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PostScript 3 implementation

The PostScript interpreter parameters are divided into three categories:

  • User parameters

  • System parameters

  • Device parameters

The PostScript 3 implementation of these categories are detailed in the chapters 'User parameters', 'System parameters' and 'Device parameters'.

%stdout and %stderr

Information sent to the stdout and stderr of the interpreter is ignored.

Automatic/Interactive Printing

Automatic/Interactive Printing is not controllable from within PostScript, it is only configurable by the operator. For internal jobs it is possible to override the operator configuration.

Specification contradictions

There are two types of contradictions:

  1. Invalid settings

    These are invalid settings, not supported settings and out of range values.

    Page size requests for supported formats may be accepted, even if the media is not available in the printer at the time of interpretation. This is handled as a run-time contradiction.

    A configuration error is a PostScript error, which will result in an error page if the printing of error pages is enabled. The error page shows the operator/operation that provoked the error, but it will not state in detail what went wrong. The error page is the last page of the document.

    Example of invalid settings:

    • A page size which is larger than the maximum size that the printer supports. This is an error and it will be handled using the configured page size policy.

    • Non-existent settings or out-of-range settings will be handled according to the applicable policy.

  2. Invalid combination of settings

    Invalid combinations of settings are fixed automatically - if possible - to avoid rejected jobs that need to be resubmitted. The resolution rules are product specific.

    The printer driver can prevent some of the invalid combinations using the PPD’s UI Constraint mechanism.

    All specification contradictions, which are detected, are logged (but not to the SDS log file).

    Example of an invalid combination of settings:

    • 2-sided printing on transparent media.

Settings Editor settings

Supported Settings Editor parameters are product dependent.

Error pages

Error pages are created when:

  • PostScript errors detected by the Adobe PostScript interpreter

  • Specification contradictions

  • Job settings which are not supported

The error page contains the following information:

  • The name of the error that occurred

  • The name of the offending command

  • A dump of the operant stack

  • The content of the $error dictionary

Media selection for error page

The latest media defined by the job is used for the error page. If the error occurs when the job has not yet defined a media then default settings are used.

Error page layout

The page is printed using the 'Univers Bold' font.

The header information 'user name', 'host name', 'job name' and the field 'printer name' are printed using the 'KozGoPro-Medium' font in order to support most of the Unicode characters which are not found in the 'Univers' font.

Generic error page layout

The PostScript languages offer the possibility to overwrite the error handler (procedure /handle error) defined for the current system.

In case of errors in the job this usually results in a generic error page. However, this depends on what is defined in the error handler of the job. Errors can also result in a blank page, no page at all, etc.