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  • How can I save a PostScript with a PostScript printer?

    From Jean-Pierre Coulon@coulon@cacas.pam.obs-nice.fr to comp.lang.postscript on Tue Apr 20 20:47:35 2021
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

    If I have a PostScript printer installed, with Acrobat Reader I can say
    Print to a file when I print something with this printer, to obtain a PostScript file.

    But Word, Excel and Powerpoint do not offer the Print to file option.
    How can I work around?

    Bye,
    --
    Jean-Pierre Coulon
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  • From Eli the Bearded@*@eli.users.panix.com to comp.lang.postscript on Tue Apr 20 19:48:54 2021
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

    In comp.lang.postscript,
    Jean-Pierre Coulon <coulon@cacas.pam.obs-nice.fr> wrote:
    If I have a PostScript printer installed, with Acrobat Reader I can say Print to a file when I print something with this printer, to obtain a PostScript file.

    But Word, Excel and Powerpoint do not offer the Print to file option.
    How can I work around?

    What OS? On Unix (eg Linux and Mac) you can -- with difficulty -- "tee"
    off a copy of the Postscript sent to the printer. On Windows, I do not
    know.

    I do know that on Windows you can install a "print to PDF" printer
    driver, and very likely you could install a "print to PS" printer
    driver. PS and PDF are very similar, so there's also the option of
    converting a print to PDF file to PS.

    I found this in ten seconds of searching:

    https://www.file-extensions.org/article/how-to-install-a-virtual-postscript-printer-in-windows

    Elijah
    ------
    uses print to PDF on Windows extensively with taxes

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  • From ken@ken@spamcop.net to comp.lang.postscript on Wed Apr 21 07:58:23 2021
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

    In article <alpine.WNT.2.23.453.2104202042040.2880@DESKTOP-PDEAHLL>, coulon@cacas.pam.obs-nice.fr says...

    If I have a PostScript printer installed, with Acrobat Reader I can say Print to a file when I print something with this printer, to obtain a PostScript file.

    But Word, Excel and Powerpoint do not offer the Print to file option.
    How can I work around?

    In the Printer Properties (so that's the Printers and devices control
    panel, right-cick the printer and select 'Printer Properties', not just 'Properties'), select the Ports tab; the printer will be on a Port.
    Change the Port from whatever it currently is (eg LPT1: USB001 etc) to
    FILE:

    Whenever you print to that printer instance it will prompt for a
    filename to save to.

    This won't work for remote printers (ie those on another computer),
    you'll have to set up a local instance of the printer to do the same
    thing. When you create hte printer you can select FILE: as the Port.

    As Eli suggested, if you Google for it there's probably a YouTube video showing you how to do this.
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  • From Jean-Pierre Coulon@coulon@cacas.pam.oca.eu to comp.lang.postscript on Wed Apr 21 11:02:51 2021
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

    On Wed, 21 Apr 2021, ken wrote:

    In the Printer Properties (so that's the Printers and devices control
    panel, right-cick the printer and select 'Printer Properties', not just 'Properties'), select the Ports tab; the printer will be on a Port.
    Change the Port from whatever it currently is (eg LPT1: USB001 etc) to
    FILE:

    Whenever you print to that printer instance it will prompt for a
    filename to save to.

    Thanks. It worked with a Word document. I just had to rename the .prn output file to .ps. I am with Windows 10.
    --
    Jean-Pierre Coulon

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  • From John Forkosh@forkosh@panix.com to comp.lang.postscript on Wed Apr 21 03:26:48 2021
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

    Eli the Bearded <*@eli.users.panix.com> wrote:
    In comp.lang.postscript,
    Jean-Pierre Coulon <coulon@cacas.pam.obs-nice.fr> wrote:
    If I have a PostScript printer installed, with Acrobat Reader I can say
    Print to a file when I print something with this printer, to obtain a
    PostScript file.

    But Word, Excel and Powerpoint do not offer the Print to file option.
    How can I work around?

    What OS? On Unix (eg Linux and Mac) you can -- with difficulty -- "tee"
    off a copy of the Postscript sent to the printer. On Windows, I do not
    know.
    <<snip>>

    On linux ("on windows, I do not know"), you can probably use
    ImageMagick convert, https://imagemagick.org/script/convert.php
    e.g., bash$ convert myfile.pdf myfile.ps
    It also converts between many other formats, but you'll have
    to check whether it works for your input file's format.
    --
    John Forkosh ( mailto: j@f.com where j=john and f=forkosh )
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  • From Jean-Pierre Coulon@coulon@cacas.pam.oca.eu to comp.lang.postscript on Thu Apr 22 08:36:04 2021
    From Newsgroup: comp.lang.postscript

    On Wed, 21 Apr 2021, John Forkosh wrote:

    On linux ("on windows, I do not know"), you can probably use
    ImageMagick convert, https://imagemagick.org/script/convert.php
    e.g., bash$ convert myfile.pdf myfile.ps
    It also converts between many other formats, but you'll have
    to check whether it works for your input file's format.

    But ImageMagick "delegates" the treatment of .ps and .pdf files to
    Ghostscript and Gsview. If you don't install them ImageMagick will prompt
    you to install them.

    Note that my post was about converting .doc, .xls or .ppt formats to PostScript. Note that the TeX/LaTex distribution and linux also includes
    ps2pdf and pdf2ps.
    --
    Jean-Pierre Coulon

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