postscript that you couldn't with PDF. At this point I don't recall if there were any relevant to PgS or not, but as an example, you could have a postscript program to generate an image (I recall one of a snowflake) -- PDF did not support programming functionality.

PgS can certainly do things that PDF can't (gradient shape fills, for example), and it used to be that you could do more with postscript output than PDF. I used to print to postscript file than convert to PDF with ghostscript. But Deron did some work on the PDF output and due to a persistent bug with printing (not what Don is seeing, but where pages after the first are offset vertically) I've taken to generating PDFs and printing those.

Tim Doty

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

sorry to hear you've had so much trouble...

On Dec 09, 2011, at 08:05 PM, Don Green Dragon <fergdc@Shaw.ca> wrote:

> Sending again, since the original was stopped by Yahoo. In fact, it was stopped twice. Hopefully this one will pass through. The 'barred' stuff below is my original message.
>
> On 07Dec2011, at 10:19 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:
>
> > Hi All,
> >
> > Version of Snow Leopard is the last 10.6.8 My printer is an HP 2605dn colour laser which is a postscript printer, if that is relevant.
> >
> > Checking the various Emails that I've kept with respect to PageStream 5058 and printing, I recalled that back on 18Nov2010 I was attempting to print, and experiencing all manner of problems, via
> > <PageStream -> Preferences... -> General> and in the 'Interface' area had check-marked
> > <Use System Printing>. So, wanting to print a 7 page doc that I had revised after bringing it over from the Amiga 4156, I tried to print this doc and experienced untold disasters and annoyances. Instead of 4 sheets being used, I must have printed over 20 sheets and still not had a single proper copy of the doc.
> >
> > Among the difficulties were:
> >
> > (A) One requiring a duplex print, the duplex sheets would be printed, but then followed by the same, or different, range of pages each printed on a separate sheet.
> >
> > (B) On attempting to do a 'manual' duplex job -- ie. print the even guys in reverse order, then the odd in normal order -- the even guys appeared followed by the entire file on single sheets.
> >
> > (C) Attempting to SAVE as a PDF file to some directory was denied and a print job was sent to the printer. Suddenly pages are flying out of the printer which were not asked for, not expected.
> >
> > (D) Attempting to PREVIEW the doc via the Mac application Preview.app, Preview.app never opened but a job was sent to the printer. On allowing the print to continue, there were font errors with a Courier looking font being used and screwing up the printout.
> >
> > At wits end, I returned to <PageStream -> Preferences... -> General> and turned OFF the option
> > <Use System Printing> and returned to the malprinting doc. When PageStream's PRINT pane appeared there was a complaint about no PPD file. A quick trip to SETUP and selecting a POSTSCRIPT option somewhere brought up a PPD file.
> >
> > Cautiously a single page was tried without duplex! Success! The page was fine, no font problems. Tried a two page print along with duplexing (two-sided print), and that worked! Astounding! So gave the rest of the file a duplex rip, and all went well. What a relief after so much frustration and waste of paper
> >
> > So here, it appears that suddenly I can print nicely via the PageStream printing setup but the iMac system is useless. For me, this is okay, but for a 'REAL' Mac user it would not impress! However, if Deron wants regular Mac users to switch to PageStream, then PageStream needs to communicate properly with the Mac print system. Wonder how Lion will affect PageStream, it is raising all sorts of problems with other applications.

I don't actually print that often from PgS anymore, in general producing PDFs as final output. That said, due to issues with PgS doing a vertical offset of pages following the first I've switched to producing PDFs and printing those even when I do need to print. This can be annoying when not using US Letter because OS X Preview/print system will force US Legal pages to US Letter unless you remember to hunt down and change that setting.

The reason I mention this is that I am now on Lion and recently did a multi-page duplex print job. For reasons stated above this did not exercise PgS's printing, but instead relied on PDF output and printing that from Preview. Once I got the page size accounted for it printed without issue.
>
> Added note on 9/Dec2011:
>
> I forgot to add that when using the PageStream print process that when I specify that the job should be "Send to Printer" in the 'Print Setup" pane, then that is what happens, and I obtain a printout.
>
> On the other hand, if I specify "Send to Postscript file", then assign a name and directory, then a .PS file is produced, but it was useless on my first attempt. TextEdit showed the file to be
>
> PREFERENCE FILE
> SETOUTPUT PostScript HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn
> SETOUTPUT1 SOURCE Tray2 PAPER Letter 8.5\" 11\" 0\" 0\" PORTRAIT
> SETOUTPUT2 PPD /var/folders/Sm/SmeRVLJvGAWB63EjDkWUUU+++TI/-Tmp-//4ee2aba791484 SENDTO DISKFILE
> SETOUTPUT3 CYANSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT MAGENTASCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT YELLOWSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT BLACKSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT SPOTSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT
> SETOUTPUT4 INCLUDEERRORHANDLER FALSE
> SETOUTPUT5 FONTUNLOAD DOCUMENT UCR 80% GCR 100% DUPLEX DuplexNoTumble
>
> and, no surprise, Preview.app will not open the above and complains with the message:
>
> Postscript Conversion:
> Warning: Postscript error. No PDF file produced.

