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is a2ps broken?

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  is a2ps broken? rlharris@oplink.net - 2015-09-03 09:10 +0200
    Re: is a2ps broken? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-09-03 17:30 +0200
      Re: is a2ps broken? rlharris@oplink.net - 2015-09-04 04:40 +0200
        Re: is a2ps broken? rlharris@oplink.net - 2015-09-16 04:40 +0200
          Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-09-16 21:10 +0200
            Re: Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken? Vincent Lefevre <vincent@vinc17.net> - 2015-09-25 13:40 +0200
              Re: Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-09-26 06:40 +0200
                Re: Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken? rlharris@oplink.net - 2015-09-26 08:10 +0200
                  Re: Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken? David Wright <deblis@lionunicorn.co.uk> - 2015-09-26 20:00 +0200

#157359 — is a2ps broken?

With Lenny and a HP4100 PostScript printer, a two-pages-per-sheet spread
printed by a2ps is cut off on both the left and the right.

A search with google reveals that a problem of this sort arose ten or
twelve years ago, but I see no current reports.

Papersize is configured for "letter" 8.5 x 11 inches.

With previous distributions, a2ps has worked properly right out of the
box.  I have been running Jessie since it became available as "beta", but
I did not notice the problem until recently, so perhaps an upgrade of a2ps
is at fault?

RLH

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#157375

Personally, a2ps has been broken for years because it doesn't handle unicode.

Quoting rlharris@oplink.net (rlharris@oplink.net):
> With Lenny and a HP4100 PostScript printer, a two-pages-per-sheet spread
> printed by a2ps is cut off on both the left and the right.

Left and right wrt the sheet of paper, or wrt the original pages
which, presumably, have been rotated by 90° for printing 2-up.

> A search with google reveals that a problem of this sort arose ten or
> twelve years ago, but I see no current reports.
> 
> Papersize is configured for "letter" 8.5 x 11 inches.

Two checks: whether a2ps thinks it's printing to A4 which is longer
and narrower than Letter, and whether a2ps is not allowing for the
unprintable area at the top and bottom of the paper on many printers.
(It's had special deskjet margins ever since I can remember.)

> With previous distributions, a2ps has worked properly right out of the
> box.  I have been running Jessie since it became available as "beta", but
> I did not notice the problem until recently, so perhaps an upgrade of a2ps
> is at fault?

Anything is possible, but I notice that the latest upstream change to
a2ps is stamped 2007-12-29  Masayuki Hatta  <mhatta@gnu.org>.
Of course, it's always possible therefore that Lenny's version is
positively 20th century!

Is is significant that the *first* match of "paper" in
/usr/share/doc/a2ps/changelog.Debian.gz is the line
  * libpaper support is missing in the upstream.  I'll port it ASAP.

My own use of a2ps was entirely in an international environment,
ie A3, A4 and A5 paper sizes. I'm still trying to get to grips with
the archaic sizes here; it's like going back to junior school.

Cheers,
David.

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#157390

On Thu, September 3, 2015 10:28 am, David Wright wrote:
> Personally, a2ps has been broken for years because it doesn't handle
> unicode.

Fooey on unicode, then.  I need a2ps; but I lived for years without unicode.

> Quoting rlharris@oplink.net (rlharris@oplink.net):
>
>> With Lenny and a HP4100 PostScript printer, a two-pages-per-sheet
>> spread printed by a2ps is cut off on both the left and the right.
> Left and right wrt the sheet of paper, or wrt the original pages
> which, presumably, have been rotated by 90° for printing 2-up.

