OT: Ghostscript, won't install

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:19:23 -0700, Fred Abse
excretatauris_at_invalid.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:59:23 -0700, Joerg wrote:

Oh, and when I print to PDF I get a blank sheet. Great.

gs(or in your case gswin32) -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -r600
-dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -sOutputFile=whatever.pdf filename.ps

Will generate a PDF from the PS.

I prefer command line operation to GSView for anything other than just
displaying.

You can generate PS from PDF, split pages out of PDFs, generate bitmaps
and all sorts. Take a look at the options in the "File-Convert" menu of
GSView.

I once added a bookmark tree and links to a PDF copy of the NASA Apollo 13
Cortwright Report by splitting the PDF into individual PS pages, manually
adding pdfmarks with a text editor, then re-distilling the PS pages into a
single PDF. The original was scanned typescript, hence bitmaps, so it
was, and is, huge. All done with ghostscript. No Acrobat distiller here.

RTFM (HTML bundled with the ghostscript package) There are so many
options, versatility is tremendous. It's a bit of a learning curve.

Don't expect a binary distribution to have been compiled with all the
optional devices and drivers. The one I use was compiled on this system,
with the drivers that *I* wanted. It forms the core of the print system.

Trying to be Joerg-ean cheap can cost you more in hours diddling
around than in direct cost...

I bought the GSview 3.6 and AFPL Ghostscript 6.50 CD back in January
2001 for AUD 70.00. What was that back then... ~US$45 ??

Had to do it because I got a big Atmel contract and their
documentation was in large sheet PS.

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 10:19:23 -0700, Fred Abse
excretatauris_at_invalid.invalid> wrote:

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:59:23 -0700, Joerg wrote:

Oh, and when I print to PDF I get a blank sheet. Great.


gs(or in your case gswin32) -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -r600
-dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -sOutputFile=whatever.pdf filename.ps

Will generate a PDF from the PS.

I prefer command line operation to GSView for anything other than just
displaying.

You can generate PS from PDF, split pages out of PDFs, generate bitmaps
and all sorts. Take a look at the options in the "File-Convert" menu of
GSView.

I once added a bookmark tree and links to a PDF copy of the NASA Apollo 13
Cortwright Report by splitting the PDF into individual PS pages, manually
adding pdfmarks with a text editor, then re-distilling the PS pages into a
single PDF. The original was scanned typescript, hence bitmaps, so it
was, and is, huge. All done with ghostscript. No Acrobat distiller here.

RTFM (HTML bundled with the ghostscript package) There are so many
options, versatility is tremendous. It's a bit of a learning curve.

Don't expect a binary distribution to have been compiled with all the
optional devices and drivers. The one I use was compiled on this system,
with the drivers that *I* wanted. It forms the core of the print system.

Trying to be Joerg-ean cheap can cost you more in hours diddling
around than in direct cost...

I bought the GSview 3.6 and AFPL Ghostscript 6.50 CD back in January
2001 for AUD 70.00. What was that back then... ~US$45 ??

Had to do it because I got a big Atmel contract and their
documentation was in large sheet PS.

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:19:41 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:01:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Rich Webb wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:54:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Joerg wrote:
Gents,

IC designers still seem to live in the Postscript world ... can't read
those dreaded files. Client said to install Ghostscript. So I downloaded
gs871w32.exe from U of Wisconsin.

No matter what I do, this here computation machine bucks and says "not a
valid Win32 application". Running XP. What gives? How can I dodge this
and make it install?

Guys, figured it out: I had to erase and download two more times, then
it stuck. It installed alright. Now I can see the files but it's nearly
not as good as PDF. Did I already say that I never liked Postscript?
It won't display as nicely with the Ghostscript viewer as one has come
to expect from pdf viewers. GSview is more of a preview app for page
layout and such, and doesn't do the rendering tricks with sub-pixel
anti-aliasing and gamma correction that pdf viewers pretty much all
handle nowadays. It expects that the .ps file will be sent onwards to a
high-resolution printer for final rendering.