I can't reproduce this. A genuine postscript file was produced and opening in Preview there was an attempt to create a PDF (Preview crashed after getting through most/all of the conversion process).
>
> My initial suspicions about Preview.app were wrong! It can read Postscript and it can save a PDF file as Postscript.
>
> HOWEVER! If, in PageStream, one specifies "File -> Save as PDF...", then a PDF file is produced and Preview.app will open it. Comparing the PageStream version with the Preview.app version, they appeared to be identical -- at the visual level.
>
> HOWEVER! There is another HOWEVER! I tried to repeat the above and on the second try, the PostScript file was created and weighted in at a beefy 684 KB whereas its PDF counterpart tipped the scales at 61 KB. Despite my poor knowledge of Postscript, it looked like a valid Postscript file. However, the first failure --- due to unknown errors on my part --- revealed that Preview.app does indeed transform the .PS file into .PDF and then opens the .PDF guy. The Postscript file started with
> ----------
> %!PS-Adobe-3.0
> %%Copyright: 1994-2009 GrasshopperLLC
> %%Creator: PageStream5 5.0.5.8 (PostScript 1.2.0)
> %%Title: MonthlyTemplate
> %%Copyright: Copyright 2009 Green Dragon
> %CreationDate: 2011-12-9 17:55
> %%For: Don C Ferguson
> %%DocumentMedia: (US Letter) 612 792 0 ( ) ( )
> %%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
> %%HiResBoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
> %%Pages: (atend)
> %%EndComments
> %%BeginProlog
> % $VER: PostScript.prolog 1.5 (25.5.0
> %Copyright 1994-2008 GrasshopperLLC.
>
> /AsphaltDict dup 200 dict def load begin
> ----------
> which looks familiar, and ended up with
> ----------
> EndPage
> showpage
> EndTile
> %%PageTrailer
> EndDocument
> %EndDocument: MonthlyTemplate
> %%Trailer
> %%Pages: 7
> end
> %%EOF
> ----------
> The above reads well, but on attempting to print page 1 from Preview.app, there was a problem. When the PRINT pane opened, the file --- with ALL active --- was claimed to be 3 pages in length!!! Yet seven pages in thumbnail format were displayed in the right margin. When I tried to specify a range of pages to print, matters got worse. To shorten the sad story, I tried to print pages 1 and 2, without duplexing, and obtained page 2!?!?!? The printed version of page 2 was good, but ... It appears that Preview.app has trouble with the Postscript file that PageStream produced!!
>
> I'm wondering how all this would work if one does not have a Postscript printer??? I recall people on this list noting that when one transforms a PageStream file to PDF format using PageStream, then something is lost because PDF does not handle everything that a Postscript file will. Something about layers, or gradients, or ... I'm not sure.
>
> Anyway, I'm glad that I don't have to rely on everything Mac! Especially this ridiculous mail program Mail.app. I should not knock Mail.app too harshly because it cooperates with the browser Safari beautifully. But when you are revising a mail message, it is really stupid, in my non-humble opinion.
>
> My next project on the Mac involves PageStream! Just received my new, massive, hulking, quantum busting, big ass, inkjet printer and want to begin some photo album stuff. But .... on the Mac it seems that everyone uses some version of Adobe's PhotoStop or Shop! Whatever! I will prepare the album with PageStream and will see what happens.
>
> Ok, let's see if this missive passes through the portals of Yahoo.
>
> Don Green Dragon
> fergdc@Shaw.ca
>
>

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello Paolo,

On Dec 10, 2011, at 05:21 AM, "tech@publied.it" <tech@publied.it> wrote:

> Hi list, Hi Deron!
>
> adjusting single element in a pgs document (text frame, square, circle,
> lines...) would be possible to have a solution for the lay-out aiding
> like the one in microsoft publisher?
>
> for example: dragging or nudging a text frame, in near/proximity to
> another one (or in near of a pictures, a square et c.), a violet
> non-printing lines appear when the two text frames are exactly
> orthogonally aligned.

Pretty much all applications I've used that do layout use this indicator method. For example, yEd (I think that's the name) shows the indicators for left/center/right coincidents when moving and when resizing. It also supports 'snapping' at such points (which is useful if they don't happen to be grid aligned, or grid alignment is turned off). The reason I probably never registered PgS's lack of this functionality is the excellent alignment capability. However, it would be handy to be able to align like this on the fly (especially the resizing for non-grid sizes).

I suggest PgS add a third 'snap to' option: 'snap to object' which uses left, right, top, bottom, vertical center line and horizontal center line as on-the-fly snap lines that excludes the object currently being moved/resized (or maybe not exclude -- that could facilitate a continuous move which returns to the original position).

Submitted as an enhancement bug #326

Tim Doty

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

For what it's worth, with the same setup as Don, I never print from PageStream. I save as PDF, open the PDF in Preview, and then do whatever I want from Preview. I use Flate/ZLib compression, Binary encoding, and embed "Not Base14" fonts because the PDF will be used offsite. I even installed a utility that adds to Preview an option to "print as booklet" because I need to lay out a letter size newsletter for printing and folding on ledger size paper. PageStream does not use the Mac OS X printing system and so does not have access to such utilities. Furthermore, while PageStream will attempt to print to a fax printer, it doesn't know how to tell the fax what number to dial, so the print process hangs. Preview knows how to print to fax.

For a while I would print to PostScript from PageStream. PageStream created a startlingly large PostScript file, but the PDF that came out of Preview was reasonably small. That was a very short while, because sometimes Preview (as Don noted) refused to open the PostScript file.

I found that if I save as PDF from PageStream, open in Preview and save again as PDF from Preview, I get a smaller PDF file, so I used to use the smaller file for posting on the web. But I recently discovered that although the text in the PDF from PageStream can be searched, copied and pasted, the text in the PDF from Preview can not; searching fails, and copied and pasted text comes out as garbage. So hereafter I will post the PDF from PageStream. I will still use Preview to "print as booklet" because the print shop doesn't need to search or copy text, only to print.

--
Marty
Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ

On Dec 9, 2011, at 9:05 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:

