Manual change number of copies

[dhoettges]

Hi!

I have a print stream (postscript3) in whom the number of copies is always 1. Now I want to change this dynamically. I tried to scan the stream for a string called "/#copies 1 def" and changed the 1 to another number. Done this in a hexeditor works. When I scan a string within a written program I get an error and the printer does not print anything.
Is this the right position for changing the amount of copies?
Can I change the stream with a text-based operation or do I need to work in a hex-mode?

Thanks for your help!

Daniel

 

[tgreer]

That particular structure is deprecated. It's been replaced by the /NumCopies page device parameter.

Text vs. Hex makes no difference. PostScript is an ASCII based language, though it can contain binary image data.

PostScript is a programming language. If you want to repeate a particular image, including an entire page, you need to use a language structure, such as a forall loop.

Previous language levels had various attempts for "number of copies", all of which were pretty much abandoned in favor of absolute page independence.

In short, if you don't want to program, you need to control number of copies through device control rather than PostScript. Look into, for example, the PJL codes the many printers support.

What /NumCopies does, as with any page device parameter, is send a request to the device. The device may or may not honor the request.



Thomas D. Greer

http://www.tgreer.com

Providing PostScript & PDF
Training, Development & Consulting