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Marc Antoni Malagarriga i Picas | 10 Oct 2011 13:13

GS as a PS RIP on Ricoh printers


Hi,

My question is about the availability of any GS implementation on Ricoh 
laser printers (like Ricoh Aficio C4000 RPCS), as a PS RIP, in order to 
enable the PCL device as a PostScript Printer.

The GNU Ghostscript poject has any solution about this? ...or this is a 
question only for Artifex Software Inc.?

Ricoh, in this field, have expensive solutions through Adobe PostScript 
RIPs, and only for the newest printer models.

Any thoughs?

Many thanks,

--

-- 
Marc Antoni Malagarriga-Picas
(34) 938721642 | (34) 667517069
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PostScript&PDF Tool Developers
Desenvolupadors d'Eines PostScript i PDF
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Ken Sharp | 10 Oct 2011 13:45
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Re: GS as a PS RIP on Ricoh printers

At 13:13 10/10/2011 +0200, Marc Antoni Malagarriga i Picas wrote:

>My question is about the availability of any GS implementation on Ricoh 
>laser printers (like Ricoh Aficio C4000 RPCS), as a PS RIP, in order to 
>enable the PCL device as a PostScript Printer.
>
>The GNU Ghostscript poject has any solution about this? ...or this is a 
>question only for Artifex Software Inc.?

This sounds more like a question for Ricoh!

It sounds like you are asking for an after-market peripheral or upgrade 
which will transform a Ricoh PCL printer into a PCL+PS printer ?

>Ricoh, in this field, have expensive solutions through Adobe PostScript 
>RIPs, and only for the newest printer models.

Well, we don't know what hardware is in any given Ricoh printer, and we 
don't have access to their firmware, so we can't create a modified version 
which would include a PostScript rip.

The inclusion of page description languages is really something for the 
printer manufacturer, and you should probably take this up with Ricoh.

As a work-around, you could always use Ghostscript to create a (potentially 
large) PCL file from your input PostScript, and send that to the printer.

                 Ken
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Marc Antoni Malagarriga i Picas | 10 Oct 2011 14:15

Re: GS as a PS RIP on Ricoh printers


Hi Ken,

Al 10/10/11 13:45, En/na Ken Sharp ha escrit:
> At 13:13 10/10/2011 +0200, Marc Antoni Malagarriga i Picas wrote:
>> My question is about the availability of any GS implementation on
>> Ricoh laser printers (like Ricoh Aficio C4000 RPCS), as a PS RIP, in
>> order to enable the PCL device as a PostScript Printer.
>>
>> The GNU Ghostscript poject has any solution about this? ...or this is
>> a question only for Artifex Software Inc.?
>
> This sounds more like a question for Ricoh!

Yes, of course... but there is no contact between Artifex and Ricoh?

> It sounds like you are asking for an after-market peripheral or upgrade
> which will transform a Ricoh PCL printer into a PCL+PS printer ?

Yes, a solution like Ghostscript&OCÉ partnership

>> Ricoh, in this field, have expensive solutions through Adobe
>> PostScript RIPs, and only for the newest printer models.
>
> Well, we don't know what hardware is in any given Ricoh printer, and we
> don't have access to their firmware, so we can't create a modified
> version which would include a PostScript rip.
>
> The inclusion of page description languages is really something for the
> printer manufacturer, and you should probably take this up with Ricoh.
(Continue reading)

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Ken Sharp | 10 Oct 2011 14:42
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Re: GS as a PS RIP on Ricoh printers

At 14:15 10/10/2011 +0200, Marc Antoni Malagarriga i Picas wrote:

>>This sounds more like a question for Ricoh!
>
>Yes, of course... but there is no contact between Artifex and Ricoh?

There is, yes, but I think that like many mutli-nationals, there are many 
and diverse parts of Ricoh.....