> Sending again, since the original was stopped by Yahoo. In fact, it was stopped twice. Hopefully this one will pass through. The 'barred' stuff below is my original message.
>
> On 07Dec2011, at 10:19 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> Version of Snow Leopard is the last 10.6.8 My printer is an HP 2605dn colour laser which is a postscript printer, if that is relevant.
>>
>> Checking the various Emails that I've kept with respect to PageStream 5058 and printing, I recalled that back on 18Nov2010 I was attempting to print, and experiencing all manner of problems, via
>> <PageStream -> Preferences... -> General> and in the 'Interface' area had check-marked
>> <Use System Printing>. So, wanting to print a 7 page doc that I had revised after bringing it over from the Amiga 4156, I tried to print this doc and experienced untold disasters and annoyances. Instead of 4 sheets being used, I must have printed over 20 sheets and still not had a single proper copy of the doc.
>>
>> Among the difficulties were:
>>
>> (A) One requiring a duplex print, the duplex sheets would be printed, but then followed by the same, or different, range of pages each printed on a separate sheet.
>>
>> (B) On attempting to do a 'manual' duplex job -- ie. print the even guys in reverse order, then the odd in normal order -- the even guys appeared followed by the entire file on single sheets.
>>
>> (C) Attempting to SAVE as a PDF file to some directory was denied and a print job was sent to the printer. Suddenly pages are flying out of the printer which were not asked for, not expected.
>>
>> (D) Attempting to PREVIEW the doc via the Mac application Preview.app, Preview.app never opened but a job was sent to the printer. On allowing the print to continue, there were font errors with a Courier looking font being used and screwing up the printout.
>>
>> At wits end, I returned to <PageStream -> Preferences... -> General> and turned OFF the option
>> <Use System Printing> and returned to the malprinting doc. When PageStream's PRINT pane appeared there was a complaint about no PPD file. A quick trip to SETUP and selecting a POSTSCRIPT option somewhere brought up a PPD file.
>>
>> Cautiously a single page was tried without duplex! Success! The page was fine, no font problems. Tried a two page print along with duplexing (two-sided print), and that worked! Astounding! So gave the rest of the file a duplex rip, and all went well. What a relief after so much frustration and waste of paper
>>
>> So here, it appears that suddenly I can print nicely via the PageStream printing setup but the iMac system is useless. For me, this is okay, but for a 'REAL' Mac user it would not impress! However, if Deron wants regular Mac users to switch to PageStream, then PageStream needs to communicate properly with the Mac print system. Wonder how Lion will affect PageStream, it is raising all sorts of problems with other applications.
>
> Added note on 9/Dec2011:
>
> I forgot to add that when using the PageStream print process that when I specify that the job should be "Send to Printer" in the 'Print Setup" pane, then that is what happens, and I obtain a printout.
>
> On the other hand, if I specify "Send to Postscript file", then assign a name and directory, then a .PS file is produced, but it was useless on my first attempt. TextEdit showed the file to be
>
> PREFERENCE FILE
> SETOUTPUT PostScript HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn
> SETOUTPUT1 SOURCE Tray2 PAPER Letter 8.5\" 11\" 0\" 0\" PORTRAIT
> SETOUTPUT2 PPD /var/folders/Sm/SmeRVLJvGAWB63EjDkWUUU+++TI/-Tmp-//4ee2aba791484 SENDTO DISKFILE
> SETOUTPUT3 CYANSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT MAGENTASCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT YELLOWSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT BLACKSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT SPOTSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT
> SETOUTPUT4 INCLUDEERRORHANDLER FALSE
> SETOUTPUT5 FONTUNLOAD DOCUMENT UCR 80% GCR 100% DUPLEX DuplexNoTumble
>
> and, no surprise, Preview.app will not open the above and complains with the message:
>
> Postscript Conversion:
> Warning: Postscript error. No PDF file produced.
>
> My initial suspicions about Preview.app were wrong! It can read Postscript and it can save a PDF file as Postscript.
>
> HOWEVER! If, in PageStream, one specifies "File -> Save as PDF...", then a PDF file is produced and Preview.app will open it. Comparing theEditor’s Note: Shoehorns have their uses. I had swollen feet and ankles long before I had heart trouble. I wore wide shoes to fit my feet, until it dawned on me: I was enabling the swelling! Now I shoehorn my feet into medium width shoes, they squeeze out excess fluid, and my feet fit the shoes. version with the Preview.app version, they appeared to be identical -- at the visual level.
>
> HOWEVER! There is another HOWEVER! I tried to repeat the above and on the second try, the PostScript file was created and weighted in at a beefy 684 KB whereas its PDF counterpart tipped the scales at 61 KB. Despite my poor knowledge of Postscript, it looked like a valid Postscript file. However, the first failure --- due to unknown errors on my part --- revealed that Preview.app does indeed transform the .PS file into .PDF and then opens the .PDF guy. The Postscript file started with
> ----------
> %!PS-Adobe-3.0
> %%Copyright: 1994-2009 GrasshopperLLC
> %%Creator: PageStream5 5.0.5.8 (PostScript 1.2.0)
> %%Title: MonthlyTemplate
> %%Copyright: Copyright 2009 Green Dragon
> %CreationDate: 2011-12-9 17:55
> %%For: Don C Ferguson
> %%DocumentMedia: (US Letter) 612 792 0 ( ) ( )
> %%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
> %%HiResBoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
> %%Pages: (atend)
> %%EndComments
> %%BeginProlog
> % $VER: PostScript.prolog 1.5 (25.5.0
> %Copyright 1994-2008 GrasshopperLLC.
>
> /AsphaltDict dup 200 dict def load begin
> ----------
> which looks familiar, and ended up with
> ----------
> EndPage
> showpage
> EndTile
> %%PageTrailer
> EndDocument
> %EndDocument: MonthlyTemplate
> %%Trailer
> %%Pages: 7
> end
> %%EOF
> ----------
> The above reads well, but on attempting to print page 1 from Preview.app, there was a problem. When the PRINT pane opened, the file --- with ALL active --- was claimed to be 3 pages in length!!! Yet seven pages in thumbnail format were displayed in the right margin. When I tried to specify a range of pages to print, matters got worse. To shorten the sad story, I tried to print pages 1 and 2, without duplexing, and obtained page 2!?!?!? The printed version of page 2 was good, but ... It appears that Preview.app has trouble with the Postscript file that PageStream produced!!
>
> I'm wondering how all this would work if one does not have a Postscript printer??? I recall people on this list noting that when one transforms a PageStream file to PDF format using PageStream, then something is lost because PDF does not handle everything that a Postscript file will. Something about layers, or gradients, or ... I'm not sure.
>
> Anyway, I'm glad that I don't have to rely on everything Mac! Especially this ridiculous mail program Mail.app. I should not knock Mail.app too harshly because it cooperates with the browser Safari beautifully. But when you are revising a mail message, it is really stupid, in my non-humble opinion.
>
> My next project on the Mac involves PageStream! Just received my new, massive, hulking, quantum busting, big ass, inkjet printer and want to begin some photo album stuff. But .... on the Mac it seems that everyone uses some version of Adobe's PhotoStop or Shop! Whatever! I will prepare the album with PageStream and will see what happens.
>
> Ok, let's see if this missive passes through the portals of Yahoo.
>
>
> Don Green Dragon
> fergdc@Shaw.ca
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>

On Dec 10, 2011, at 8:02 AM, Tim Doty wrote:

>>
>> On the other hand, if I specify "Send to Postscript file", then assign a name and directory, then a .PS file is produced, but it was useless on my first attempt. TextEdit showed the file to be
>>
>> PREFERENCE FILE
>> SETOUTPUT PostScript HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn
>> SETOUTPUT1 SOURCE Tray2 PAPER Letter 8.5\" 11\" 0\" 0\" PORTRAIT
>> SETOUTPUT2 PPD /var/folders/Sm/SmeRVLJvGAWB63EjDkWUUU+++TI/-Tmp-//4ee2aba791484 SENDTO DISKFILE
>> SETOUTPUT3 CYANSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT MAGENTASCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT YELLOWSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT BLACKSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT SPOTSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT
>> SETOUTPUT4 INCLUDEERRORHANDLER FALSE
>> SETOUTPUT5 FONTUNLOAD DOCUMENT UCR 80% GCR 100% DUPLEX DuplexNoTumble
>>
>> and, no surprise, Preview.app will not open the above and complains with the message:
>>
>> Postscript Conversion:
>> Warning: Postscript error. No PDF file produced.
>
> I can't reproduce this. A genuine postscript file was produced and opening in Preview there was an attempt to create a PDF (Preview crashed after getting through most/all of the conversion process).

