Thread: scan an image and print it

Originally Posted by Salem

Since postscript files are just text files, you can
a) look at them with a text editor (check that they begin with %!PS IIRC)
b) read said text file into your own program, so you can merge your data with the already encoded bitmap data.
c) squirt the whole lot out to the printer.

Reading image.ps is no different to reading image.bmp, it's still an external file.
If you want to hide the conversion inside your program, then that's doable as well.

No doubt you could get the source code for bmp2ps and just incorporate that directly into your code.

I've no idea what you did, but this seems to indicate that your printer might not understand postscript.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HP_LaserJet_4
Any particular kind of garbage - like for instance the same as what you see when you view the poststript file or was it a different kind of garbage.

on the hplaserjet 4plus printer, it pretty much regurjitates what you see in the file. So i guess it doesnt understand ps.

I tried an hplaserjet 4000 and had slightly better luck with that. It printed the graphic but for some reason it placed it to the bottom of the page and enlarged it to fit the page. Is there a way to control the size and location of the graphic on the page?

Originally Posted by Salem

> Is there a way to control the size and location of the graphic on the page?
Quite probably.

The tool has a number of command line arguments IIRC - I'm sure you could convince it to do what you want.

If all else fails, you have the option of manually (or in your program) adjusting the postscript file itself to make it do what you want, once you've learnt a little bit about the postscript language. Try fiddling with some scale and translate parameters which are probably in the .ps file.

do you know ofhand how to end the ps (so that the printer knows that its is no longer PS and is in fact regular text thant is to be printed literaly)
BTW thanks alot for your help!