The original pages -- the first several columns of the left-hand page; the
last several columns of the right-hand page

>> A search with google reveals that a problem of this sort arose ten or
>> twelve years ago, but I see no current reports.
>>
>> Papersize is configured for "letter" 8.5 x 11 inches.
>
> Two checks: whether a2ps thinks it's printing to A4 which is longer
> and narrower than Letter, and whether a2ps is not allowing for the
> unprintable area at the top and bottom of the paper on many printers.
> (It's had special deskjet margins ever since I can remember.)
>
>> With previous distributions, a2ps has worked properly right out of the
>> box.  I have been running Jessie since it became available as "beta",
>> but I did not notice the problem until recently, so perhaps an upgrade
>> of a2ps is at fault?
>
> Anything is possible, but I notice that the latest upstream change to
> a2ps is stamped 2007-12-29  Masayuki Hatta  <mhatta@gnu.org>. Of course,
> it's always possible therefore that Lenny's version is positively 20th
> century!
>
> Is is significant that the *first* match of "paper" in
> /usr/share/doc/a2ps/changelog.Debian.gz is the line
> * libpaper support is missing in the upstream.  I'll port it ASAP.
>
>
> My own use of a2ps was entirely in an international environment,
> ie A3, A4 and A5 paper sizes. I'm still trying to get to grips with the
> archaic sizes here; it's like going back to junior school.

Thanks for the explanation.

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#157932

> On Thu, September 3, 2015 10:28 am, David Wright wrote:
>
> Personally, a2ps has been broken for years because it doesn't handle
> unicode.

I found in the Debian archive the package "enscript", which appears to
provide (at least for my needs) the functionality of "a2ps"; and enscript
handles unicode.

Whereas a2ps worked well "right out of the box", It took me several hours
of experimentation with enscript to create a format to my liking,
particularly with respect to the margins; things do not seem (to me) to
work according to the documentation.

But the end result is a satisfactory replacement for a2ps.

RLH

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#157983 — Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken?

Quoting rlharris@oplink.net (rlharris@oplink.net):
> > On Thu, September 3, 2015 10:28 am, David Wright wrote:
> >
> > Personally, a2ps has been broken for years because it doesn't handle
> > unicode.
> 
> I found in the Debian archive the package "enscript", which appears to
> provide (at least for my needs) the functionality of "a2ps"; and enscript
> handles unicode.

Perhaps you mean something else by "handles unicode".

It doesn't crash, and the frames you have specified don't get bumped
into AFAICT, but a test line of unicode with:

Pound £ Euro € Divide ÷

gives me:

Pound £ Euro â\202¬ Divide ÷

There'a a good testpage to try at
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/examples/UTF-8-demo.txt

Cheers,
David.

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#158229 — Re: Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken?

On 2015-09-16 14:01:40 -0500, David Wright wrote:
> It doesn't crash, and the frames you have specified don't get bumped
> into AFAICT, but a test line of unicode with:
> 
> Pound £ Euro € Divide ÷
> 
> gives me:
> 
> Pound £ Euro â\202¬ Divide ÷
> 
> There'a a good testpage to try at
> http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/examples/UTF-8-demo.txt

And FYI, the bug report (more than 11 years ago!):

  https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=229595

For printing, I'm using paps as a replacement for a2ps. But this is
mainly for printing, as contrary to a2ps, paps does not generate text
in the PostScript output (it converts the text with pango).

-- 
Vincent Lefèvre <vincent@vinc17.net> - Web: <https://www.vinc17.net/>
100% accessible validated (X)HTML - Blog: <https://www.vinc17.net/blog/>
Work: CR INRIA - computer arithmetic / AriC project (LIP, ENS-Lyon)

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#158285 — Re: Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken?

Quoting Vincent Lefevre (vincent@vinc17.net):
> On 2015-09-16 14:01:40 -0500, David Wright wrote:
> > It doesn't crash, and the frames you have specified don't get bumped
> > into AFAICT, but a test line of unicode with:
> > 
> > Pound £ Euro € Divide ÷
> > 
> > gives me:
> > 
> > Pound £ Euro â\202¬ Divide ÷
> > 
> > There'a a good testpage to try at
> > http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/ucs/examples/UTF-8-demo.txt
> 
> And FYI, the bug report (more than 11 years ago!):
> 
>   https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=229595
> 
> For printing, I'm using paps as a replacement for a2ps. But this is
> mainly for printing, as contrary to a2ps, paps does not generate text
> in the PostScript output (it converts the text with pango).

