*raises his hand declairing himself as a newbie... hand coding PS

[jollyjoejimbob]

i've managed to create a template ps file that i later parse using sed via per. it's an approval form that has data parsed into it, thanks to the whole sed thing. it's further modified using Adobe Illustrator, where we add in the illustrations etc...

i have three issues to address before i can move this into production mode...

1) text that gets chopped

/inch {72 mul} def

0.75 inch 10.2 inch moveto
(Description) show

results in the "n" of "Description" detatching and landing in front of the "o".

- what's with that?
- what is it called?
- how do i prevent it from happening in the future?

2) when i open the ps document in Adobe Illustrator all the elements are grouped together. i think there's a technique i'm missing...

- is there a way to manage the groupings and or place them on layers?

3) setting the page size seems to be more difficult than anything i've done so far or maybe it's not the page size i'm looking for. when i open the ps file in Adobe Illustrator the Artboard doesn't seem to be the page size in the ps document.

- how do i make the page size and the Artboard the same so it all looks correct?

i advance, thank you very much for your assistance ;-)

 

[jollyjoejimbob]

guess i'll answer some of my own questions now lol...

re point 1
"what's with that?"
when i open the ps file in Preview it works well but the text i've assigned as Arial and Arial-Bold comes out as Courier.
when i open the same file in Adobe Illustrator CS3 all the type is correct but i get the messed up placement of a few letters

suspicion
i think my use of /Arial findfont and /Arial-Bold findfont are incorrect, as in the name of the font itself.
when i changed the font to /Helvetica findfont and /Helvetica-Bold findfont it worked perfectly in both apps.

"what is this called?"
still no clue

"how do i precent it from happening in the future"
the name of a font might work in one place but not another. i suspect this is because each system uses it's own interpretation of the findfont thing.

re point 2
sounds like ps has no need to worry about grouping since it's inteded for printed output. my interpretation of an old Illustrator 5.5 file was actually a combination of EPS formated data and Illustrator proprietary code that managed the groupings and layers.

re point 3
still unresolved but it might have something to do with the Artboard within Adobe Illustrator simply mimicking the page size and, in turn, is it's interpretation of this data.