In my experience it depends on the PPD assigned in PageStream's Print Setup. I've had the most success with "No PPD Selected." If the wrong PPD has already been selected I can get back to no PPD by selecting a non-PPD file.

--
Marty
Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ

Op 10-12-2011 17:43, Martin B. Brilliant schreef:
> [...]
> I found that if I save as PDF from PageStream, open in Preview and save again as PDF from Preview, I get a smaller PDF file, so I used to use the smaller file for posting on the web.
> [...]
>
Hello Martin,

this bug is covered in the next version (Deron's in-house version) of
PGS. It seems that the current PGS doesn't handle resized (smaller)
bitmaps correctly. So the full bitmap info is distributed to pdf, and
not the the less bits info of the version of that bitmap in your document.
The same you can do with Adobe's Acrobat with save as with the argument:
optimized.

If that is not the case with you're findings, please make a note of
this. Then there is another bug present.

Theo

--
PageStream Pro 5.0.5.8 on Windows 7 Pro 32 bits (Dutch), Python 2.7.1 and PySide 1.0.5
AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 215 Processor at 2.70 GHz and 2 GB RAM

I know Tim has submitted it to the bug/feature tracker. Something like
I've been considering for awhile.

Deron

On 12/10/11 4:21 AM, tech@publied.it wrote:
> Hi list, Hi Deron!
>
> adjusting single element in a pgs document (text frame, square, circle,
> lines...) would be possible to have a solution for the lay-out aiding
> like the one in microsoft publisher?
>
> for example: dragging or nudging a text frame, in near/proximity to
> another one (or in near of a pictures, a square et c.), a violet
> non-printing lines appear when the two text frames are exactly
> orthogonally aligned.
>
> ciao!
> best regards
>
> /paolo
>

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

thank you Deron, thank you Tim!
ciao
/paolo

Il 10/12/2011 19.34, PageStream Support ha scritto:
>
> I know Tim has submitted it to the bug/feature tracker. Something like
> I've been considering for awhile.
>
> Deron
>
> On 12/10/11 4:21 AM, tech@publied.it <mailto:tech%40publied.it> wrote:

--
publied | net.tv, 3D&publishing

Hi Martin,

On 10Dec2011, at 9:43 AM, Martin B. Brilliant wrote:

> For what it's worth, with the same setup as Don, I never print from PageStream. I save as PDF, open the PDF in Preview, and then do whatever I want from Preview. I use Flate/ZLib compression, Binary encoding, and embed "Not Base14" fonts because the PDF will be used offsite.

I have the same settings, but they must be default values since I've never messed with the Compression, Security, or Fonts tabs that show on calling "File -> Save as PDF...". Why the setting "Not Base14" as opposed to "All"?

> I even installed a utility that adds to Preview an option to "print as booklet" because I need to lay out a letter size newsletter for printing and folding on ledger size paper. PageStream does not use the Mac OS X printing system and so does not have access to such utilities. Furthermore, while PageStream will attempt to print to a fax printer, it doesn't know how to tell the fax what number to dial, so the print process hangs. Preview knows how to print to fax.

OK. Did not know that.

Annoyed, exasperated, encouraged by your success, I tried again! In PageStream's Preferences... pane, activated the "Use System Printing" option. Loaded the PageStream file that has been used as the test file, call it File.pgs. Told PageStream to create a PDF version using "File -> Save as PDF" and the results were

File.pgs at 1.2 MB
File.pdf at 61 KB

that's a considerable reduction! Opened File.pdf with Preview.app. After some experimentation, found the blunder that had precipitated my earlier failures and subsequent blundering comments. Again, the seven pages were indicated in the Sidebar area (on the right). But no page 1! I.E., page 1 showed as a blank page, contradicting what was visible in the Sidebar. Asking for a printout of page 1 produced no printout. Actually, no contradiction, AT ALL. From previous experiments, I found that of the eleven possible option fields, in "Paper Handling", I had set

Pages to Print = Odd only
Page Order = Normal

So, I got what I had specified! On correcting the options in "Paper Handling", pages 3 and 4 printed properly using 2-sided printing. The only thing `odd' about the printing process was that it took the HP 2605 about 3 minutes (did not time accurately) before the printout began!! Usually, it will respond within 10 seconds. To check this, I asked for the same printout (directly from PageStream) and after a 15 second pause -- from the time the PRINT command was given --- the laserjet started printing. The printouts, after careful examination, appeared to be identical, at least, close enough that I could NOT see any differences, nor measure any differences. So I'm happy --- actually, not happy at all --- to announce that my previous rants about PageStream 5058 failing to print properly when using the OS X print system was mostly nonsense. But perhaps not all of it.

Repeating a previous experiment, but with more meticulous recording about what transpired:

-1- Take the printer offline. Return to PageStream preferences and set "Use System Printing" to active (check marked).

-2- Open PageStream's PRINT pane and click the PREVIEW button. Popup declares "Printing document" but Preview.app does not take over and provide a preview.

-3- Check the printer queue. A new print job has been created and the name of the print job is File'; i.e., the name of the PageStream file. Delete the print job from the queue. Recall that printer is offline.

-4- Call up PageStream's PRINT pane and this time ask for

PDF -> Save as PDF...

Same response as in -3-. Check the print queue. As before, a new print job has been created and it is waiting for the printer to become active. Delete it from the print queue.

-5- Call up PageStream's PRINT pane and this time ask for

PDF -> Save as PostScript...

Same response as in -3-, so I delete the new print job in the queue.

-6- Call up PageStream's PRINT pane but restrict PageStream's page range to just 3-4, then ask for

PDF -> Save as PostScript...

as in -5-. Same response, but this time I do NOT delete the print job, but turn on printer ON. Very quickly the printer produces pages 3 and 4 on a single sheet as specified.

Well, the above is a repeat of previous trials, and if it is repeatable on other Mac systems, then the responses noted are in error, in my opinion. Of course, maybe I have set something in the Mac system that causes the above behaviour, but, if so, I've no clue what that might be.

Resting on the peak of paranoia, I repeated the above with the 'pure' PageStream printing system. Again, PageStream creates a Postscript file File.PS and it weighs 688 KB. Preview.app opens this file correctly but assigns the name 'Untitled' to it. Preview.app prints pages 3 & 4 nicely. So the process here was

Files.pgs ---Pagestream---> File.ps ---Prevew.app---> Untitled.pdf
1.2 MB .....................688 KB ......................90 KB

but we also carried out:

Files.pgs ---Pagestream---> File.ps ---Prevew.app---> Untitled.ps
1.2 MB .....................688 KB ......................1.4 MB

I assume that Preview.app would send Untitled.ps to the printer, since, after all, it is a Postscript printer. But I don't know that.

