UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

back in the good old 7.07 ghostscript days...

we had Great results converting pdf to ps output, from the following command:

cat $stuff | /usr/local/bin/gs -sDEVICE=ljet4 -q -dNOPAUSE -r200 -sPAPERSIZE=letter -dPDFFitPage -dBATCH -sOutputFile=- - 2> /dev/null | /usr/bin/lp -d $printer


now we find ourselves w/Ghostscript 8.62, which doesn't like the earlier syntax.

my work around, is to convert the file from the pdf2ps script...then perform the print in a separate step.

it works, but the output file is THREE times the size of the earlier method.

The network team is going to demand some free lunches, unless I can get 8.62 to shead some bytes.

any assistance would be appreciated.




the pdf2ps script is as follows:
#!/bin/sh
# $Id: pdf2ps,v 1.5 2007/09/11 15:24:49 Arabidopsis Exp $
# Convert PDF to PostScript.

# This definition is changed on install to match the
# executable name set in the makefile
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/usr/local/lib:/usr/local/lib/hpux32:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH
GS_EXECUTABLE=/usr/local/bin/gs
#gs="`dirname $0`/$GS_EXECUTABLE"
gs=$GS_EXECUTABLE
if test ! -x "$gs"; then
gs="$GS_EXECUTABLE"
fi
GS_EXECUTABLE=/usr/local/bin/gs

OPTIONS=""
while true
do
case "$1" in
-?*) OPTIONS="$OPTIONS $1" ;;
*) break ;;
esac
shift
done

if [ $# -eq 2 ]
then
outfile=$2
elif [ $# -eq 1 ]
then
outfile=`basename "$1" \.pdf`.ps
else
echo "Usage: `basename $0` [-dASCII85EncodePages=false] [-dLanguageLevel=1|2|3] input.pdf [output.ps]" 1>&2
exit 1
fi

# Doing an initial 'save' helps keep fonts from being flushed between pages.
# We have to include the options twice because -I only takes effect if it
# appears before other options.
exec "$GS_EXECUTABLE" $OPTIONS -q -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -dSAFER -sDEVICE=pswrite "-sOutputFile=$outfile" $OPTIONS -c save pop -f "$1"

Some Unix flavours come with a pdftops, e.g.: pdftops(1), does yours and would it do what you want?

not found on hpux 11.31, but you do bring up a good point.

nothing good to report, after spending sometime on syntax with new version of ghostscript.

wondering if another convert tool would be the answer...

installed pdftops, and got the output file to 1/2 the size as new ghostscript output:
-rw-rw-rw- 1 me mygrp 890570 May 5 15:43 test.ps

generated w/following syntax:
me> pdftops -level1 -paper letter -expand test.in test.ps

anyone aware of another option to trim some more?

thanks