Yeah, I know, PS is so yesterday. In fact it already was 20 years ago.
Back then I became so frustrated with it that I completely ditched it
and adopted HPGL. That is a much better rendering tool for CAD but
eventually fell from graces for whatever reason.


But, a Ghostscript installation does come with the necessary tools to
convert .ps to .pdf. There are probably wrappers that put ribbons and
bows on this, but all you should need to do is to copy the .ps file to
the directory in the GS install that has ps2pdf14.bat (probably the lib
directory) and run it from the command line against your .ps file. The
result should be a good looking .pdf file.

Thanks, I'll try that. Anything that gets me off of that dreaded PS
format is a good thing. Problem is, with this IC design I am going to
have a barrage of PS files coming at me over the next months. So I
better get some batch process going where I can send all that through a
wringer before I even look at them.

Looks like good old DOS batch file time again. Now that I am intimately
familiar with
Did you miss my comments about GhostView and GhostScript? Something
is amiss in how you're trying to install.

It didn't matter, you can install Ghostscript first. In fact, that's how
it was explained. Worked after downloading several times.


If your only issue is _receiving_ PS schematics, won't any of the PDF
rip-off's handle that? And generating PS is as trivial as installing
a printer driver, such as: Apple LaserWriter II NTX v51.8, then "Print
to File".

I certainly won't generate PS files. That format is IMHO the pits.
Almost nothing can read it anymore these days. HPGL was so much better
for schematics.

Isn't HPGL device-specific? I certainly wouldn't distribute
schematics in that format. Can't be netlisted for one.


It wasn't. I could easily import that into MS-Word for example. That's
how I did all my module specs in the 90's. They didn't look much
different than today's except that the underlying schametics were
imported as HPGL instead of PNG and the images as bitmaps.

Netlist? It is not common to generated a netlist from any graphics or
printing format. That's done at the CAD level.

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:19:41 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:01:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Rich Webb wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:54:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Joerg wrote:
Gents,

IC designers still seem to live in the Postscript world ... can't read
those dreaded files. Client said to install Ghostscript. So I downloaded
gs871w32.exe from U of Wisconsin.

No matter what I do, this here computation machine bucks and says "not a
valid Win32 application". Running XP. What gives? How can I dodge this
and make it install?

Guys, figured it out: I had to erase and download two more times, then
it stuck. It installed alright. Now I can see the files but it's nearly
not as good as PDF. Did I already say that I never liked Postscript?
It won't display as nicely with the Ghostscript viewer as one has come
to expect from pdf viewers. GSview is more of a preview app for page
layout and such, and doesn't do the rendering tricks with sub-pixel
anti-aliasing and gamma correction that pdf viewers pretty much all
handle nowadays. It expects that the .ps file will be sent onwards to a
high-resolution printer for final rendering.

Yeah, I know, PS is so yesterday. In fact it already was 20 years ago.
Back then I became so frustrated with it that I completely ditched it
and adopted HPGL. That is a much better rendering tool for CAD but
eventually fell from graces for whatever reason.


But, a Ghostscript installation does come with the necessary tools to
convert .ps to .pdf. There are probably wrappers that put ribbons and
bows on this, but all you should need to do is to copy the .ps file to
the directory in the GS install that has ps2pdf14.bat (probably the lib
directory) and run it from the command line against your .ps file. The
result should be a good looking .pdf file.

Thanks, I'll try that. Anything that gets me off of that dreaded PS
format is a good thing. Problem is, with this IC design I am going to
have a barrage of PS files coming at me over the next months. So I
better get some batch process going where I can send all that through a
wringer before I even look at them.

Looks like good old DOS batch file time again. Now that I am intimately
familiar with
Did you miss my comments about GhostView and GhostScript? Something
is amiss in how you're trying to install.