>>It sounds like you are asking for an after-market peripheral or upgrade
>>which will transform a Ricoh PCL printer into a PCL+PS printer ?
>
>Yes, a solution like Ghostscript&OCÉ partnership

I'm not sure what this means exactly. I don't know of any external 
PostScript rip driving a Ricoh engine, but that doesn't mean there isn't 
such a thing.

>>The inclusion of page description languages is really something for the
>>printer manufacturer, and you should probably take this up with Ricoh.
>
>AFAIK, Ricoh only deals with Adobe in this field...

So therefore there is no Ricoh product which does this. Since driving a 
Ricoh engine would with mean either reverse-engineering the hardware 
interface or having access to Ricoh's documentation, it seems unlikely in 
this age of the DMCA that anyone else has done this.

>>As a work-around, you could always use Ghostscript to create a
>>(potentially large) PCL file from your input PostScript, and send that
(Continue reading)

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Jón Helgi Jónsson | 11 Oct 2011 19:57
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Splitting PDF outputs optimized PDF

Hi,

I'm using GS to split a PDF file into single page PDF files using the
following method:

gs -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -dNOPAUSE -dQUIET
-dBATCH -dFirstPage=67 -dLastPage=67 -sOutputFile=output.pdf
input.pdf.

However this method is extracting pages in much smaller file size than
using Acrobat for example. Turns out the images in the PDF are getting
optimized. Is there a way to get GS not to optimize the contents of
the pdf?

Thank you,
Jon
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Ken Sharp | 11 Oct 2011 20:07
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Re: Splitting PDF outputs optimized PDF

At 23:27 11/10/2011 +0530, Jón Helgi Jónsson wrote:

>I'm using GS to split a PDF file into single page PDF files using the
>following method:

While this is possible, its not 'splitting the file', it is interpreting 
each page to produce a series of graphical operations, and then creating a 
brand new PDF file composed of those operations.

If you only want to split the PDF file up, you might be better to use 
something like pdftk.

>However this method is extracting pages in much smaller file size than
>using Acrobat for example.

See above, this is possible because PDF files can contain many things which 
have no graphical effect, and will be discarded. Also there are many ways 
to construct a valid PDF file with a given appearance, sometimes it may be 
that we choose a method which is more efficient.

>Turns out the images in the PDF are getting
>optimized. Is there a way to get GS not to optimize the contents of
>the pdf?

I have no idea what you mean by 'optimised'. pdfwrite will not generally 
alter the content (unless you tell it to), but it will use compression, is 
that what you mean ? And if so, why is this a problem ?

                 Ken
(Continue reading)

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Sheri Steeves | 13 Oct 2011 20:57
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Error with gsapi_init_with_args that works on command line

Hello,

I've run into a strange issue.  From my postscript file I'm trying to
use Ghostscript to create a bitmap image that is mirrored over its
horizontal axis.

With the following command line in a DOS batch file, I can successfully
create the image:

"C:\Program Files (x86)\gs\gs9.02\bin\gswin32.exe"
-sFONTPATH="C:\WINDOWS\Fonts" -dNoCancel -dQueryUser=0 -dSAFER -dNOPAUSE
-dBATCH -sDEVICE=bmp16m -dTextAlphaBits=4 -dGraphicsAlphaBits=4
-r200x200 -sOutputFile="C:\Test\AAAA.bmp" -c "<< /Install { 0
currentpagedevice /PageSize get 1 get translate 1 -1 scale } >>
setpagedevice" -f %1

My problem is that the same command line arguments fail when I try using
them with the gsapi_init_with_args function from my program. 

My original code was using a pipe handle to read the bitmap information,
and create the bitmap. This code worked when I wasn't trying to get the
postscript as a mirrored image. Once I added the arguments to mirror the
image, gsapi_init_with_args started failing. I tried punting my program
to a file like the dos batch file but that fails as well.

