Antwort: Re: Another fix for scs2pdf and more

Hello everybody

On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, Scott Klement wrote:
> On Tue, 12 Mar 2002, James Rich wrote:
> > >
> > > I found something strange -- I'll send you the SCS file, so you can
> > > reproduce it...
> >
> > Okay, that should be fixed now.  The scs file you sent doesn't have the
> > spps code in it;  it never sets the page size.  scs2pdf had a default
page
> > size that worked for the old code but not the new stuff.  So fixing the
> > default helped.  Then I noticed that the page size was being computed
> > wrong because we used ints instead of floats.  That's all working now,
> > tested with the scs file you sent me.
>
> Except that my page is 14"x11", but your default cuts it off at 8.5x11.
> I wonder if we can guess at the page size by the number of columns of
text
> that are sent to us?


There is a paper called IPDS and SCS Technical Reference:
     http://publib.boulder.ibm.com/prsys/pdfs/54453124.pdf
On page 203 there is an explanation whether portrait or
landscape mode has to be used. To decide this, the Page width
and length is calculated as follows:

                        Characters per line (MPP)
Physical Page Width = ----------------------------
(in inches)                    Font pitch
                       (characters per inch, CPI)

                       Lines per page (MPL)
Physical Page Length = --------------------
(in inches)            Lines per inch (LPI)


If you always use the same Font and ignore Font commands
(like SCD, SFG), this should be easy.
Remember that some commands (like SPPS and SHM/SVM) use inch-based
parameters and rely on correct font pitch. They have to be ignored too.


Hope this helps.

Dietmar Bürkle