dvips

[John Hillas]

> Bob Howlett wrote on Tuesday, June 15, 1999 12:55 PM
>
> Most people here, on the department's unix system, get a ps
> file when they use dvips -- I think it depends on whether
> or not they have an environment variable of some kind set.
> So I don't accept that sending the ps output to a file is
> inconsistent with the best dvips traditions.
> In any event, fptex is a windows system; so if the output is
> to be sent to lpr then the system should incorporate an lpr
> that will actually print the output instead of giving an
> error message. (Myself, I much prefer a ps file to be created,
> since I always want to look at the output with gsview before
> printing it.)
>
 Yes.  But this would have involved someone changing the configuration
of dvips on the UNIX system.  You can get the same effect by changing
the configuration on the Windows system.  Indeed this is what Fabrice
tells us to do in the instructions for configuring dvips.  And you
need to
do some configuration anyway to make the configuration correct for
your
printer and installed/preferred fonts.

Fabrice's instructions for configuring dvips say (in part)

   Find the line  o |lpr and delete it. This setting is from teTeX,
   is Unix specific, and may not work. On the other hand, you can
specify
   UNC names for your printer in the form of  o \\server\printername

I agree, and it seems that Fabrice does too, that you don't want
o |lpr
in your configuration.  There would, perhaps, be a small advantage in
having
this change made automatically to config.ps.  However there is also
some
(small?) advantage in having the file identical to that distributed
with
teTeX.  If Fabrice makes a change to that file it means that each time
he
upgrades to a new teTeX he has to make the change again, or check that
the config.ps of teTeX hasn't changed, or allow the config.ps of fptex
to get out of sync with that distributed with teTeX.

I wouldn't much like the last choice, and the first two involve more
work
for Fabrice (whose time might be better spent making other goodies for
us).

In short, I see your point, but think that in this case there is a
small
benefit in leaving things as they are.

John