I found a2ps very useful when I used to print at work quite a lot (on
shared printers). By the time it became unusable for me (IIRC around
the time of etch when Debian used TeX Live, and TeX Live was fully
unicode aware) I was retired and not printing text files/emails.
I didn't bother to look at enscript as it was known to suffer the same
way as a2ps; paps suffices nowadays: it appears to be able to print
more glyphs than any of my screen fonts can display.

The OP thanked me for my first post which suggested what might cause
problems in a2ps, but AFAICT gave no feedback on whether it was any
help. Presumably not, hence his move to enscript.

He appears not to be interested in unicode ("Fooey on unicode, then.")
but my second post was provoked only by his assertion that "enscript
handles unicode." I took the trouble to install enscript and check
this out, as reported above, but have no interest in continuing to use
it myself.

Cheers,
David.

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#158288 — Re: Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken?

On Fri, September 25, 2015 11:34 pm, David Wright wrote:
> The OP thanked me for my first post which suggested what might cause
> problems in a2ps, but AFAICT gave no feedback on whether it was any help.
> Presumably not, hence his move to enscript.
...
> He appears not to be interested in unicode ("Fooey on unicode, then.")

Hi, David.

Your comments were helpful; they told me what I needed to know -- that
a2ps is broken with respect to unicode.  I did not see what to do to a2ps,
much less, how to do it.  So, having a pressing need, I abandoned a2ps and
with relatively little effort I managed to get enscript configured to my
liking.

I suppose that, running Jessie, I am using unicode, but that aspect of
Linux is something I never have studied, and at present I do not have time
to study.  I simply must use whatever representation the Debian team has
decided to employ; but I do regret losing a2ps, which, for a number of
years, worked well "right out of the box".

However, whatever the representation used in Jessie, enscript is working
for me.

Thanks,
RLH

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#158324 — Re: Enscript and unicode, was Re: is a2ps broken?

Quoting rlharris@oplink.net (rlharris@oplink.net):
> On Fri, September 25, 2015 11:34 pm, David Wright wrote:
> > The OP thanked me for my first post which suggested what might cause
> > problems in a2ps, but AFAICT gave no feedback on whether it was any help.
> > Presumably not, hence his move to enscript.
> ...
> > He appears not to be interested in unicode ("Fooey on unicode, then.")
> 
> Hi, David.
> 
> Your comments were helpful; they told me what I needed to know -- that
> a2ps is broken with respect to unicode.  I did not see what to do to a2ps,
> much less, how to do it.  So, having a pressing need, I abandoned a2ps and
> with relatively little effort I managed to get enscript configured to my
> liking.
> 
> I suppose that, running Jessie, I am using unicode, but that aspect of
> Linux is something I never have studied, and at present I do not have time
> to study.  I simply must use whatever representation the Debian team has
> decided to employ; but I do regret losing a2ps, which, for a number of
> years, worked well "right out of the box".
> 
> However, whatever the representation used in Jessie, enscript is working
> for me.

Fortunately linux chose utf8 to represent unicode (unlike 'doze) so
you get compatible behaviour if you're not too adventurous with your
characters. In my case, once TeX went to unicode, I could throw out
obscure incantations and sizeable lookup tables from my style files
and just put the characters I wanted to print into the source files.
My other major application, LilyPond, originating much later and
outside the US, was designed with Latin-1, then replaced by unicode
in 2005. It's a major advantage being able to write curly quotes etc
as they are to appear. In fact, I can't imagine going back to the old
methods.

I'm lucky in that I no longer need to prettyprint stuff like source
code and emails any more. I hope enscript lasts you a while; changing
over is a wrench (as I remember, when a2ps's options changed a good
deal between bo and hamm).

Cheers,
David.

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