shrug-l: ArcPress Bug

[WILLIAM.PORTER]

Post script should be postscript to any machine.  I don't think HP adulterates it: they have their own language to work with. It's unlikley that ArcPress should send an incorrect page size.Buut you don't need to use ArcPress to create your postscript file:  You can load any driver you'd like and print to a file, then copy the file to the machine you have. I have several print drivers for printers not connected to my workstation.  
 
Most problems with sizing come from the difference between page size and plot size. If the software allows you to do a WYSIWIG print preview then it is usually accurate.  I ran into a wild discrepancy with Layout vs. Print preview last week in Arc 9.1.   The print preview was right: I don't know my layout was so different. 
 
There are at least three generations of PostScript. There may be more:  they breed like bunnies.  More correctly like slow bunnies with a long gestation period.  More like manatees, I guess; 30 months or so.

I had a black page when I tried to solve my problems with ArcPress, but I'm sure I'll figure that out. 
Arcpress, if I understand it, is best at streaming data when the file is too large when it's rasterized to fit in plotter RAM.  It used to take 10X more space to rasterize a file than the print file size:  so a 3 MB HPGL file needed 30 MB RAM [or drive swap] to process it. . Since early plotters had little RAM, a streaming RTL file was the difference between a finished plot and a series "Memory overrun" errors.  
 
William Porter
GIS Application Coordinator
Email:  william.porter at famu.edu <mailto:william.porter at famu.edu> 
Florida A&M University
Information Technology Systems
Lee hall Suite 303
Tallahassee FL 32307
(850) 599 3560  Main Office
(850) 412 7104 Reception in Dyson 128

 

 

                            

 

________________________________

From: shrug-l-bounces at lists.dep.state.fl.us on behalf of Sykes, John
Sent: Thu 2/16/2006 2:48 PM
To: shrug-L at lists.dep.state.fl.us
Subject: shrug-l: ArcPress Bug



I think I've found a bug in the new version of the ArcPress Print Engine that comes with ArcInfo 9.1. 

I wanted to use the PostScript option for our HP Color Laser Jet 5500PS, however, no matter how hard I try, the image keeps coming out as a fraction of a map on 8-1/2 x 11" paper instead of the full map on the 11 x 17" paper I selected.  I've changed the paper size in every window I could find of and even downloaded a new .ppd file for the CLJ from HP.

I think the problem is that ArcPress is NOT sending the correct paper size or tray selection to the printer.  But it might be more involved than that, 'cause I sent a copy of the .ps output to file, then imported it into Adobe Acrobat.  It came through in an oddball size there too!  I was hoping to get improved raster image processing using the PostScript option, but went back to the default Windows Print Engine.

Oh yeah, ArcPress itself doesn't work at all with the CLJ, it only supports plotters, but I thought that a PostScript driver, is a PostScript driver, is a . . .  Well you get the gist.

-- John 

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