[cups.development] Myths and Truth about `-sDEVICE=bbox`

pipitas pipitas at gmail.com
Thu Aug 2 16:34:55 PDT 2012


On 7/31/12 11:53, Johannes Meixner wrote:

> On Jul 29 04:17 pipitas wrote (excerpt):
[...]
> I think you confuse the actual PostScript code with DSC comments.
>
>
>> * It does not print the "actual PostScript bounding box values",
>>   nor does it reveal "if the actual PostScript has landscape
>>   dimensions".
>>
>> * Instead, it renders each page and just prints the coordinates of
>>   the *minimal box which contains any marking on the page* at all.
>
> The minimal box which contains marking is exactly
> what I mean with "actual PostScript bounding box values".

OK, this was my mis-understanding then.

> I do not talk about DSC comments because those can be plain wrong.

We are on common ground here  :-)

>> It doesn't tell you *anything* about landscape or portrait, and
>> it's not even meant to do so....
>
> If the marked area is a square (down to a square with zero size)
> it cannot tell if it is wider than high.
> In all other cases it tells if it is wider than high.

Not necessarily. Think of a portrait page that is filled only on
the upper third...

> If you have usual PostScript which has in a reasonable way
> "filled up" the printable area on the paper (i.e. what
> usually comes out of an usual application when you print
> an usual document as "landscape" or "portrait" from within
> the application), then "gs -sDEVICE=bbox" shows whether or not
> the application had actually made its PostScript in a "landscape"
> or "portrait" way.

Think of a portrait page that is filled only on the upper third...

[..]
> Welcome to the hell of "landscape" meaning confusion!

Thanks, but no thanks. I'm living there already since 20++ years. :-)

Cheers, pipitas




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