Another way to handle MS/Sun Postscript incompatibility

[Glenn Roberts]

Another way to handle the incompatibility between Microsoft's Postscript
products and Sun's PC-NFS and Transcript products (see Stefano Piccardi's
solution in v7n113) is to place the following script in a file (called,
say 'psprn') in /usr/local/bin on the Sun:

   echo '%!' | cat - $1 | tr -d '\004' | lpr

then on the PC have a batch file (called, say PSPRN.BAT) with

  COPY %1 H:
  RSH cobra PSPRN %1

(substitue the name of your Sun for 'cobra' above.  Note also that H: is
assumed to be NFS mounted to your home directory on the Sun).

To print on the PC from, say Excel, print to the file SPOOL.PRN and then
in a DOS shell type

  PSPRN SPOOL.PRN

This is a flawed but workable way to work around the incompatibility
problem.  Unfortunately both this and Mr. Piccardi's solutions require you
to execute a DOS command.

If you're working on a Sun386i you can solve this problem by putting the
following line in your ~/pc/setup.pc file:

  LPT1                    (echo \%\! && cat) | lpr

This will force the printer to interpret ALL output to LPT1: as
postscript.  You should be able to set up LPT2: as a text printer.

- Glenn Roberts, The MITRE Corp., McLean VA (703) 883-6820
  gfr at cobra.mitre.org