It didn't matter, you can install Ghostscript first. In fact, that's how
it was explained. Worked after downloading several times.


If your only issue is _receiving_ PS schematics, won't any of the PDF
rip-off's handle that? And generating PS is as trivial as installing
a printer driver, such as: Apple LaserWriter II NTX v51.8, then "Print
to File".

I certainly won't generate PS files. That format is IMHO the pits.
Almost nothing can read it anymore these days. HPGL was so much better
for schematics.

Maybe you need rejuvenation...

https://www.buyirenew.com/Default.aspx?mid=818859


Nah, only my chainsaw might need that. It got a good workout this
morning. I am surprised that the old Remington is still hanging on after
all those years. I sharpened the chain so often that it's a bit thinned
down but I think it'll do another winter.

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:50:05 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:19:41 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:01:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Rich Webb wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:54:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Joerg wrote:
Gents,

IC designers still seem to live in the Postscript world ... can't read
those dreaded files. Client said to install Ghostscript. So I downloaded
gs871w32.exe from U of Wisconsin.

No matter what I do, this here computation machine bucks and says "not a
valid Win32 application". Running XP. What gives? How can I dodge this
and make it install?

Guys, figured it out: I had to erase and download two more times, then
it stuck. It installed alright. Now I can see the files but it's nearly
not as good as PDF. Did I already say that I never liked Postscript?
It won't display as nicely with the Ghostscript viewer as one has come
to expect from pdf viewers. GSview is more of a preview app for page
layout and such, and doesn't do the rendering tricks with sub-pixel
anti-aliasing and gamma correction that pdf viewers pretty much all
handle nowadays. It expects that the .ps file will be sent onwards to a
high-resolution printer for final rendering.

Yeah, I know, PS is so yesterday. In fact it already was 20 years ago.
Back then I became so frustrated with it that I completely ditched it
and adopted HPGL. That is a much better rendering tool for CAD but
eventually fell from graces for whatever reason.


But, a Ghostscript installation does come with the necessary tools to
convert .ps to .pdf. There are probably wrappers that put ribbons and
bows on this, but all you should need to do is to copy the .ps file to
the directory in the GS install that has ps2pdf14.bat (probably the lib
directory) and run it from the command line against your .ps file. The
result should be a good looking .pdf file.

Thanks, I'll try that. Anything that gets me off of that dreaded PS
format is a good thing. Problem is, with this IC design I am going to
have a barrage of PS files coming at me over the next months. So I
better get some batch process going where I can send all that through a
wringer before I even look at them.

Looks like good old DOS batch file time again. Now that I am intimately
familiar with
Did you miss my comments about GhostView and GhostScript? Something
is amiss in how you're trying to install.

It didn't matter, you can install Ghostscript first. In fact, that's how
it was explained. Worked after downloading several times.


If your only issue is _receiving_ PS schematics, won't any of the PDF
rip-off's handle that? And generating PS is as trivial as installing
a printer driver, such as: Apple LaserWriter II NTX v51.8, then "Print
to File".
I certainly won't generate PS files. That format is IMHO the pits.
Almost nothing can read it anymore these days. HPGL was so much better
for schematics.
Isn't HPGL device-specific? I certainly wouldn't distribute
schematics in that format. Can't be netlisted for one.

It wasn't. I could easily import that into MS-Word for example. That's
how I did all my module specs in the 90's. They didn't look much
different than today's except that the underlying schametics were
imported as HPGL instead of PNG and the images as bitmaps.

Netlist? It is not common to generated a netlist from any graphics or
printing format. That's done at the CAD level.

Obviously I design chips for a living... my CAD entry IS a schematic
capture program, that generates a layout-compatible netlist. That's
the ONLY way to ensure error-free correlation to layout tools.