> For a while I would print to PostScript from PageStream. PageStream created a startlingly large PostScript file, but the PDF that came out of Preview was reasonably small. That was a very short while, because sometimes Preview (as Don noted) refused to open the PostScript file.

Well, today, tonight, Preview.app opened both the PDF and the PostScript files created by PageStream, and, this time, I was much more careful in recording what happened.

The "error" that I reported earlier (below) adds further embarrassment!! What I had done was: One moves to the PRINT SETUP pane in order to set the field "Send to" to "Postscript file". After so doing, one should return to the PRINT pane with the option USE. The genius here had used "Save as..." or "Save" which the effect of storing some information that PageStream uses in a file. The bloody file starts with the announcement

PREFERENCE FILE
SETOUTPUT PostScript HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn
.....

and, although noticing the above, did not realize its significance. It's the SAVE back in the PRINT pane that counts.

> I found that if I save as PDF from PageStream, open in Preview and save again as PDF from Preview, I get a smaller PDF file, so I used to use the smaller file for posting on the web. But I recently discovered that although the text in the PDF from PageStream can be searched, copied and pasted, the text in the PDF from Preview can not; searching fails, and copied and pasted text comes out as garbage. So hereafter I will post the PDF from PageStream. I will still use Preview to "print as booklet" because the print shop doesn't need to search or copy text, only to print.
>
> Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ

Perhaps you could explain, in more detail, why you use "print as booklet" as I don't follow your explanation.

I'm leaving the stuff below as incriminating evidence! Except for a couple of lines that I don't think I wrote.

> On Dec 9, 2011, at 9:05 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:
>
>> Sending again, since the original was stopped by Yahoo. In fact, it was stopped twice. Hopefully this one will pass through. The 'barred' stuff below is my original message.
>>
>> On 07Dec2011, at 10:19 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> Version of Snow Leopard is the last 10.6.8 My printer is an HP 2605dn colour laser which is a postscript printer, if that is relevant.
>>>
>>> Checking the various Emails that I've kept with respect to PageStream 5058 and printing, I recalled that back on 18Nov2010 I was attempting to print, and experiencing all manner of problems, via
>>> <PageStream -> Preferences... -> General> and in the 'Interface' area had check-marked
>>> <Use System Printing>. So, wanting to print a 7 page doc that I had revised after bringing it over from the Amiga 4156, I tried to print this doc and experienced untold disasters and annoyances. Instead of 4 sheets being used, I must have printed over 20 sheets and still not had a single proper copy of the doc.
>>>
>>> Among the difficulties were:
>>>
>>> (A) One requiring a duplex print, the duplex sheets would be printed, but then followed by the same, or different, range of pages each printed on a separate sheet.
>>>
>>> (B) On attempting to do a 'manual' duplex job -- ie. print the even guys in reverse order, then the odd in normal order -- the even guys appeared followed by the entire file on single sheets.
>>>
>>> (C) Attempting to SAVE as a PDF file to some directory was denied and a print job was sent to the printer. Suddenly pages are flying out of the printer which were not asked for, not expected.
>>>
>>> (D) Attempting to PREVIEW the doc via the Mac application Preview.app, Preview.app never opened but a job was sent to the printer. On allowing the print to continue, there were font errors with a Courier looking font being used and screwing up the printout.
>>>
>>> At wits end, I returned to <PageStream -> Preferences... -> General> and turned OFF the option
>>> <Use System Printing> and returned to the malprinting doc. When PageStream's PRINT pane appeared there was a complaint about no PPD file. A quick trip to SETUP and selecting a POSTSCRIPT option somewhere brought up a PPD file.
>>>
>>> Cautiously a single page was tried without duplex! Success! The page was fine, no font problems. Tried a two page print along with duplexing (two-sided print), and that worked! Astounding! So gave the rest of the file a duplex rip, and all went well. What a relief after so much frustration and waste of paper
>>>
>>> So here, it appears that suddenly I can print nicely via the PageStream printing setup but the iMac system is useless. For me, this is okay, but for a 'REAL' Mac user it would not impress! However, if Deron wants regular Mac users to switch to PageStream, then PageStream needs to communicate properly with the Mac print system. Wonder how Lion will affect PageStream, it is raising all sorts of problems with other applications.
>>
>> Added note on 9/Dec2011:
>>
>> I forgot to add that when using the PageStream print process that when I specify that the job should be "Send to Printer" in the 'Print Setup" pane, then that is what happens, and I obtain a printout.
>>
>> On the other hand, if I specify "Send to Postscript file", then assign a name and directory, then a .PS file is produced, but it was useless on my first attempt. TextEdit showed the file to be
>>
>> PREFERENCE FILE
>> SETOUTPUT PostScript HP_Color_LaserJet_2605dn
>> SETOUTPUT1 SOURCE Tray2 PAPER Letter 8.5\" 11\" 0\" 0\" PORTRAIT
>> SETOUTPUT2 PPD /var/folders/Sm/SmeRVLJvGAWB63EjDkWUUU+++TI/-Tmp-//4ee2aba791484 SENDTO DISKFILE
>> SETOUTPUT3 CYANSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT MAGENTASCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT YELLOWSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT BLACKSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT SPOTSCREEN DEFAULT DEFAULT
>> SETOUTPUT4 INCLUDEERRORHANDLER FALSE
>> SETOUTPUT5 FONTUNLOAD DOCUMENT UCR 80% GCR 100% DUPLEX DuplexNoTumble
>>
>> and, no surprise, Preview.app will not open the above and complains with the message:
>>
>> Postscript Conversion:
>> Warning: Postscript error. No PDF file produced.
>>
>> My initial suspicions about Preview.app were wrong! It can read Postscript and it can save a PDF file as Postscript.
>>
>> HOWEVER! If, in PageStream, one specifies "File -> Save as PDF...", then a PDF file is produced and Preview.app will open it. <<snip>>
>>
>> HOWEVER! There is another HOWEVER! I tried to repeat the above and on the second try, the PostScript file was created and weighted in at a beefy 684 KB whereas its PDF counterpart tipped the scales at 61 KB. Despite my poor knowledge of Postscript, it looked like a valid Postscript file. However, the first failure --- due to unknown errors on my part --- revealed that Preview.app does indeed transform the .PS file into .PDF and then opens the .PDF guy. The Postscript file started with
>> ----------
>> %!PS-Adobe-3.0
>> %%Copyright: 1994-2009 GrasshopperLLC
>> %%Creator: PageStream5 5.0.5.8 (PostScript 1.2.0)
>> %%Title: MonthlyTemplate
>> %%Copyright: Copyright 2009 Green Dragon
>> %CreationDate: 2011-12-9 17:55
>> %%For: Don C Ferguson
>> %%DocumentMedia: (US Letter) 612 792 0 ( ) ( )
>> %%BoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
>> %%HiResBoundingBox: 0 0 612 792
>> %%Pages: (atend)
>> %%EndComments
>> %%BeginProlog
>> % $VER: PostScript.prolog 1.5 (25.5.0
>> %Copyright 1994-2008 GrasshopperLLC.
>>
>> /AsphaltDict dup 200 dict def load begin
>> ----------
>> which looks familiar, and ended up with
>> ----------
>> EndPage
>> showpage
>> EndTile
>> %%PageTrailer
>> EndDocument
>> %EndDocument: MonthlyTemplate
>> %%Trailer
>> %%Pages: 7
>> end
>> %%EOF
>> ----------
>> The above reads well, but on attempting to print page 1 from Preview.app, there was a problem. When the PRINT pane opened, the file --- with ALL active --- was claimed to be 3 pages in length!!! Yet seven pages in thumbnail format were displayed in the right margin. When I tried to specify a range of pages to print, matters got worse. To shorten the sad story, I tried to print pages 1 and 2, without duplexing, and obtained page 2!?!?!? The printed version of page 2 was good, but ... It appears that Preview.app has trouble with the Postscript file that PageStream produced!!
>>
>> I'm wondering how all this would work if one does not have a Postscript printer??? I recall people on this list noting that when one transforms a PageStream file to PDF format using PageStream, then something is lost because PDF does not handle everything that a Postscript file will. Something about layers, or gradients, or ... I'm not sure.
>>
>> Anyway, I'm glad that I don't have to rely on everything Mac! Especially this ridiculous mail program Mail.app. I should not knock Mail.app too harshly because it cooperates with the browser Safari beautifully. But when you are revising a mail message, it is really stupid, in my non-humble opinion.
>>
>> My next project on the Mac involves PageStream! Just received my new, massive, hulking, quantum busting, big ass, inkjet printer and want to begin some photo album stuff. But .... on the Mac it seems that everyone uses some version of Adobe's PhotoStop or Shop! Whatever! I will prepare the album with PageStream and will see what happens.
>>
>> Ok, let's see if this missive passes through the portals of Yahoo.

