landscape postscript printing

landscape postscript printing

[David Penton]

I often use postscript printing (ps-print-buffer) to print out source code. 

I have set postscript customization options to default to landscape, with the N Up Printing set to 1.

Why do I always get two columns even with N Up Printing set to 1? The only thing that seems to work is to (setq ps-number-of-columns 1) but as I understand it the N Up option is meant to force the number of columns.

I use OS X 10.6.5. The problem seems to occur with aquamacs, xemacs, and also GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (which I guess comes with OS X).

Am I setting the wrong customization option or something? Duh.

Best,

- Dave -

Re: landscape postscript printing

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 18.12.2010 um 06:07 schrieb David Penton:

> Am I setting the wrong customization option or something? Duh.


Are you saving it? For testing the changed customisation you can press  
the "Set for Current Session" button. Without doing so nothing is  
changed. To use the changed settings in a future session you'll need  
to press the "Save for Future Sessions" button. This command will  
command will write some Emacs Lisp code into the "custom-set- 
variables" section of your user-init-file (a variable, so you can  
retrieve its actual value). They could be:

  '(ps-n-up-printing 1)
  '(ps-number-of-columns 3)
  '(ps-paper-type (quote a4))

etc. For tests you can substitute the ps-print-* commands with ps- 
spool-* commands. They produce *PostScript* buffers in GNU Emacs. You  
can save them on disk as files to view them in some PostScript viewer  
(Preview converts PS first to PDF internally), without having to kill  
a wood or two for printouts on paper.

For me, on Mac OS X 10.5.8, Leopard, it works with

	GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (mac-apple-darwin, Carbon Version 1.6.0) of  
2009-11-30 on ...


BTW, if you are customising GNU Emacs in more than one *Customize  
<whatever>* buffers at the same time, you have to save the  
customisation from each of these buffers.

--
Greetings

   Pete

They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change in me.

Re: landscape postscript printing

[David Penton]

On 2010-12-18, at 5:26 AM, Peter Dyballa wrote:

Thanks Peter. See my comments below.

> 
> Am 18.12.2010 um 06:07 schrieb David Penton:
> 
>> Am I setting the wrong customization option or something? Duh.
> 
> 
> Are you saving it? For testing the changed customisation you can press the "Set for Current Session" button. Without doing so nothing is changed. To use the changed settings in a future session you'll need to press the "Save for Future Sessions" button. This command will command will write some Emacs Lisp code into the "custom-set-variables" section of your user-init-file (a variable, so you can retrieve its actual value). They could be:
> 

Yes, the customization is saved. ps-number-of-columns is set to 1 in the customization buffer, and also I can see it in the file. It still does not work.

> '(ps-n-up-printing 1)
> '(ps-number-of-columns 3)
> '(ps-paper-type (quote a4))
> 
> etc. For tests you can substitute the ps-print-* commands with ps-spool-* commands. They produce *PostScript* buffers in GNU Emacs. You can save them on disk as files to view them in some PostScript viewer (Preview converts PS first to PDF internally), without having to kill a wood or two for printouts on paper.
> 

That's exactly what I have been doing.

> For me, on Mac OS X 10.5.8, Leopard, it works with
> 
> 	GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (mac-apple-darwin, Carbon Version 1.6.0) of 2009-11-30 on ...
> 
> 

I just downloaded Carbon Emacs 22.3.1. I checked the customizations that I *believe* are involved. I set ps-number-of-pages to 1, and landscape mode on. I confirmed that these settings are saved. However, I still cannot get one-column landscape that way.

Could some other setting be interfering?

> BTW, if you are customising GNU Emacs in more than one *Customize <whatever>* buffers at the same time, you have to save the customisation from each of these buffers.
> 
> --
> Greetings
> 
> Pete
> 
> They're putting dimes in the hole in my head to see the change in me.
> 

Re: landscape postscript printing

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 18.12.2010 um 15:16 schrieb David Penton:

> Could some other setting be interfering?


Of course: The Mac OS X printing system. With Carbon Emacs or Aquamacs  
Emacs you have an integration into the system's printing system, at  
least when you print with ⌘-P. I don't know how the ps-print-*  
commands interact with it, it might be documented. If you haven't  
discovered this, try it and see what the system can do for you (in  
Leopard and before you could save different setups and retrieve one of  
them easily).

The effective values for PS printing can be determined by ps-spooling  
or ps-printing a first time something. Then you can invoke

	M-x apropos-variable RET ^ps-print-.*$ RET

and the next time

	M-x apropos-variable RET ^ps-.*$ RET

to get the whole list of corresponding variable names. In the  
resulting *Apropos* buffer you can click with the mouse cursor on the  
bold variable names to get their values displayed in a *Help* buffer.


I usually use the ps-spool-* commands and save the *PostScript*  
buffers, sometimes after editing. Try this! This is the (only) way to  
know exactly what Emacs produces as PostScript output, it should write  
a line like this quite early into the header:

	%%Orientation: Landscape

I think among the customisation this line is necessary:

	 '(ps-landscape-mode t)

Check its existence! And look into the file the variable user-init- 
file points to! Also try to save the resulting *PostScript* buffer  
into a PS file and view it with Ghostscript, gv, Preview, Skim – the  
latter two might fail to display all!

To summarise: First find out what exactly Emacs produces! (Then we can  
check the OS' printing system.)

--
Greetings

   Pete

A morning without coffee is like something without something else.