[Note: From 2000 onwards, this page is no longer actively updated]

How to generate portable Postscript

The problem

Many people post Postscript documents on their home pages. Unfortunately, it is often difficult for other people to print these documents after downloading. The printer is usually of a different model than the authors, and the document is often incompatible with it. Typical problems include:

Paper size is fixed explicitly. American papers often use "Legal" paper format, whereas Europeans use "A4". The printer will refuse to print and say "insert A4".
The document contains special fonts not present in the printer.
Postscript is preceded by printer control characters.
The printer prints ASCII codes of the Postscript instead of rendering the document.
Previewers such as Ghostview will refuse to display page numbers.
Poor quality of printout, due to differences in resolution.
Documents will not print on both sides of a duplex printer, even though duplex mode is enabled.
Unnecessary large files and slow downloading due to inefficient encoding of images.
Color that does not display on black and white printers.

The Solution

Generate a lowest common denominator Postscript!

Use Postscript Level 1 format.
Postscript Level 2 does not add anything essential.
Use 300 dpi resolution.
300 dpi resolution is more standard and prints with reasonable quality on 600 dpi printers. Supposedly, the converse is not true: 600 dpi Postscript looks bad on 300 dpi printers.
Do not explicitly specify paper format.
Unfortunately, many programs force you to select a paper size. Often, it can be edited out of the Postscript file. Instead, let the printer decide whether it can print a document with specific dimensions.
No printer specific codes.
Make sure the document starts with %!Adobe .... and does not begin and end with Ctrl-D characters. When a PostScript printer is connected via a serial port, it sometimes requires a Ctrl+D character to be sent after the PostScript file, and depending on how well behaved other programs are, sometimes before. This is part of the serial communications protocol used by these printers - it is not part of PostScript.
Use Adobe Document structuring comments (DSC).
This will allow others to browse and print specific pages of the document.
For color Postscript, use colors that print well also on black and white printers.

Use standard Postscript fonts. Beware of look-alikes, for example "New Times Roman" instead of the correct "Times Roman". The 13 standard Postscript fonts are:

Times-Roman
Helvetica
Courier
Symbol (Symbol)

Times-Italic
Helvetica-Oblique
Courier-Oblique

Times-Bold
Helvetica-Bold
Courier-Bold

Times-BoldItalic
Helvetica-BoldOblique
Courier-BoldOblique

If you use nonstandard fonts, you must embed them into the postscript. Specify that the fonts be sent as outlines (also called Type 3 fonts).

Portable Postscript from LaTex/dvips

The latest versions of dvips have disabled document structuring comments by default. the default settings of the DSC comment flag. dvips latest version: changed default of DSC flag; you must generate DSC comments for PsUtils to work.

Portable Postscript using Microsoft Windows Drivers

How to set up the printer driver

We want to set up the driver to print to disk, and maximize the portability of the document.

Windows NT 4.0

Click on "Add Printer" under Printers
Select printer managed by MyComputer (local printer, not network printer)
Select FILE (port) (check mark the entry)
Select a driver for a 300 dpi, PS level 1 printer:
e.g. LaserWriter Personal NT
After completing the driver installation, disable Job Control Codes and Enable Page independence
Specifically, Right click on the printer, select Document defaults
Postscript Options -> Generate Job Control Code: No
Page Indpendence: Yes
Ctrl-D after Job: NO
(Optional) Enable duplex printing
After installing a printer that supports duplex printing, Right click on printer, select Document defaults
Paper/Output -> Print on Both Sides (Duplex Printing)-> Long side

Another way to enable duplex printing is to manually remove the explicitly references to duplex in the generated Postscript files. Delete Postscript such as:

%%BeginFeature: *Duplex None

    <</Duplex false>> setpagedevice
%%EndFeature

Windows 95

Select a driver for a 300 dpi, PS level 1 printer:
e.g. Apple LaserWriter
Disable Ctrl-D after jobs.
Postscript->Advanced->Ctrl-D do not send after job (ow. "Offending command")
Add Adobe Document structuring comments.
Postscript->Optimize for portability

Portable Postscript from TeX and LaTeX

TeX and LaTeX by default embed bitmapped fonts into the Postscript documents. These fonts are resolution dependent and produce poor results when printed at other resolutions (e.g. when previewed on the screen, or when printed on 300 dpi printers instead of 600dpi). See Adobe tips for generating PDF from TeX. These tips describe how to generate Postscript Postscript as well.

Copyright issues

Some fonts embedded in your Postscript documents may not be publicly distributed!

Postscript links

Richards PS page.: Excellent collection of Postscript links.
Fixing PostScript files: Postscript error messages.
mirror of old Luminous Corporation page: Postscript troubleshooting and Postscript errors.
Postscript resources: Links to FAQs, Postscript tutorials, newsgroups.
NSF guide: Generate good PDF from Postscript and LaTeX
SIGGRAPH guide: Examples of good/bad PDF depending on what fonts are embedded.
Postscript Wiki: Useful Postscript code snippets.
Postscript FAQ v. 2.3: Frequently asked questions.
Postscript Corner, University of Zurich: Discusses the Postscript language, fonts and others.
Adobe: The technical solutions database is occasionally useful. AdobePS Postscript driver is available. This driver is supposedly better than the driver included with Windows 95, but is not compatible with Windows NT.
Online postscript generation from LaTeX documents.: This may be an excellent solution for LaTeX document portability.

References

Adobe Document Structuring Comments (DSC) (in pdf format): (unfortunately I could no longer find this document on Adobe's site.)

Fixing specific Postscript problems

Printers prints ASCII file with Postscript source

Make sure that the Postscript file starts with the two characters: %!

Enable duplex printing

Scan the Postscript for code that disable duplex mode, such as:

%%BeginFeature: *Duplex None

    <</Duplex false>> setpagedevice
%%EndFeature

Replace this Postscript by:

%%BeginFeature: *Duplex DuplexNoTumble

    <</Duplex true /Tumble false>> setpagedevice
%%EndFeature

Also, enable duplex mode in your printer.

Tell the printer to ignore paper-size differences between A4 and Letter

Newer printers can ignore paper-size specifications requesting A4 when Letter is loaded in the paper tray and vice-versa. You may need to configure your printer to do this. For example, the HP Laserjet Series 8100 has a menu option: Paper handling menu -> Override A4/Letter. Set it to Yes.

FrameMaker 4 explicit paper size

Symptom: FrameMaker 4 specifies what paper size is used, e.g. Legal, and the printer has only A4. The printer then outputs a page saying: Can't select requested paper size for Frame print job!

Solution: Edit the Postscript file as follows.

Search for: /PageSize
At the end of the line it says: stopped
Append to that the words:  pop false

FrameMaker 5 paper size

FrameMaker 5 Postscript defines a variable FMAllowPaperSizeMismatch to allow or disallow printing on a different paper size. Locate this variable definition and set it to true as below.

/FMAllowPaperSizeMismatch            true def

FrameMaker repair filters

fixfm4-1.3.tar.gz fixes FM 4.0 Postscript files for inclusion into LaTeX
fixfm5-2.0.tar.gz fixes FM 5.0 Postscript files for inclusion into LaTeX
fixfm3.ps.sh
fixfm4.ps.sh

Other Typesetting pages

Typesetting practices - make your documents look better.

Martin Szummer, szummer@media.mit.edu.NOSPAM(remove .NOSPAM suffix before sending)

Last modified: April 21, 2006