
     This shell archive contains a program called paintps which will convert
a MacPaint file (uploaded from a Mac) to PostScript for printing on a
LaserWriter.  It reads a plain MacPaint document as input and produces 
postscript output in the same style as that produced by the 1.1 version
of the Mac LaserWriter driver.  Paintps runs on unix and will automatically
spool its output for printing if no output redirection has been done.
The advantage of paintps is that MacPaint pictures are usually less than
25K, while the resulting PostScript often exceeds 100K.  This obviously
reduces the file transfer time.

     Also included are several versions of the LaserPrep file, slightly
modified from Apple's versions, and a shell script called maclaser, which is
called by paintps to spool its output.  Maclaser is simply a front end to lpr,
and depends on the spooler setup described in the file README.SPOOL.
     
     This code has been used with 4.2 and 4.3BSD; vaxen, Sun and Sequent
hardware.  We use the TranScript package from Adobe to drive the LaserWriter.
If you're using some other set of PostScript drivers, the spooler hacks
are basically the same, since there are no changes to the drivers themselves.

     Paintps is distantly related to a program called paintimp, originally
written by Dave Johnson at Brown University.  It converted MacPaint pictures
to Impress for printing on Imagens.  Ron Hitchens at the University of
Texas hacked on it a bit and added some features.  When we got a LW,
Brian Powell at UT was inspired to do something similar for PostScript.
The resulting paintps is very different from paintimp, but paintimp did
provide the structure and a few subroutines.  Maclaser and the spooler hacks
were conceived by Ron Hitchens' twisted mind.

     There are several different critters in this distribution.  They 
probably won't all want to live in the same place.  A makefile is included
for paintps, mainly because it was already there.  Use your local customs
for determining where things should go.  "macfilter.csh" in particular, needs
to know several specific paths.  You also should put the proper paths at the
bottom of the man pages, if they are different from what we use.

     NOTE:  Maclaser can print PostScript generated by any Macintosh program,
not just MacPaint.  (See the man page for maclaser for details.)  Currently,
it supports output from three different versions of the LaserWriter driver:
version 1.1 (which came with Finder 4.1), 3.1 (Finder 5.3), and 3.3 (Finder
5.4).  
     You do not have to have the LaserWriter printer driver on the Macintosh
to use paintps, but for other programs where you generate the PostScript on
the Macintosh, you have to use one of the above versions.
     I try to keep this software update with the new versions of the
LaserWriter driver.  I always try to continue supporting the old versions when
possible, but that isn't always feasible.  When System 4.1 comes out, I may
have to stop supporting the 3.3 LW driver.

-------------------------
Brian Powell	brian@sally.utexas.edu
Ron Hitchens	hitchens@sally.utexas.edu

Updated April 9, 1987.
