Wirt Atmar writes:

>If you're trying to print in PostScript, go over to the printer and turn
>PS Errors to "on".

This is a good idea with any PostScript printer that supports it. The
printer will always try to report the error back to the source of the
job, but if the job source is a spooler, the message may never reach the
person who started the job.

>PostScript was designed to be inherently fragile.
>In contrast to PCL or ASCII-based printers, which keep working to one
>degree or another after a major gaffe, if anything goes wrong anywhere
>in a PS print stream, PostScript simply aborts the output -- and you will
>have no idea what happened until you turn PS Errors on.

This is a *good* thing.

When there's an error in a PCL data stream and that stream contains
binary information (which most do, these days), the result is chaos,
usually manifested as the entire contents of the input bin moved to the
output bin after being imprinted with a line or two  of squiggles on each
sheet. When there's an error in a PostScript data stream, the printer
emits an error message (to the sender always, to the paper if so
configured) and waits for the next job. Thank you, John Warnock.

An "error in the data stream" can be caused by user turning the printer
off and on to stop a printout. This, of course, has no effect on the
computer sending the data, which continues to send the remains of a
broken PCL data stream. But now, the printer is starting in the middle of
the job. If it wasn't broken before, that breaks it.

At my kids' school, I have replaced every single PCL printer with a
PostScript printer, save for one. The PostScript card for that one is due
on Monday. I have absolutely had my fill of squiggles. I knew that PCL
was bad in this regard -- among other things, I write printer drivers for
a living, and have produced my share of bad PCL -- but just how badly
that would interact with a bunch of kids at keyboards, I had no idea
until a few weeks ago when the problem landed in my lap.

In addition to the stop-it-in-the-middle problem, Hewlett-Packard has
never in the entire 17-year history of the LaserJet manufactured two
models of PCL printer that speak the exact same dialect of PCL. Sometimes
the changes are benign, but sometimes, they're extensive. Using the wrong
printer driver is a sure way to generate office-corresponence-quality
birdcage liners, and in a school with 60 workstations and three different
kinds of PCL printers, that'll happen a few times a week.

-- Bruce


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