1. Home
  2. Electronics Design
  3. OT: Ghostscript, won't install
  4. Page 3

OT: Ghostscript, won't install

read

downloaded

"not a

this

nearly

:-)

Again, I don't need to generate or even print PS. I will receive PS files from an IC design house and must review the schematics, make changes, maybe mark them up.

I would never use PS internally here. Even if one of the printers might understand it pretty much none of my office programs does.

But probably can't be purchased sans PSpice? Do they still offer that schematic frontend or was it obsoleted?

I could do that with an office program, that's no problem. The problem for me is that the CAD doesn't do hierarchy so it's unable to manage nets and ports in a layered structure.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg
Loading thread data ...

That's actually what I am doing except I go in with the PNG format, then to PDF when all done :-)

It doesn't have to be free, just reasonable.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg

Low-tech solution: You could print it (a copy /b to lpt1: from DOS prompt should work, if you have enabled DOS redirection in the printer driver), then add your marks, scan it back to PDF (I have a cheap SnapScan scanner, where you can scan it to PDF with one button click) and send back the scanned documents.

Or you could buy Adobe Acrobat: It can convert PS files to PDF files or even Word Document (with some losses), with batch converter included (at least in my version. It is called Acrobat Distiller. Check, if it is part of your version, if you buy it). And you can edit PDF files with it: E.g. in my German version there is a tool called "Schreibmaschine" (I wonder if they did use some automatic translator programs), with which I can enter text at arbitrary positions and a "Bleistift-Werkzeug": You can guess what it does, but the name is wrong, actually it is a "Buntstift" :-) really nice in combination with my Wacom graphics tablet.

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
piano and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss
Reply to
Frank Buss

Actually, IIRC, the install gripes for you to install PS driver first, does it not?

Yep, Mine WAS installed _last_century_ :-) But it is still working. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
Reply to
Jim Thompson
[snip]

Ghostscript will do that

As for changes and "mark-up", how do you plan to do that?

Classic PSpice Schematics should be available at several websites, and _doesn't_ require a license.

The main pain in bringing it up would be sorting out what symbol libraries you wish to use.

...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

I just remembered (and tested) another way... cheap graphics programs like Paint Shop pro can read .PS files, then "Save As" the format of your choice. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Hi Jörg,

Never! PS is a great and powerfol tool in case someone understands to manipulate it. Many years ago, when windows where built with wood and glas and had definitely no elecrtonic components, I used ghostscript to pimp up my deskjet that had only courier implemented ;-) Generating Postscript files and printing them via gs was fine since DOS times. When I got a book about postscript I enjoyed this more and more. Having a ps-file and a ASCII-editor I have allways a toolchain to make what I want. I got my schematic for my master thesis "Printed with postscript. But I wanted to extract some details described in the text: Postscript was my friend. Some ugly settings in the CAD-program, never mind, I corrected this in PS-files and had nice looking printouts... I never want to miss this useful tool. Even the trials with spiral antennas. It took me only half an hour to have al repro-film for making the pcbs for ist. A few collegues tried to construct these double spirals with several CAD-tools... hours later they capitulated...

But I agree, a more easy to use frontend with a good structured help system would be nice...

Marte

Reply to
Marte Schwarz

Hi Jörg,

then give inkscape and/or scribus a chance. I use them actually to manipulate my postscript-files. Inkscape imports ps pretty good and scribus I know better to manipulate. May be inkscape would be good enough for you.

Marte

Reply to
Marte Schwarz

Hi Marte, Right now, to overlay multiple-case-study PSpice simulation results I concatenate all the files plus add a header and footer that makes it into a single entity. Crude and blurry at times. Takes laborious final clean-up in Acrobat :-(

Can inkscape and/or scribus do this?

In the past (DOS days) I ran all kinds of batch files to annotate PS schematics and break big ones into "tiles" that could be taped together. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Hi Jim,

I guess this should be good with inkscape. Just import the psdocs and give each of them his own layer. Then you can do what you want with them. Give it a try.

formatting link
formatting link

both are free

Marte

Reply to
Marte Schwarz

So does GSView.

