Apache OpenOffice (AOO) Bugzilla – Issue 5456
unable to "2up" produced PostScript
Last modified: 2003-07-29 10:22:42 UTC
When printing to a PostScript file with the generic postscript driver the postscript code seems to be not quite correct. If a "mpage -2" is applied to the produced postscript the first page does not get printed. It seems to be drawed under the second page.
Created attachment 1825 [details] PostScript as it comes out of OpenOffice.org
Created attachment 1826 [details] the same document after running "mpage -2 print.ps > print2.ps"
TM->HI: As talked to you, please have a look, thanks !
I can confirm the error. It also comes up in the kde printing system, which uses psnup as filter to print several pages on one sheet (like Windows Fineprint). If you let the postscript be rewritten by e.g. ghostscript, psnup works fine afterwards. Also for some reason the Postscript output starts with page number "0" instead of "1". I do not know if this is related, but it should be corrected as well.
Seems to be a case for you.
Could you please be a bit more specific what about the PostScript code should be different ? The PostScript code produced by OpenOffice.org is valid in itself as you can see from the fact that it runs with ghostscript and a multitude of different PostScript interpreters built into as many printers. If any tool of your choice meddles with the PostScript and does not work as advertised, why do you think the problem is on Ooo's side ?
Hi! I do not speak PostScript myself, but the PostScript produced by OOo fails to be 2up*ed by the tools we tried (krpinter, mpage). And these tools are able to produce 2up'ed documents when used with other PostScript files. What is your favorite tool to do this task?
File->PageView allows for setting up an arbitrary number of pages printed on one. Still if you can tell me what needs to be done to work with mpage i can probably change the produced PostScript code that way.
There is now menu item File->Pageview for presentations, or am I wrong? How do you print presentations two or more slides on one page?
That is true. I'll try to find out what the problem between mpage and Ooo is.
The attached file prints fine, but when printed to a file triggers an error on gv: X Error of failed request: BadMatch (invalid parameter attributes) Major opcode of failed request: 73 (X_GetImage) Serial number of failed request: 33 Current serial number in output stream: 33 But not on gs... this is most strange. I attach two files: the .sxw and the produced "print to file" .ps. Hope this helps...
Created attachment 2011 [details] The two files (I had trouble attaching files...)
Sorry, but gv catching an Xerror is gv's problem, not ours. An Xerror means gv requested something from the Xserver it shouldn't have.
StarOffice 6.0 with the latest patch does have the same issue.
After some experimentation i found out that mpage's PostScript output is not DSC conformant; the problem can be solved by excluding all code bracketed by %%BeginFeature/%%EndFeature pairs. Between these pairs there is printer specific code for special features (duplex on, select A4 paper, etc); the canonical way would be for mpage to enclose the pages in %%BeginDocument/%%EndDocument pairs or simply removing the %%BeginFeature/%%EndFeature pairs and everything in between. Anyway this can only be fixed by the PostScript manipulation tools (mpage,psnup), not by OOo.
As mentioned on the qa dev list on March 5th I will close all resolved <wontfix/duplicate/worksforme/invalid> issues. Please see this posting for details. First step in IssueZilla is unfortunately to set them to verified.
As mentioned on the qa dev list on March 5th I will close all resolved <wontfix/duplicate/worksforme/invalid> issues. Please see this posting for details.
Using kprinter, i cannot print OOo documents two-to-a-page. Is this the same bug? Does kprinter use mpage to print two-to-a-page?
I have contacted the mpage maintainer about this problem and have referred him to this page.
i don't know what printer does; but probably something similar to mpage
Just as follow-up, although i sent a message to the mpage mainter, he has not responded. As for kprinter, it does not use mpage, so it must implement the same funcionality on its own. I will look into posting a bug on the kprinter Bugzilla. This is a rather big problem. I think that many people will try to print multiple OOo pages to a sheet using KDE. Currently it is not possible.
Hi! I still think this is caused by the PostScript code produced by OOo. Is anybody able to do a duplex printing using the PostScript output of OOo?
I still don't think so :-) Do you have any hard data ?
Hi! I do not have any hard data. This is just a observation that the only PostScript causing this error comes from OOo. And this makes it very inconvenient to print large documents.
Created attachment 7086 [details] bugdoc 1 converts fine
Created attachment 7087 [details] bugdoc-2 converts fine, too
both of your bugdocs can be converted quite fine to two-on-one page using pstops (out of psutils). I have no issues to view the converted files with ghostscript or to print them out. If there is an issue with kprinter or mpage I really recommend to ask the respective author to have a look at the problem.
Since there do not seem to be any points left on this i'll close this issue.