[tex-k] Fwd: dvips: BeginPaperSize in postscript DSC

[Jean-François Mertens]

Tom R. apparently forgot to "Reply-all".  Forwarding.
JF

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> From: "Tom Rokicki" <rokicki at gmail.com>
> Date: Wed 15 Nov 2006 05:37:45 GMT+01:00
> To: "Jean-François Mertens" <jfm at core.ucl.ac.be>
> Subject: Re: [tex-k] dvips: BeginPaperSize in postscript DSC
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> Changing the %!PS header would probably require fairly nontrivial  
> changes to
> a large number of places, including:
>
> - Included graphics DSC
> - Included font DSC
> - Binary sections of graphics
> - Header file DSC
> - and a bunch more.
>
> It may well be worth doing, but it will need to be done carefully.
>
>
>
> On 11/14/06, Jean-François Mertens < jfm at core.ucl.ac.be> wrote:
> On 14 Nov 2006, at 11:58, pierre.mackay wrote:
>
> > Karl Berry wrote:
> >>     All that is needed is to add an explicit PageMedia comment
> >> after each of     the specific  @+ ! %%DocumentPaperSizes: lines.
> >>
> >> It seems fine to me to add a %%PageMedia for each %%
> >> DocumentPaperSizes
> >> entry in config.ps.  That seems like it can only help.  (Tom,
> >> unless you
> >> see a problem with it, I will make that change.)
> >>
> >> We definitely want to solve the problem with Ghostscript.  So if/
> >> since
> >> the %%PageMedia does that, great.
> >>
> >> My concern is with replacing the %%BeginPaperSize...%%EndPaperSize
> >> with
> >> %%BeginFeature...%%EndFeature.  I understand that [b/e]Feature  
> is the
> >> current way to do it, but who knows what still wants [b/e]
> >> PaperSize?  I
> >> don't know, it just seems (probably needlessly) worrisome to me.
> >> I also somehow doubt that it's desirable to put in both.
> >> Hmm.
> >>
> >> Thanks,
> >> Karl
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> tex-k at tug.org
> >> http://tug.org/mailman/listinfo/tex-k
> >>
> >>
> > Ghostscript seems to be no problem at all.  It is very permissive.
> > Of course, if one continues to run an outdated version of
> > Ghostscript it might go so far back that it could not understand %%
> > BeginFeature, but then, a backup version of config.ps would provide
> > %%BeginPaperSize.  At some time, the 3.0 Structuring Conventions
> > have to take precedence, just as LaTeX2e is elbowing out the old
> > LaTeX. The real problem is the !PS 2.0 vs PS 3.0 header, because
> > there is more to PS 3.0 than the format of Structuring Comments.
>
> A )
> Slightly more precisely maybe :
> 1) is correct ps code under PS2 (I mean, code produced by dvips)
> still correct ( apart from the comments mentioned)
> under PS3 (and here I think we should mean it, formally so..)
> I.e, is the only diff between PS2 and PS3 the addition of some more
> commands, or did existing commands (used by dvips) change meaning ?
> 2) I have always understood in this discussion level 2 and level 3 as
> referring at the same time to comments and the code itself.
> But is this really correct, or are there just independent Adobe
> documents describing for some, changes in comments,
> and for others, changes in the code?
> 3) Independently, would PS3 code be understood correctly by any
> reasonable output device by now ? (here I would of course guess yes
> _ but who knows ?)
>
> I'm very sorry we seem all to be in the same situation of  ignorance
> here _ people full of goodwill groping for a "correct" solution _,
> and I would have hoped to get some input on this list from people who
> know a little bit of postscript...
> (I once sent a bug report to Tom R., directly (and not that long
> ago), and he was extremely responsive
> _ dvips was changed in a matter of weeks; maybe we should try another
> list, or him directly
> _ trying to put him on cc...)
>         If needed I'll try to study the documents, but a reply from  
> someone
> who knows them already
> (Pierre seems the better informed among us, but still uneasy like
> me...) would save a lot of time...
>
> B)
> Independently of the above, I'm worried that the bulk of all existing
> ps-documents (at least all those
> produced by dvips ...) is no longer interpreted correctly by gs. It
> would seem a trivial matter for gs to
> interpret "#!Adobe-PS-2.0" correctly.
> It might seem helpful to write a joint bug-report to gs _ just asking
> them to interpret correctly the first line _.
>
> > Adobe has done a not-too-bad job of maintaining backward
> > compatibility, but I am not sure that it is the responsibility of
> > the TeX
> > community to guarantee that old PS documents will have the same
> > archival consistency that TeX source is supposed to have. I have to
> > take archival stability rather seriously, but I would not store PS
> > documents to achieve that.  I would store *.tex source, and rely on
> > the maintenance of trip-tested TeX engines.
>
> I would have problems with that point of view : as soon as you have
> slightly complex documents _ using eg
> both omega and pstricks, or other a bit specialised packages, you
> find out that even after a few years, they no longer run
> _ so you would have had to save not only the source, but even the src
> of all binaries used at that time _ ie. basically save
> the whole the whole relevant subtree (including probably ps fonts) of
> CTAN, and hope that it still compiles correctly
> decades (or centuries , like paper documents do...) from now...
> While emulating a few centuries from now a small HP calculator like
> postscript seems much less of a challenge _ and seems
> something completely doable by gs
> And the difference in the size to be saved is tremendous !
> So I think it is important thar gs continues to recognize correctly
> the first line...
>
> C) Possibly if we get in contact with them this way they might help
> us with precise answers to the problems sub A ...
>
> Best,
>
> JF Mertens
>
>
>