-- "For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." (Richard Feynman)

Reply to
Fred Abse

Inkscape is nice for creating drawings, but I have just tried the latest

0.48 version with a random PS file from my documents directory (it was this one:
formatting link
) and it failed to import it. Maybe I missed something? Neither "File open", nor "Import" works. Ghostscript and Acrobat Distiller don't have problems with it.

BTW: Ghostscript and GSview works nice on my old XP machine and on my current Vista maschine. It can display postscript documents and I can export it as PDF.

On my old XP machine I have even installed the free Redmon printer driver, which creates a virtual printer, which uses Ghostscript to allow creating PDF files from any program which can print data. Of course, I don't need it anymore, because such a virtual printer is part of Adobe Acrobat.

But I like postscript, because it is easy to write programs, which outputs postscript files, e.g. as I have used for my recent research about Koch Curves:

formatting link

And you can really write nice programs within postscript, if you don't have to do other things :-)

--
Frank Buss, http://www.frank-buss.de
piano and more: http://www.youtube.com/user/frankbuss
Reply to
Frank Buss

That would indeed be the low-tech version :-)

I have occasionally done such things in the past but trying to avoid it if possible. Although, when I have to do mark-ups your idea is probably a good one because it can still be faster than trying to do the mark-up in some sort of program. Nothing beats the speed of a pencil.

After the dismal crash record of Acrobat over here I really don't want to buy any software from them.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg

With more compatible formats it's easy. The simplest way is this: Load into MS-Paint, make your suggestions right in there in a different color, store, attach to email, done.

Interesting, even Cadence offers it:

formatting link

This doesn't require one to have a current Orcad license? Mine is sorta ancient.

I wouldn't have any trouble with that. It's just that if I change CAD systems again I'd like this to be the last time because re-creating all the library parts is tedious. Being an analog guy I use a lot of unorthodox stuff.

[...] 
--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg

Aha! Thanks. Now that would be an option because I can also use that for marking schematics.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg

Whoops ...

Jim said Paint Shop Pro import nicely. Maybe I should just buy that. Got to read up on it first, see if annotating inside schematics would work. I don't care how it then stores it all because I'd send it to PDF anyhow once I have reviewed a schematic.

Jim, do you remember which version you tested this on? X2, X2-Ultimate or XI? There are so many versions available, quite confusing.

That I do with PDF-Creator.

"Not having to do other things" rapidly changes after getting married :-)

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg

Thanks, Marte! ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

If you'd toss all those *PHUTS* lurking in your PC you wouldn't have any troubles. I've been using Acrobat for YEARS, with problems so rare I can't remember when I last had a problem.

I suspect your constant use of "cheap kid stuff" has riddled your machine with DLL conflicts. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

Same here. I literally have hundreds of custom symbols. ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson, CTO                            |    mens     |
| Analog Innovations, Inc.                         |     et      |
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    |
| Phoenix, Arizona  85048    Skype: Contacts Only  |             |
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     |

                   Spice is like a sports car... 
     Performance only as good as the person behind the wheel.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

The old HP DeskJet could also be pimped with some sort of generic driver that then read in fonts as templates. It's too long ago, can't remember, but I bought this helper disk around 1990 in a computer store in Seattle, very cheap. I think you could even design your own fonts with it if you absolutely had to have it print in Klingon or whatever.

HPGL is actually very powerful as well because it is a vector language. The difference was that it was much more compatible. MS-Word 5.0 for DOS which I used for all my engineering documents could import it in a snap (but not Postscript). I gave clients module specs with chunks of schematics in there, in the shape of figures, with captions, nice text flow-around and all. So I could explain how this I/Q stage over here works, or the phase shifter over there. Often I received only one question and it wasn't technical: "How did you get that in there?"

HPGL had just one quirk or, rather, some software did. And it was easy to fix: Some software wanted the "pen down" command in there, other software didn't.

It would be very simple if many of the popular tools could at least import it. But PS must have fallen from grace, almost none do. However, Jim said Paint Shop does and that may be the ticket here because I am sure it has a more professional frontend than what I've got now.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.
Reply to
Joerg

ElectronDepot website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.