We seem to be talking different things. For _documentation_ any
number of graphical formats will work... just depends on how
"hickey-fied" and cheap your documentation tools are ;-)

Being a professional I can "print" from my schematic capture tool
directly to just about any graphical format you'd like, PNG, GIF, BMP,
JPEG, TIFF and PDF.

But that capability came at great expense... US$69 ;-)

(My usual approach is to generate hierarchically navigable PDF's,
making it much easier for customers sitting in a presentation to
follow along thru a complex design.)

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:52:12 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:19:41 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:01:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Rich Webb wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:54:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Joerg wrote:
Gents,

IC designers still seem to live in the Postscript world ... can't read
those dreaded files. Client said to install Ghostscript. So I downloaded
gs871w32.exe from U of Wisconsin.

No matter what I do, this here computation machine bucks and says "not a
valid Win32 application". Running XP. What gives? How can I dodge this
and make it install?

Guys, figured it out: I had to erase and download two more times, then
it stuck. It installed alright. Now I can see the files but it's nearly
not as good as PDF. Did I already say that I never liked Postscript?
It won't display as nicely with the Ghostscript viewer as one has come
to expect from pdf viewers. GSview is more of a preview app for page
layout and such, and doesn't do the rendering tricks with sub-pixel
anti-aliasing and gamma correction that pdf viewers pretty much all
handle nowadays. It expects that the .ps file will be sent onwards to a
high-resolution printer for final rendering.

Yeah, I know, PS is so yesterday. In fact it already was 20 years ago.
Back then I became so frustrated with it that I completely ditched it
and adopted HPGL. That is a much better rendering tool for CAD but
eventually fell from graces for whatever reason.


But, a Ghostscript installation does come with the necessary tools to
convert .ps to .pdf. There are probably wrappers that put ribbons and
bows on this, but all you should need to do is to copy the .ps file to
the directory in the GS install that has ps2pdf14.bat (probably the lib
directory) and run it from the command line against your .ps file. The
result should be a good looking .pdf file.

Thanks, I'll try that. Anything that gets me off of that dreaded PS
format is a good thing. Problem is, with this IC design I am going to
have a barrage of PS files coming at me over the next months. So I
better get some batch process going where I can send all that through a
wringer before I even look at them.

Looks like good old DOS batch file time again. Now that I am intimately
familiar with
Did you miss my comments about GhostView and GhostScript? Something
is amiss in how you're trying to install.

It didn't matter, you can install Ghostscript first. In fact, that's how
it was explained. Worked after downloading several times.


If your only issue is _receiving_ PS schematics, won't any of the PDF
rip-off's handle that? And generating PS is as trivial as installing
a printer driver, such as: Apple LaserWriter II NTX v51.8, then "Print
to File".

I certainly won't generate PS files. That format is IMHO the pits.
Almost nothing can read it anymore these days. HPGL was so much better
for schematics.

Maybe you need rejuvenation...

https://www.buyirenew.com/Default.aspx?mid=818859


Nah, only my chainsaw might need that. It got a good workout this
morning. I am surprised that the old Remington is still hanging on after
all those years. I sharpened the chain so often that it's a bit thinned
down but I think it'll do another winter.

I have a little battery-powered chain saw on an extension pole that I
use to trim my Mesquite trees. Good up to about 3" branches.

...Jim Thompson

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:50:05 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:19:41 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:01:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Rich Webb wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:54:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Joerg wrote:
Gents,

IC designers still seem to live in the Postscript world ... can't read
those dreaded files. Client said to install Ghostscript. So I downloaded
gs871w32.exe from U of Wisconsin.

No matter what I do, this here computation machine bucks and says "not a
valid Win32 application". Running XP. What gives? How can I dodge this
and make it install?

Guys, figured it out: I had to erase and download two more times, then
it stuck. It installed alright. Now I can see the files but it's nearly
not as good as PDF. Did I already say that I never liked Postscript?
It won't display as nicely with the Ghostscript viewer as one has come
to expect from pdf viewers. GSview is more of a preview app for page
layout and such, and doesn't do the rendering tricks with sub-pixel
anti-aliasing and gamma correction that pdf viewers pretty much all
handle nowadays. It expects that the .ps file will be sent onwards to a
high-resolution printer for final rendering.