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca

Hello Tim,

On 10Dec2011, at 5:40 AM, Tim Doty wrote:

> Hi Theo! Hi Don!
>
> On Dec 10, 2011, at 01:49 AM, Theo Zweers <tjzwrs@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Don!
>>
>> You have passed the barriers of Yahoo!
>>
>> Op 10-12-2011 3:05, Don Green Dragon schreef:
>>> Sending again, since the original was stopped by Yahoo. In fact, it was stopped twice. Hopefully this one will pass through. The 'barred' stuff below is my original message.
>>>
>>> On 07Dec2011, at 10:19 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi All,
>>>>
>>>> Version of Snow Leopard is the last 10.6.8 My printer is an HP 2605dn colour laser which is a postscript printer, if that is relevant.
>>>>
>>>> [...]
>>>>
>>>> I'm wondering how all this would work if one does not have a Postscript printer??? I recall people on this list noting that when one transforms a PageStream file to PDF format using PageStream, then something is lost because PDF does not handle everything that a Postscript file will. Something about layers, or gradients, or ... I'm not sure.
>>
>> I thought it was the other way around. PGS can handle things PDF can't do.
>> Gradients in PGS should (!) be made as a bitmap to see that in a PDF.
>> PGS cannot do that at the moment.
>
> PDF started out as a subset of postscript so there were definitely things you could do with postscript that you couldn't with PDF. At this point I don't recall if there were any relevant to PgS or not, but as an example, you could have a postscript program to generate an image (I recall one of a snowflake) -- PDF did not support programming functionality.

Yes, that is my understanding too.

> PgS can certainly do things that PDF can't (gradient shape fills, for example), and it used to be that you could do more with postscript output than PDF.

Okay, "gradient shape fills" that the kind of facility that I was searching for but could not remember. However, in view of such 'weaknesses' in PDF, it appears to me that using the PageStream printing system --- when it works, and it does here --- is preferable than going through the PDF run-around. It has been a while since I've printed stuff with colour gradients in them, but, by accident, yesterday I cam across a page that was printed eons ago and contained all manner of gradients therein. However, that page had been printed by my (now retired) HP inkjet printer.

> I used to print to postscript file than convert to PDF with ghostscript. But Deron did some work on the PDF output and due to a persistent bug with printing (not what Don is seeing, but where pages after the first are offset vertically) I've taken to generating PDFs and printing those.

Well, with experimentation on this iMac, I was able to successfully do:

FileName.pgs ---PageStream---> FileName.pdf/FileName.ps ---Preview.app---> file view in Preview

And subsequent printouts worked too. Long post on this in another message. Already posted.

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca

Hi Theo,

On 10Dec2011, at 12:49 AM, Theo Zweers wrote:

> Hi Don!
>
> You have passed the barriers of Yahoo!

Indeed, it is wonderful to slip past the Yahoo dragon that guards PageStream's gate.

> Op 10-12-2011 3:05, Don Green Dragon schreef:
>> Sending again, since the original was stopped by Yahoo. In fact, it was stopped twice. Hopefully this one will pass through. The 'barred' stuff below is my original message.
>>
>> On 07Dec2011, at 10:19 PM, Don Green Dragon wrote:
>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> Version of Snow Leopard is the last 10.6.8 My printer is an HP 2605dn colour laser which is a postscript printer, if that is relevant.
>>>
>>> [...]
>>>
>>> I'm wondering how all this would work if one does not have a Postscript printer??? I recall people on this list noting that when one transforms a PageStream file to PDF format using PageStream, then something is lost because PDF does not handle everything that a Postscript file will. Something about layers, or gradients, or ... I'm not sure.
>
> I thought it was the other way around. PGS can handle things PDF can't do.
> Gradients in PGS should (!) be made as a bitmap to see that in a PDF.
> PGS cannot do that at the moment.

I think Tim pointed out what I was stumbling around and about on -- gradients!!

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca

Hi Tim,

I read your comments below with respect to Lion with interest.

On 10Dec2011, at 6:02 AM, Tim Doty wrote:

> sorry to hear you've had so much trouble...

When I have trouble with PageStream, I immediately conclude that all is Deron's fault. On the frequent occasions --- too many recently --- when I find that I'm the one who is screwing up, then I guess we have to give the lad some credit! Do we not??

