------------------------------------------------------------ A P S F I L T E R V 4.9.1 - "The name of the game" ------------------------------------------------------------ copyright Andreas Klemm 1993, 1994, 1995 andreas@knobel.gun.de Sun Sep 25 15:56:08 MET 1994 --------------------------------------- co-author Thomas Bueschgens sledge@hammer.oche.de --------------------------- WHAT IS APSFILTER ================= APSFILTER is a lineprinter input filter for systems with a BSD-like printing mechanism (lpd, /etc/printcap), that saves users a lot of work when printing different file types no matter whether compressed or not !!! Additionally it enables non Postscript printers, that are supported by the free (in the terms of the GPL) postscript emulator "ghostscript" (gs), to print postscript files ! With the new apsfilter Version 3.0 its now possible to print *compacted* documents directly without unpacking !!! The wanted packers/unpackers have to be already installed on your system. o Supported packers: GZIP, PACK, COMPRESS, FREEZE/MELT o Supported file types: Postscript TeX DVI Ascii Data (PCL,...) GIFF TIFF Sun Rasterfiles FIG PNM (pbmplus) GENERAL FEATURES ================ - support for monochrome and color PS and non_PS printers - customizeable by a system wide and a personal apsfilterrc file ( /etc/apsfilterrc and $HOME/.apsfilterrc ). This file is now well documented and so selfexplanatory ;-) - .apsfilterrc file lets you determine another dvi-file print program. - you can print compressed files without unpacking them first ! - apsfilter comes with the installation script SETUP, that does nearly _everything_ for you ! - SETUP creates spool directories as needed and with sane permissions - SETUP compiles and installs the add on utilities a2ps and rewindstdin - SETUP creates printcap entries, no matter whether you have a serial or a parallel printer. - SETUP creates all symbolic links for you that are needed to switch on or off certain filter features (color, monochrome, skip filetype autorecognition, force filter to treat german text as ascii text) - SETUP guides you more or less (;-) through the step, which of gs's printer driver to use ... Note: its up to you to have a gs binary, which has all drivers you need compiled in !!!! - SETUP allows you to install apsfilter for use with real postscript Printers ! So apsfilters interesting features remain no matter whether you use gs or not ! - apsfilter knows about the following print METHODS: - 'auto': determine file type automatically - 'ascii': treat file as an ascii file even if it seems to be a data file (german texts with ``Umlauten'') - 'raw': print ascii files directly to the printer without postprocessing (using a2ps and gs) for fast listings ! - apsfilter knows about the following a2ps FEATURES. These are options user-customizeable by a $HOME/.apsfilterrc file ! A template file can be copied from $APS_BASEDIR/template/apsfilterrc to $HOME/.apsfilterrc. - 1: print 1 page on one sheet with header - 1n: print 1 page on one sheet without header - 2: print 2 pages on one sheet with header - 2n: print 2 pages on one sheet without header - modified a2ps ! The page header now contains Filename and the username !!! - supports dvips' feature to include postscript files into TeX/DVI Documents (i.e. X11 screenshots using xgrab or xfig images !!! The TEXINPUTS variable has to contain the paths, where such PS pictures reside. We use xgrab 2.3 to produce such nices pictures from within the X11 desktop. - No searchdatabase - updated via cron - anymore. Each user may modify his TEXINPUTS path in his own $HOME/.apsfilterrc file ! - apsfilter doesn't use tmp file. That saves space. Only one exception ... compressed dvi files printed via dvips. Add on software that comes with apsfilter 3.0 ============================================= Be sure to compile the two utilities in the src tree (a2ps and rewindstdin). Without these utilities you cannot use apsfilter. enhanced A2PS ============= All filters after aps-20 use a2ps to print ascii files. I patched a2ps so you can select paperformat, print margins, filename and username on the commandline instead of compiling it in. I mailed the diffs to the author of the package, but still received no answer. Therefore alls apsfilter releases above aps-22 come with the patched source ready for compiling it. The diffs are also included. CHARACTER SETS, GERMAN "Umlaute" ================================ Using a2ps' -8 option enables the printing of the ISO Latin Characterset. So its no problem to print special characters ;-)