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These scripts address the need to get a non-postscript printer working
quickly so documentation files and manual pages can be printed. The scripts
work for printers using or compatible with PCL (Hewlett-Packard's Printer
Command Language). A few printers (the Canon Bubblejet, for example) use
neither PCL nor postscript.
Simple scripts for printing a document (qp and qp.awk) are provided, as
well as qpm for printing manual pages. These scripts convert unix line endings
to ones PCL printers understand and select a font to use.
Two more complex awk scripts--pcl.awk and pagin.awk--understand PCL
printer codes when encountered in a file, and thus it is possible, when using
these scripts, to change fonts, apply bold, underline, or italic to a word or
group of words, do footnotes, preserve a table, and number pages in a default
font. The scripts adjust for the font and size of type horizontally (how many
letters to print on a line) and vertically (line spacing). Using pagin.awk it
is also possible to double space, for example.
Files with printer codes are provided to make it easier to put printer
codes into documents. It is still awkward, but it needs only about 32k of
space instead of the multi-megabyte files of more elaborate programs, such as
the excellent apsfilter, which enables the printer to emulate postscript.
-- Annelise Anderson <andrsn@andrsn.Stanford.EDU>
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