Yeah, I know, PS is so yesterday. In fact it already was 20 years ago.
Back then I became so frustrated with it that I completely ditched it
and adopted HPGL. That is a much better rendering tool for CAD but
eventually fell from graces for whatever reason.


But, a Ghostscript installation does come with the necessary tools to
convert .ps to .pdf. There are probably wrappers that put ribbons and
bows on this, but all you should need to do is to copy the .ps file to
the directory in the GS install that has ps2pdf14.bat (probably the lib
directory) and run it from the command line against your .ps file. The
result should be a good looking .pdf file.

Thanks, I'll try that. Anything that gets me off of that dreaded PS
format is a good thing. Problem is, with this IC design I am going to
have a barrage of PS files coming at me over the next months. So I
better get some batch process going where I can send all that through a
wringer before I even look at them.

Looks like good old DOS batch file time again. Now that I am intimately
familiar with
Did you miss my comments about GhostView and GhostScript? Something
is amiss in how you're trying to install.

It didn't matter, you can install Ghostscript first. In fact, that's how
it was explained. Worked after downloading several times.


If your only issue is _receiving_ PS schematics, won't any of the PDF
rip-off's handle that? And generating PS is as trivial as installing
a printer driver, such as: Apple LaserWriter II NTX v51.8, then "Print
to File".
I certainly won't generate PS files. That format is IMHO the pits.
Almost nothing can read it anymore these days. HPGL was so much better
for schematics.
Isn't HPGL device-specific? I certainly wouldn't distribute
schematics in that format. Can't be netlisted for one.

It wasn't. I could easily import that into MS-Word for example. That's
how I did all my module specs in the 90's. They didn't look much
different than today's except that the underlying schametics were
imported as HPGL instead of PNG and the images as bitmaps.

Netlist? It is not common to generated a netlist from any graphics or
printing format. That's done at the CAD level.

Obviously I design chips for a living... my CAD entry IS a schematic
capture program, that generates a layout-compatible netlist. That's
the ONLY way to ensure error-free correlation to layout tools.


That's why I was surprised you wondered about HPGL being used for
netlisting. It wouldn't make sense.


We seem to be talking different things. For _documentation_ any
number of graphical formats will work... just depends on how
"hickey-fied" and cheap your documentation tools are ;-)

Being a professional I can "print" from my schematic capture tool
directly to just about any graphical format you'd like, PNG, GIF, BMP,
JPEG, TIFF and PDF.

But that capability came at great expense... US$69 ;-)


Same here, except that my CAD came with nearly all possible export
formats included. Plus tons of scripting options to make others.

(My usual approach is to generate hierarchically navigable PDF's,
making it much easier for customers sitting in a presentation to
follow along thru a complex design.)


That's the big downside of the CAD I am using, no hierarchy. But I
haven't found a better one and no ten horses will drag me back to Orcad
until it reaches the robustness level of SDT. Or maybe I should have
said, if it ever reaches that again.

To make hierarchical PDF's requires Adobe Acrobat... I think... can
any of the copycat programs also do it?

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:59:23 -0700, Joerg wrote:

Oh, and when I print to PDF I get a blank sheet. Great.


gs(or in your case gswin32) -dNOPAUSE -dBATCH -sDEVICE=pdfwrite -r600
-dCompatibilityLevel=1.4 -sOutputFile=whatever.pdf filename.ps

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:00:03 -0700, Jim Thompson
To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon_at_On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:33:40 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Gents,

IC designers still seem to live in the Postscript world ... can't read
those dreaded files. Client said to install Ghostscript. So I downloaded
gs871w32.exe from U of Wisconsin.

