PostScript Output from XY

["Thomas J Hawley" tjh@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Marc  on Fri, 13 Jan 2006
12:29:11 +1300

You can easily load a PostScript printer file and generate a .ps file from
Xywrite.

Where it gets tricky is if you need to specify a new font that's not
already in the .PRN's width tables. There is a Xy utility that will
assist in extracting the widths from the font's definition file and
inserting them into the .PRN, but as I recall (and I have not had occasion
to do this for ten years or so) it was a little buggy and there were
always a few bad widths that had to be tracked down and corrected manually.

A PostScript file is pure ascii, and if you open it to have a look you'll
see that it's complicated in there. If you're just printing to a
LaserJet, the Xy .PRN's are probably fine. But for sending output to a
commercial printer for use in a sophisticated environment, you will want
to do careful preflighting as some subtle things can creep into the code
that will cause trouble. I've heard some comments over the years to the
effect that the Xy PostScript .PRN's were adequate but not great.

Tom Hawley
New York
tjh@xxxxxxxx