I am running Ghostscript 9.02, and have set my init_args as follows:

	// Setup Ghostscript API init args
	gsargv[i++] = "PN" ;		// actual value does not matter
(Continue reading)

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greg aiken | 13 Oct 2011 21:58
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question about ps2pdf (gs 9.04 for windows binary distribution)

I read here...

 http://pages.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/doc/AFPL/6.50/Ps2pdf.htm#Options

that ps2pdf recognizes all of the Acrobat Distiller 4 parameters, to include (for example)...

-dPDFSETTINGS=configuration
Presets the "distiller parameters" to one of four predefined settings:
  • /screen selects low-resolution output similar to the Acrobat Distiller "Screen Optimized" setting.
  • /printer selects output similar to the Acrobat Distiller "Print Optimized" setting.
  • /prepress selects output similar to Acrobat Distiller "Prepress Optimized" setting.
  • /default selects output intended to be useful across a wide variety of uses, possibly at the expense of a larger output file.

on my Windows XP sp2 computer, i AM able to run...

   ps2pdf14 in.ps out.pdf

and 'out.pdf' gets created and is able to be viewed in Reader.

however, the moment i try to add the -dPDFSETTINGS=/printer option, gs croaks with...

C:\Program Files\gs\gs9.04\lib>ps2pdf14 -dPDFsettings=/prepress d:\_junk\in.ps d:\_junk\out.pdf

Error: /undefinedfilename in (/prepress)
Operand stack:

Execution stack:
   %interp_exit   .runexec2   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval-
-   2   %stopped_push   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   --nostringval--   fa
lse   1   %stopped_push
Dictionary stack:
   --dict:1168/1684(ro)(G)--   --dict:0/20(G)--   --dict:77/200(L)--
Current allocation mode is local
Last OS error: No such file or directory
GPL Ghostscript 9.04: Unrecoverable error, exit code 1

it points to an incorrect filename in '/prepress'...

does anyone know if /prepress is a simple text file one may edit?  or if this is something that needs to be addressed/fixed at the source code level?

thanks.

greg
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Ken Sharp | 13 Oct 2011 22:39
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Re: question about ps2pdf (gs 9.04 for windows binary distribution)

At 12:58 13/10/2011 -0700, greg aiken wrote:

>does anyone know if /prepress is a simple text file one may edit?  or if 
>this is something that needs to be addressed/fixed at the source code level?

ps2pdf is a script, on Windows its a simple batch file. Batch files on 
Windows are very simple minded, I would not try to use them with any 
switches. Try invoking GS directly instead.
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Ken Sharp | 14 Oct 2011 08:58
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Re: question about ps2pdf (gs 9.04 for windows binary distribution)

At 16:05 13/10/2011 -0700, greg aiken wrote:

>at the same time, it does appear that when gs, and ps2pdf is built for use 
>on nix type systems, apparently all of those notes about how ps2pdf may be 
>called with tons of 'adobe distiller' options are indeed supposed to work.

Unix shell scripts are much more sophisticated than Windows batch files, 
there's a lot more you can do with them than with even a recent Windows 
command shell.

>so im curious, if indeed ps2pdf really under the hood, only calls 
>'gs.exe', does that imply that 'gs.exe' should recognize all of these same 
>Adobe Distiller options (intended for the pdfwrite device)?

Yes, there is nothing you can do with ps2pdf that can't be done with 
Ghostscript, since ps2pdf is just a convenience script. Any switches 
supplied to ps2pdf will simply be passed directly to Ghostscript, on 
systems where the shell script actually stands a chance of working....

>its funny, but when i sped-read the 'ghostscript use.htm' page, i dont 
>remember reading anything at all about using Adobe Distiller options.  I 
>will h ave to re-read that page slower next time.  it really would be cool 
>if one could invoke some of those more detailed settings that control how 
>the pdfwrite device functions.

See ps2pdf.htm. Despite the name it refers to using Ghostscript, not the 
batch file.

                 Ken
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