No matter what I do, this here computation machine bucks and says "not a
valid Win32 application". Running XP. What gives? How can I dodge this
and make it install?

Make sure you have the right versions. You also need GSView which
"calls" Ghostscript... I have GSView v3.5 running on XP.

IIRC, there is a specific order of installation required to make it
work.

[snip]

I suddenly remembered the trick... you need to install a PostScript
printer driver FIRST.

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 14:13:58 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:50:05 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 12:19:41 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 08:01:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Rich Webb wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:54:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Joerg wrote:
Gents,

IC designers still seem to live in the Postscript world ... can't read
those dreaded files. Client said to install Ghostscript. So I downloaded
gs871w32.exe from U of Wisconsin.

No matter what I do, this here computation machine bucks and says "not a
valid Win32 application". Running XP. What gives? How can I dodge this
and make it install?

Guys, figured it out: I had to erase and download two more times, then
it stuck. It installed alright. Now I can see the files but it's nearly
not as good as PDF. Did I already say that I never liked Postscript?
It won't display as nicely with the Ghostscript viewer as one has come
to expect from pdf viewers. GSview is more of a preview app for page
layout and such, and doesn't do the rendering tricks with sub-pixel
anti-aliasing and gamma correction that pdf viewers pretty much all
handle nowadays. It expects that the .ps file will be sent onwards to a
high-resolution printer for final rendering.

Yeah, I know, PS is so yesterday. In fact it already was 20 years ago.
Back then I became so frustrated with it that I completely ditched it
and adopted HPGL. That is a much better rendering tool for CAD but
eventually fell from graces for whatever reason.


But, a Ghostscript installation does come with the necessary tools to
convert .ps to .pdf. There are probably wrappers that put ribbons and
bows on this, but all you should need to do is to copy the .ps file to
the directory in the GS install that has ps2pdf14.bat (probably the lib
directory) and run it from the command line against your .ps file. The
result should be a good looking .pdf file.

Thanks, I'll try that. Anything that gets me off of that dreaded PS
format is a good thing. Problem is, with this IC design I am going to
have a barrage of PS files coming at me over the next months. So I
better get some batch process going where I can send all that through a
wringer before I even look at them.

Looks like good old DOS batch file time again. Now that I am intimately
familiar with
Did you miss my comments about GhostView and GhostScript? Something
is amiss in how you're trying to install.

It didn't matter, you can install Ghostscript first. In fact, that's how
it was explained. Worked after downloading several times.


If your only issue is _receiving_ PS schematics, won't any of the PDF
rip-off's handle that? And generating PS is as trivial as installing
a printer driver, such as: Apple LaserWriter II NTX v51.8, then "Print
to File".
I certainly won't generate PS files. That format is IMHO the pits.
Almost nothing can read it anymore these days. HPGL was so much better
for schematics.
Isn't HPGL device-specific? I certainly wouldn't distribute
schematics in that format. Can't be netlisted for one.

It wasn't. I could easily import that into MS-Word for example. That's
how I did all my module specs in the 90's. They didn't look much
different than today's except that the underlying schametics were
imported as HPGL instead of PNG and the images as bitmaps.

Netlist? It is not common to generated a netlist from any graphics or
printing format. That's done at the CAD level.
Obviously I design chips for a living... my CAD entry IS a schematic
capture program, that generates a layout-compatible netlist. That's
the ONLY way to ensure error-free correlation to layout tools.

That's why I was surprised you wondered about HPGL being used for
netlisting. It wouldn't make sense.


We seem to be talking different things. For _documentation_ any
number of graphical formats will work... just depends on how
"hickey-fied" and cheap your documentation tools are ;-)

Being a professional I can "print" from my schematic capture tool
directly to just about any graphical format you'd like, PNG, GIF, BMP,
JPEG, TIFF and PDF.

But that capability came at great expense... US$69 ;-)

Same here, except that my CAD came with nearly all possible export
formats included. Plus tons of scripting options to make others.

