SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Presented by Allen Miglore Synergetic Data Systems, Inc. Session 6 PostScript® vs. PCL Printing PostScript is a registered trademark of Adobe Systems Incorporated

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Why PostScript? Through version 6, UnForm supported PCL5 and PDF output formats. PCL5 was the language standard for laser printers. Starting in 2005, HP reduced support for PCL5 by eliminating scalable PCL fonts from some new printer models. All PCL text was rendered in Courier. SDSI chose to develop a PostScript driver.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s PostScript History PostScript was developed in the 1980’s by Adobe, for use in the printing and typesetting industry. –The Apple Laserwriter was an early consumer printer with PostScript. PostScript 2 and 3 were released in the 1990’s. PostScript is widely supported on laser printers today – often PostScript 2.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s PostScript vs. PCL5 PostScript is a programming language –PCL5 is a page description language PostScript is verbose, large print streams –PCL5 is concise, smaller print streams PostScript is extendable to support any device capability –PCL5 has a defined specification of device capabilities

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Key UnForm Differences Print stream size increase means longer transmission times to printer Device capabilities are controlled by commands that differ by printer (duplex, tray, and bin control) Image support differs (eps and jpeg) Base fonts are similar, but UnForm also supports Type1 soft fonts

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Device Capability Example In PCL5, a tray selection command was always ESC +”&l#H”. The UnForm tray 1 command always sent ESC+”&l1H”. In PostScript, trays are given names, which vary by printer, and a tray name is given PostScript code, which varies by printer. *InputSlot Upper/ Tray 1: " > setpagedevice"

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s PPD Files Since printer control varies by model, a configuration file is necessary. Vendors publish Postscript Printer Definition (PPD) files for their printers. A PPD file is simply a map of capability names to the code sequences that are sent to the print stream.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s PPD Files Contain Code Vendor PPD files give capabilities names rather than codes. –Upper or HighCapacity rather than 1 or 5 For UnForm, PPD files describe: –Trays as *InputSlot name: code –Bins as *OutputBin name: code –Duplex as *Duplex name: code

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s UnForm Reads PPD Files Example: a tray command will cause UnForm to lookup the code associated with the *InputSlot definition of that tray. Any two PPD files will likely have different names for the same capability –None will have codes like PCL (1,4,5,etc.) PPD files can be customized to match rule file names for tray, bin, and duplex.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Locating a PPD - Internet Look in the drivers or software sections of the manufacturer’s web site Look in the linixprinting.org web site: download/PPD

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Locating a PPD - Windows Install drivers for the printer –If there’s a choice, be sure to include Postscript drivers Search for *.ppd Copy/paste the ppd file for your model

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s PPD Files are Always Used UnForm comes with two default PPD files –pcl.ppd – traditional PCL escape sequences –ps.ppd – based on hp4000.ppd, customized to show traditional tray and bin codes The pcl.ppd file supports the traditional PCL coded sequence, plus named sequences modeled on ps.ppd. The ps.ppd file supports both as well, showing how customization can be used.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s PPD File Selection UnForm supports PPD files with the –m model command line option. –-m hp4000 uses ppd/hp4000.ppd Without a –m option, UnForm uses pcl.ppd or ps.ppd, depending on the driver in use. Rule sets can have model-specific sections: if uf.model$="hp4000" … end if

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s During Printing… UnForm loads the specified ( -m model ) or default ppd file at the start of the job. When UnForm encounters a tray, bin, or duplex command, it looks up the code: –tray upper looks for the pattern “*InputSlot *upper*:” and inserts the related code. –tray 5 looks for the pattern “*InputSlot *5*:”

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Correcting the Mismatch UnForm rule files traditionally use PCL code numbers for printer control. PPD files use names rather than PCL codes to identify printer control features. To solve, edit PPD file to provide PCL codes as synonyms, or change commands to use PPD names. See ps.ppd.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Image Differences Color PostScript printers support EPS and JPEG files. Monochrome PostScript printers support only EPS, and error on JPEG files. Scaling is supported by the printer. The attach command is implemented as an image command scaled to the full page.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Image Name Substitutions If an image has a.pcl or.prn extension, and the image mode is not color, UnForm will automatically look for a.eps file. If an image command has a.rtl extension, or the image mode is color, UnForm will automatically look for a.jpg file. Color image mode is indicated by -ci or -color command line options, or a “color” image command option.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Image Conversion Image Magick can produce EPS or JPEG if eps= and jpeg= [images] lines are configured. The Windows Support Server can produce EPS or JPEG images as well. The web site image conversion utility can produce EPS and JPEG images, if you want pre-created files.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s PostScript Fonts There are three standard built-in fonts, plus two symbol fonts, in every PostScript device. The three standard fonts come in normal, bold, italic, and bold-italic. –Courier, Helvetica, Times-Roman Other fonts can be provided using Type1 soft font files.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Internal Font Mapping UnForm is designed to select fonts by a PCL font number. In ufparam.txt, names are mapped to numbers in the [fonts] section. For PostScript, font numbers are mapped in the [psmap] section to a font name found in the psfont directory: –4101=Times-Roman,Times-Bold,Times-Italic,Times- BoldItalic

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s The psfont Directory Each PostScript font has a.afm file, and non-internal fonts have a.pfa or.pfb file. The.afm file stores character size metrics The.pfa/.pfb files are soft fonts that can be downloaded with jobs that use them. A Type1 font will provide the above files.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Type1 Font Example: MICR In ufparam.txt, in the [psmap], is this line: MICR=15002 In the psfont directory are these files: MICR.afm MICR.pfa MICR.pfb A text command using font will produce MICR output.

SDSI Technical Conference 2007 ■ Sacramento, CA USA ■ October I n t e l l i g e n t T o o l s Questions Answers