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Subject: |
a2ps, CUPS and paper orientation |
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Date: |
Tue, 11 Jun 2002 19:04:16 -0300 |
Hi gentlemen,
fisrt of all, let me say I do like a2ps -- thks for this great app ;)
I have a possibly subjective question to make: I have recently upgraded my
CUPS (http://www.cups.org/index.php) to the latest version 1.1.15, and all
of a sudden any printing from a2ps would go bad -- landscape pages would
get rotated and printed on portrait sheets, which means information is
lost (just half the data gets printed since the rest gets out of page
boundaries).
I talked to CUPS developers on their cups.general news server, and here's
the last bit of info we exchanged (indented text is mine, the rest is
their
reply):
--- begin forwarded message ---
[snip]
> However, IMHO either a2ps is being redundant or CUPS is being picky
> about the '%%Orientation' parameter. Is it supposed to be a hint (as in
> 'attention: you should rotate this file to see it right') or a
> requirement(as in 'rotate this page!')? If I simply remove the
> '%%Orientation' from the PS file, gv shows the PS rotated (i.e. portrait
> mode, even though the PS has been created in landscape mode). When the
> parameter is present, gv opens the file already in landscape, but CUPS
> 're-rotates' it, and the initial probl surfaces again.
>
> So, who's right? ;)
Well, the definition of the Orientation comment is not particularly
clear:
This comment indicates the orientation of the pages in the
document. It can be used by previewing applications and
post-processors to determine how to orient the viewing window.
A portrait orientation indicates that the longest edge of the
paper is parallel to the vertical (y) axis. A landscape
orientation indicates that the longest edge of the paper is
parallel to the horizontal (x) axis. If more than one
orientation applies to the document, an individual page
should specify its orientation by using the %%PageOrientation:
comment.
We interpret this as meaning that the comment indicates the
orientation of the page data WRT the selected media. If we see a
landscape page then we either need to use a transverse media size
(11x8.5, etc.) or rotate the page. This seems to be consistent with
the way Adobe's xdpsview application interprets the Orientation
comment.
--- end forwarded message ---
I wrote a small wrapper bash script to remove the '%%Orientation:
Landscape' comment so that I can be able to print a2ps-generated PS files
again. However, I believe there should be a consensus, since no one
benefits from this situation: CUPS users will stop using a2ps and
vice-versa.
This is kind of tricky because it seems both approaches are not
technically wrong... do you see any chance of coming to an agreement with
the way CUPS handles the %%Orientation parameter? (or persuading them on
the contrary? ;) )
Best,
Andre
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