So why are you fretting over PostScript? Use a PS printer driver.
"Print" to file. Rename extension to .EPS... paste as your heart
desires.

(My usual approach is to generate hierarchically navigable PDF's,
making it much easier for customers sitting in a presentation to
follow along thru a complex design.)

That's the big downside of the CAD I am using, no hierarchy. But I
haven't found a better one and no ten horses will drag me back to Orcad
until it reaches the robustness level of SDT. Or maybe I should have
said, if it ever reaches that again.

That's why I've stuck with classic PSpice Schematics (very nicely
hierarchical) all these years. OrCAD can't even be creative while
stealing from the best :-)

To make hierarchical PDF's requires Adobe Acrobat... I think... can
any of the copycat programs also do it?

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:18:00 -0700, Jim Thompson
To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon_at_On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote:

To make hierarchical PDF's requires Adobe Acrobat... I think... can
any of the copycat programs also do it?

The full version of Tracker Software's PDF reader will allow one to
insert links into an existing PDF file.

Probably not as nice as having the schematic capture program
automagically create a PDF with up- and down-links in the drawing
package, but it's pretty quick to draw the link's bounding box,
right-click for properties, and then add the action.

Actually, if Joerg is still on the line, that might be a partial remedy
for his non-hierarchical schematic capture package (EAGLE?): Print all
of the schematic pages to a PDF document and then just add the necessary
links to move around in the hierarchy, as desired.

The free version of PDF-Xchange should allow trying out the add-link
feature, although IIRC it adds an evaluation watermark to the document.

Again, I don't need to generate or even print PS. I will receive PS
files from an IC design house and must review the schematics, make
changes, maybe mark them up.

I would never use PS internally here. Even if one of the printers might
understand it pretty much none of my office programs does.

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 11:50:37 -0700, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon_at_On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 18:00:03 -0700, Jim Thompson
To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon_at_On-My-Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 17:33:40 -0700, Joerg <invalid_at_invalid.invalid
wrote:

Gents,

IC designers still seem to live in the Postscript world ... can't read
those dreaded files. Client said to install Ghostscript. So I downloaded
gs871w32.exe from U of Wisconsin.

No matter what I do, this here computation machine bucks and says "not a
valid Win32 application". Running XP. What gives? How can I dodge this
and make it install?

Make sure you have the right versions. You also need GSView which
"calls" Ghostscript... I have GSView v3.5 running on XP.

IIRC, there is a specific order of installation required to make it
work.

[snip]

I suddenly remembered the trick... you need to install a PostScript
printer driver FIRST.

Yes, and it's one of the apple 2 writer printer drivers, though the one
you mentioned upthread didn't look quite right, it was something like
that (could be the right one for this century . Been a decade or more
since I needed PS, there's some nice stuff in there with the processing
commands.

Grant.

Again, I don't need to generate or even print PS. I will receive PS
files from an IC design house and must review the schematics,

make
changes, maybe mark them up.

I would never use PS internally here. Even if one of the printers might
understand it pretty much none of my office programs does.


(My usual approach is to generate hierarchically navigable PDF's,
making it much easier for customers sitting in a presentation to
follow along thru a complex design.)

That's the big downside of the CAD I am using, no hierarchy. But I
haven't found a better one and no ten horses will drag me back to Orcad
until it reaches the robustness level of SDT. Or maybe I should have
said, if it ever reaches that again.

That's why I've stuck with classic PSpice Schematics (very nicely
hierarchical) all these years. OrCAD can't even be creative while
stealing from the best

But probably can't be purchased sans PSpice? Do they still offer that
schematic frontend or was it obsoleted?


To make hierarchical PDF's requires Adobe Acrobat... I think... can
any of the copycat programs also do it?


I could do that with an office program, that's no problem. The problem
for me is that the CAD doesn't do hierarchy so it's unable to manage
nets and ports in a layered structure.