<<snip>>

>>> Cautiously a single page was tried without duplex! Success! The page was fine, no font problems. Tried a two page print along with duplexing (two-sided print), and that worked! Astounding! So gave the rest of the file a duplex rip, and all went well. What a relief after so much frustration and waste of paper
>>>
>>> So here, it appears that suddenly I can print nicely via the PageStream printing setup but the iMac system is useless. For me, this is okay, but for a 'REAL' Mac user it would not impress! However, if Deron wants regular Mac users to switch to PageStream, then PageStream needs to communicate properly with the Mac print system. Wonder how Lion will affect PageStream, it is raising all sorts of problems with other applications.
>
> I don't actually print that often from PgS anymore, in general producing PDFs as final output. That said, due to issues with PgS doing a vertical offset of pages following the first I've switched to producing PDFs and printing those even when I do need to print. This can be annoying when not using US Letter because OS X Preview/print system will force US Legal pages to US Letter unless you remember to hunt down and change that setting.

And you are doing this on a Mac using Lion as the version of OS X? Well ..... that's impressive! Don't know what I'm doing wrong here so that the OS X printing system misbehaves.

ADDON LATER: Discovered some of my blunders earlier this evening! Bloody oath ......

> The reason I mention this is that I am now on Lion and recently did a multi-page duplex print job. For reasons stated above this did not exercise PgS's printing, but instead relied on PDF output and printing that from Preview. Once I got the page size accounted for it printed without issue.

That's good to read because programmers are having problems with Lion. The program that I use most ofter now is TeXShop which is "an Ascii editor type" program which prepares source files for LaTeX2e (that `e` should be epsilon). They've had to prepare a specific version of TeXShop in order to accommodate Lion. I think Deron said recently that the Mac programmers are making matters more and more difficult for third party programmers. Strikes me as a crazy philosophy, but ..... Consolidating the empire, I guess.

<<snip>>

Don Green Dragon
fergdc@Shaw.ca

On Dec 13, 2011, at 12:01 AM, Don Green Dragon wrote:

> Hi Martin,
>
> On 10Dec2011, at 9:43 AM, Martin B. Brilliant wrote:
>
>> For what it's worth, with the same setup as Don, I never print from PageStream. I save as PDF, open the PDF in Preview, and then do whatever I want from Preview. I use Flate/ZLib compression, Binary encoding, and embed "Not Base14" fonts because the PDF will be used offsite.
>
> I have the same settings, but they must be default values since I've never messed with the Compression, Security, or Fonts tabs that show on calling "File -> Save as PDF...". Why the setting "Not Base14" as opposed to "All"?
>

"By default, when creating a Screen Optimized PDF with Distiller or any PDF from PDF Writer, the Base 14 Fonts are not embedded in the document. Since these fonts are available in Acrobat Reader it is assumed that they will be available to any viewer and embedding would simply add unnecessarily to the file size." So sayshttp://desktoppub.about.com/od/glossary/g/base14fonts.htm. The 14 fonts are 4 styles each of the basic serif, sans serif, and monospaced fonts (e.g., Times, Helvetica and Courier), plus Symbol and Zapf Dingbats.

>
>> I even installed a utility that adds to Preview an option to "print as booklet" because I need to lay out a letter size newsletter for printing and folding on ledger size paper. PageStream does not use the Mac OS X printing system and so does not have access to such utilities....

...

>> I found that if I save as PDF from PageStream, open in Preview and save again as PDF from Preview, I get a smaller PDF file, so I used to use the smaller file for posting on the web. But I recently discovered that although the text in the PDF from PageStream can be searched, copied and pasted, the text in the PDF from Preview can not; searching fails, and copied and pasted text comes out as garbage. So hereafter I will post the PDF from PageStream. I will still use Preview to "print as booklet" because the print shop doesn't need to search or copy text, only to print.
>>
>> Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ
>
> Perhaps you could explain, in more detail, why you use "print as booklet" as I don't follow your explanation.
>

The way a newspaper is folded: for example, in an 8 page section, page 8 and page 1 are printed side by side on the outside of the folded sheet, and page 2 and page 7 are printed side by side on the inside of the sheet. Folded inside that is another sheet with page 3 and page 6 side by side on the outside, and pages 4 and 5 on the inside. If the page size is 8.5 by 11 inches ("letter size"), the sheet must be 17 by 11 inches ("ledger size"). I don't have ledger size paper, nor a printer that can print on it, but I can create a PDF that size and email it to a print shop that prints it on ledger size paper and also collates and folds the sheets.

I downloaded and installed a free utility called "Create Booklet" (by Christoph Vogelbusch) that adds a "Create Booklet" option to the PDF menu at the bottom of the standard Print dialog in Mac OS X. Given a document with letter size pages, it creates a PDF with ledger size pages with the correct imposition.

--
Marty
Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ

Hi Martin,

On Dec 13, 2011, at 7:33 AM, Martin B. Brilliant wrote:

> The way a newspaper is folded: for example, in an 8 page section, page 8 and page 1 are printed side by side on the outside of the folded sheet, and page 2 and page 7 are printed side by side on the inside of the sheet. Folded inside that is another sheet with page 3 and page 6 side by side on the outside, and pages 4 and 5 on the inside. If the page size is 8.5 by 11 inches ("letter size"), the sheet must be 17 by 11 inches ("ledger size"). I don't have ledger size paper, nor a printer that can print on it, but I can create a PDF that size and email it to a print shop that prints it on ledger size paper and also collates and folds the sheets.
>
> I downloaded and installed a free utility called "Create Booklet" (by Christoph Vogelbusch) that adds a "Create Booklet" option to the PDF menu at the bottom of the standard Print dialog in Mac OS X. Given a document with letter size pages, it creates a PDF with ledger size pages with the correct imposition.

I admit I haven't used imposition that much and not for that sort of layout, but just for clarity you are saying PgS's built-in imposition controls don't work for this?

Tim Doty

Hi Don, I hope I'm not snipping too heavily…

On Dec 13, 2011, at 12:17 AM, Don Green Dragon wrote:

> Hi Tim,
>
> I read your comments below with respect to Lion with interest.
>
> On 10Dec2011, at 6:02 AM, Tim Doty wrote:
>
> > sorry to hear you've had so much trouble...
>
> When I have trouble with PageStream, I immediately conclude that all is Deron's fault. On the frequent occasions --- too many recently --- when I find that I'm the one who is screwing up, then I guess we have to give the lad some credit! Do we not??

Well, we all make mistakes. Though it does have some faults, I think Deron has done a good job with PgS. The only obvious problem on Lion I'm aware of is selected text being black on black -- quite annoying but not impossible. If other applications have it worse then kudos to Deron for being that good without a Lion specific version.

