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Subject:Needed: Basic Postscript Info (Long-ish) From:Lonnye Yancey <lonnyey -at- EHSMED -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 18 Nov 1997 11:59:44 -0600
Hi, tech-writing people!
I've just finished my first year as a tech writer, and until now I've
dealt exclusively with online Help. However, we're currently writing
training guides that will need to be sent to an outside printer. I've
seen a great deal of information in the list archives about postscript
files and their desirability for printing. I've also installed a
postscript driver (the Adobe Default PS Postscript Driver, I think)
supplied by another writer.
However, I still need a little background on the process, so that I can
accurately outline for everybody in my department what we need to do to
get these guides out the door as quickly and easily as possible. I've
checked out newsgroups and web pages galore, but very little information
is targeted toward the postscript beginner. Here are the most puzzling
of my questions. Can anybody help?
In the list archives, everybody talks about .ps and .eps postscript
files, but the only file extension I get with my driver is .prn. What's
the difference? What should I or can I do differently to get these
other file types? Am I using the wrong driver?
Since I've never worked with postscript files before, I want to be able
to actually *look* at my postscript file before I send it out to a
printer. How can I do that? I've downloaded both GhostScript and RoPS,
but neither of these will open my .prn files. Is it worth it to get
Acrobat Distiller to convert files to .pdf to view them? Am I making
this too complicated?
Should I look into buying Adobe Acrobat? Would .pdf files make things
simpler, and if so, does Acrobat include everything I need to create,
view, and send out postscript files?
Sorry if I'm asking silly or overly simplistic questions, but baby tech
writers have to learn this stuff somewhere. Right? : )
