Re: is a2ps broken?
On Thu, September 3, 2015 10:28 am, David Wright wrote:
> Personally, a2ps has been broken for years because it doesn't handle
> unicode.
Fooey on unicode, then. I need a2ps; but I lived for years without unicode.
> Quoting rlharris@oplink.net (rlharris@oplink.net):
>
>> With Lenny and a HP4100 PostScript printer, a two-pages-per-sheet
>> spread printed by a2ps is cut off on both the left and the right.
> Left and right wrt the sheet of paper, or wrt the original pages
> which, presumably, have been rotated by 90° for printing 2-up.
The original pages -- the first several columns of the left-hand page; the
last several columns of the right-hand page
>> A search with google reveals that a problem of this sort arose ten or
>> twelve years ago, but I see no current reports.
>>
>> Papersize is configured for "letter" 8.5 x 11 inches.
>
> Two checks: whether a2ps thinks it's printing to A4 which is longer
> and narrower than Letter, and whether a2ps is not allowing for the
> unprintable area at the top and bottom of the paper on many printers.
> (It's had special deskjet margins ever since I can remember.)
>
>> With previous distributions, a2ps has worked properly right out of the
>> box. I have been running Jessie since it became available as "beta",
>> but I did not notice the problem until recently, so perhaps an upgrade
>> of a2ps is at fault?
>
> Anything is possible, but I notice that the latest upstream change to
> a2ps is stamped 2007-12-29 Masayuki Hatta <mhatta@gnu.org>. Of course,
> it's always possible therefore that Lenny's version is positively 20th
> century!
>
> Is is significant that the *first* match of "paper" in
> /usr/share/doc/a2ps/changelog.Debian.gz is the line
> * libpaper support is missing in the upstream. I'll port it ASAP.
>
>
> My own use of a2ps was entirely in an international environment,
> ie A3, A4 and A5 paper sizes. I'm still trying to get to grips with the
> archaic sizes here; it's like going back to junior school.
Thanks for the explanation.
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