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<title>Generating PostScript for CUPS</title>
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CUPS PostScript file specification for the Common UNIX Printing System (CUPS).
Copyright 2006 by Easy Software Products.
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<h2 class='title'><a name='INTRODUCTION'>Introduction</a></h2>
<p>This document describes how to generate PostScript output for
CUPS and is largely based on the <a
href="http://partners.adobe.com/public/developer/en/ps/5001.DSC_Spec.pdf">
Adobe TechNote #5001: PostScript Language Document Structuring
Conventions Specification Version 3.0</a>. While CUPS can
generally print any PostScript file, following the rules in the
Adobe TechNote and this document will ensure that your PostScript
output will work reliably.</p>
<blockquote><b>Note:</b> While PostScript is currently the
defacto-standard print job file format/language for UNIX-based
applications, it is slowly being phased out in favor of Adobe's
Portable Document Format ("PDF") which offers many advantages
over PostScript. MacOS X uses PDF as the primary print job file
format, and we expect Linux to soon follow. Both PostScript and
PDF are complex formats, and we highly recommend using high-level
toolkits whenever possible.</blockquote>
<h3>Anatomy of a PostScript File</h3>
<p>PostScript files are ASCII text files starting with a header
line (<tt>%!PS-Adobe-3.0</tt>) followed by a combination of
comment lines starting with two percent signs (<tt>%%</tt>) and
PostScript code lines. The lines themselves should not exceed 255
characters to conform to the DSC. The following short PostScript
file produces a box with a smiley face in it:</p>
<pre class="command">
0 setgray
1 setlinewidth
36 36 540 720 rectstroke
0 0 1 setrgbcolor
306 396 144 0 360 arc closepath fill
1 1 0 setrgbcolor
252 432 36 0 360 arc closepath fill
360 432 36 0 360 arc closepath fill
1 setlinecap
18 setlinewidth
306 396 99 200 340 arc stroke
showpage
</pre>
<div class="figure"><table summary="Sample PostScript File Output">
<caption>Figure 1: <a name="FIGURE_1">Sample PostScript File Output</a></caption>
<tr><td align="center"><img src="../images/smiley.jpg"
width="445" height="570" alt="Sample PostScript File Output"></td></tr>
</table></div>
<h2>Embedding Printer Options</h2>
<h2>Embedding Fonts and Text</h2>
<h2>Embedding Images</h2>
<blockquote><b>Note:</b> While some printers support arbitrary
binary data in PostScript files, we do not recommend this
practice because it does not work with all printers or
interfaces. In most cases, the Base-85 encoding and compression
filters can be used to embed images with very little, if any,
increase in data size.</blockquote>
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