> > I don't actually print that often from PgS anymore, in general producing PDFs as final output. That said, due to issues with PgS doing a vertical offset of pages following the first I've switched to producing PDFs and printing those even when I do need to print. This can be annoying when not using US Letter because OS X Preview/print system will force US Legal pages to US Letter unless you remember to hunt down and change that setting.
>
> And you are doing this on a Mac using Lion as the version of OS X? Well ..... that's impressive! Don't know what I'm doing wrong here so that the OS X printing system misbehaves.

Just to be clear: I have been using PgS to create PDFs and then printing those PDFs. This is primarily because I don't print that often. However, I just remembered I *did* print directly from PgS a week ago and it came out perfectly. I wanted to point that out after describing the "printing multiple pages" bug I referenced. And, specifically, I am *not* using system printing. Couldn't tell you why that's the case but I think I configured it that way back when the OS X version of PgS was in beta.

> ADDON LATER: Discovered some of my blunders earlier this evening! Bloody oath ......
>
> > The reason I mention this is that I am now on Lion and recently did a multi-page duplex print job. For reasons stated above this did not exercise PgS's printing, but instead relied on PDF output and printing that from Preview. Once I got the page size accounted for it printed without issue.
>
> That's good to read because programmers are having problems with Lion. The program that I use most ofter now is TeXShop which is "an Ascii editor type" program which prepares source files for LaTeX2e (that `e` should be epsilon). They've had to prepare a specific version of TeXShop in order to accommodate Lion. I think Deron said recently that the Mac programmers are making matters more and more difficult for third party programmers. Strikes me as a crazy philosophy, but ..... Consolidating the empire, I guess.

I think a lot of it comes down to frustration with dealing with other people's bugs, particularly when they have a different view of what constitutes a bug than you do. I've had some of that after switching from PyQt to PySide, but at least the developers respond which is not the impression I get about Apple.

Tim Doty
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On Dec 13, 2011, at 8:56 AM, Tim Doty wrote:

> Hi Martin,
>
> On Dec 13, 2011, at 7:33 AM, Martin B. Brilliant wrote:
>
>> The way a newspaper is folded: for example, in an 8 page section, page 8 and page 1 are printed side by side on the outside of the folded sheet, and page 2 and page 7 are printed side by side on the inside of the sheet. Folded inside that is another sheet with page 3 and page 6 side by side on the outside, and pages 4 and 5 on the inside. If the page size is 8.5 by 11 inches ("letter size"), the sheet must be 17 by 11 inches ("ledger size"). I don't have ledger size paper, nor a printer that can print on it, but I can create a PDF that size and email it to a print shop that prints it on ledger size paper and also collates and folds the sheets.
>>
>> I downloaded and installed a free utility called "Create Booklet" (by Christoph Vogelbusch) that adds a "Create Booklet" option to the PDF menu at the bottom of the standard Print dialog in Mac OS X. Given a document with letter size pages, it creates a PDF with ledger size pages with the correct imposition.
>
> I admit I haven't used imposition that much and not for that sort of layout, but just for clarity you are saying PgS's built-in imposition controls don't work for this?
>
> Tim Doty
>

Apparently you said as much athttp://www.pagestream.org/?action=Bug Tracker&idi&q=-&status=Open. I didn't say it but I implied it. As I recall I tried it before and I couldn't get the proper relation between the size and orientation of the page (letter, portrait) and the paper (ledger, landscape), so I abandoned the attempt and never thought about it again. I just looked at it again. In the imposition dialogue, using the Signature option, 2 across, 1 down, PageStream seems to want to split letter size paper down the middle vertically. It looks as though imposition is available only in printing, and in my case I would have to print to a PostScript file, but PageStream doesn't seem to believe I can print to ledger size. I tried printing an 8 page letter size newsletter to a PostScript file and got a file with two letter size (not ledger size) pages, with the right hand half of the last page of the document printed on the left hand half of the first page, and nothing on the second page. So, yes, imposition in PageStream doesn't work.

--
Marty
Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hi Martin,

>>> <<snip>>
>>> For what it's worth, with the same setup as Don, I never print from PageStream. I save as PDF, open the PDF in Preview, and then do whatever I want from Preview. I use Flate/ZLib compression, Binary encoding, and embed "Not Base14" fonts because the PDF will be used offsite.
>>
>> I have the same settings, but they must be default values since I've never messed with the Compression, Security, or Fonts tabs that show on calling "File -> Save as PDF...". Why the setting "Not Base14" as opposed to "All"?
>>
>
> "By default, when creating a Screen Optimized PDF with Distiller or any PDF from PDF Writer, the Base 14 Fonts are not embedded in the document. Since these fonts are available in Acrobat Reader it is assumed that they will be available to any viewer and embedding would simply add unnecessarily to the file size." So sayshttp://desktoppub.about.com/od/glossary/g/base14fonts.htm. The 14 fonts are 4 styles each of the basic serif, sans serif, and monospaced fonts (e.g., Times, Helvetica and Courier), plus Symbol and Zapf Dingbats.

Thanks for the explanation and url. Understand now.

>>> I found that if I save as PDF from PageStream, open in Preview and save again as PDF from Preview, I get a smaller PDF file, so I used to use the smaller file for posting on the web. But I recently discovered that although the text in the PDF from PageStream can be searched, copied and pasted, the text in the PDF from Preview can not; searching fails, and copied and pasted text comes out as garbage. So hereafter I will post the PDF from PageStream. I will still use Preview to "print as booklet" because the print shop doesn't need to search or copy text, only to print.
>>>
>>> Martin B. Brilliant at home in Holmdel, NJ
>>
>> Perhaps you could explain, in more detail, why you use "print as booklet" as I don't follow your explanation.
>
> The way a newspaper is folded: for example, in an 8 page section, page 8 and page 1 are printed side by side on the outside of the folded sheet, and page 2 and page 7 are printed side by side on the inside of the sheet. Folded inside that is another sheet with page 3 and page 6 side by side on the outside, and pages 4 and 5 on the inside. If the page size is 8.5 by 11 inches ("letter size"), the sheet must be 17 by 11 inches ("ledger size"). I don't have ledger size paper, nor a printer that can print on it, but I can create a PDF that size and email it to a print shop that prints it on ledger size paper and also collates and folds the sheets.

Very good! Thank you for the useful information.

> I downloaded and installed a free utility called "Create Booklet" (by Christoph Vogelbusch) that adds a "Create Booklet" option to the PDF menu at the bottom of the standard Print dialog in Mac OS X. Given a document with letter size pages, it creates a PDF with ledger size pages with the correct imposition.

Interesting!

<<snip>>

Green Dragon
fergdc@uleth.ca