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psdim(1) psdim(1) NAME psdim - calculate optimal page format for n-up printing from a post- script file SYNOPSIS psdim [options] [filename] DESCRIPTION psdim is a small utility to be used in conjunction with pstops. It looks at the contents of a postscript document to determine the size of the printed pages. From this, it calculates the optimal placement of the pages for n-up printing. It outputs a format string suitable for processing by pstops. In order to determine the size of the pages in a postscript document accurately, psdim uses the ghostscript interpreter to render the docu- ment. For this reason, psdim is relatively slow, but yields very accu- rate results that could not be obtained by just naively looking at the postscript headers. For psdim to work, gs must be installed on your system. OPTIONS The following options are supported: -h, --help Print usage information and exit. -v, --version Print version information and exit. -l, --license Print license information and exit. -q, --quiet Suppress printing progress information. Normally, psdim prints page numbers to stderr for each page processed. -x, --width dim Specify the physical width of the output paper. -y, --height dim Specify the physical height of the output paper. -p, --page format Specify the format of the output paper: one of a4, a3, a5, b5, letter, legal, tabloid, statement, executive, folio, quarto, 10x14. The default is letter. Paper formats are case insensitive. The -p option is equivalent to a corresponding pair or -x and -y options. -m, --margin dim Set the width of the margins between the document and the edge of the paper. The default is 0.5in. -n, --hmargin dim Like -m, but only set the horizontal (left and right) mar- gins. -o, --vmargin dim Like -m, but only set the vertical (top and bottom) margins. -s, --sep dim Set the width of the white space separating input pages when they are combined on a single output page. The default is 0.5in. -t, --hsep dim Like -s, but only set the space in the horizontal direction. -u, --vsep dim Like -s, but only set the space in the vertical direction. -L, --landscape Select the landscape orientation (pages are rotated to the left). This is the default for 2-up and 8-up printing. Note that the printed text is rotated, not the physical page. -R, --seascape Select the seascape orientation (pages are rotated to the right). Note that the printed text is rotated, not the phys- ical paper. -U, --upside-down Select the upside-down orientation. -P, --portrait Select the portrait (upright) orientation. This is the de- fault for 4-up, 9-up, and 16-up printing. -f, --format nxm Arrange pages in n rows and m columns. -a, --hpolicy n Select the horizontal alignment policy. For n=0, the hori- zontal alignment of pages follows a rigid grid. For n=1, the pages in each column are aligned, but each column is cen- tered in its available horizontal space. For n=2, each page is centered horizontally in its column. n=3,4 behave like n=1,2, except the width of the columns is variable. -b, --vpolicy n Select the vertical alignment policy. For n=0, the vertical alignment of pages follows a rigid grid. For n=1, the pages in each row are aligned, but each row is centered in its available vertical space. For n=2, each page is centered vertically in its row. n=3,4 behave like n=1,2, except the height of the rows is variable. -c, --columnmode Arrange the pages in columns (default is in rows). For in- stance, in 4-up printing, pages 1 and 2 will normally appear above pages 3 and 4. If -c is selected, pages 1 and 2 will appear to the left of pages 3 and 4. -d, --righttoleft Arrange the pages with page numbers increasing from right to left (default is from left to right). -e, --bottomtotop Arrange the pages with page numbers increasing from bottom to top (default is from top to bottom). -C, --color Handle colored backgrounds. This option must be given when the document uses a background color other than white. Color processing is significantly slower than black-and-white pro- cessing, and should only be used when necessary. Note: while psdim will calculate the correct document dimensions, pstops is very bad at cropping colored backgrounds and will proba- bly do a bad job with such documents. -S, --shrink Only shrink, never enlarge page. -1, --1up Fit to size. Equivalent to -f1x1 --portrait. -2, --2up Equivalent to -f1x2 --landscape. -4, --4up Equivalent to -f2x2 --portrait. -8, --8up Equivalent to -f2x4 --landscape. -9, --9up Equivalent to -f3x3 --portrait. -6, --16up Equivalent to -f4x4 --portrait. OPERANDS If a filename is given, then a postscript document is read from that file. Otherwise, a postscript document is read from standard input. DIMENSIONS Several command line options take a dimension argument. Dimensions can carry one of the optional units "in", "cm", "mm", or "pt". Here, 1pt is a postscript point, or 1/72 inches. The default unit is "in". ALIGNMENT POLICIES In n-up printing, several input pages are rearranged into rows and columns on a single output page. If all the input pages are of equal width, height, and margins, then it is a straightforward task to arrange them in a grid. However, if the input pages are of variable width, height, and/or margins, then several choices arise regarding their optimal placement. These choices are governed by the horizontal and vertical alignment policies, which are specified by the -a and -b options. The horizontal alignment policy affects only the x-coordinates of the pages in the output, and the vertical policy affects only the y- coordinates. EXAMPLES In the simplest case, psdim can be used to figure out an optimal format string for 2-up printing: > psdim --2up test.ps [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] 2:0@0.93L(9.79in,-1.13in)+1@0.93L(9.79in,4.09in) The resulting format string can be fed directly to pstops: > pstops `psdim --2up test.ps` test.ps test.2up.ps [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] Wrote 5 pages, 155746 bytes EXIT STATUS On successful completion, 0 is returned, otherwise a positive error number. VERSION 1.4 AUTHOR Peter Selinger, http://quasar.mathstat.uottawa.ca/~selinger/. COPYRIGHT Copyright (C) 2001-2005 Peter Selinger. This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MER- CHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place, Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. See also http://www.gnu.org/. SEE ALSO pstops(1), gs(1) Version 1.4 March 2005 psdim(1)
NAME | SYNOPSIS | DESCRIPTION | OPTIONS | OPERANDS | DIMENSIONS | ALIGNMENT POLICIES | EXAMPLES | EXIT STATUS | VERSION | AUTHOR | COPYRIGHT | SEE ALSO
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