Setting options for PostScript export

Options are set up on the 'Advanced' page of the Configuration dialogue for that format:
either choose Postscript level 2 or Postscript level 3 from the Options|Configuration|General dialogue (f8) then click the Advanced... button,
or click PostScript options... from the File|Export dialogue (ctrl + E), see Exporting files to PostScript.

Select render as graphic or select render all but text as graphic; see notes below.
Select include TrueType fonts to include any TrueType font downloaded in the original PCL file in the exported PDF file. Using TrueType (i.e. scalable outline) fonts usually results in better appearance than bitmapped fonts, but may have adverse effects on the file size if only a few characters from a font are used. If this box is not checked then by default such fonts are converted to bitmap fonts.
Very big documents and forms often use a large proportion of the characters in a font; in these cases, efficiency may be improved by selecting load fonts first, particularly if your driver builds up the font incrementally page by page (e.g. MS Windows). It is best to de-select this option for short documents or those with large fonts (e.g. Chinese) which take a long time to load.

To reduce the size of the exported PostScript file, you may specify when to substitute fonts in the original document with Standard Adobe fonts. If you choose to replace bitmap fonts, TrueType fonts or always, ensure that such fonts in the document are using the Windows character set, otherwise characters may be wrongly attributed. The if substitute font given option will only omit the download font if it is recognized as having a known substitute, so is more reliable: see also Substitute fonts.

Assign each numbered PCL input tray used by the document a PostScript Name. (The entry for tray 0 applies in the case where no PCL tray has been selected.) You may select a standard paper size from the drop-down box or leave this blank and fill in the paper height and width (in inches) yourself. When exporting to a 'production' printer, it is useful to specify the weight, colour and Media-type attributes as well.

In addition, when you have finished setting up the options, you may also choose to create a Shortcut icon that uses all the options you have set by clicking Shortcut... (see Shortcuts - the easy way to construct a command line) or Click the Save button to retain these settings after you close the program.

Compressed files generated for old PostScript printers ("level 2") will work on the new PostScript printers ("level 3"). PS level 3 printers accept more efficient methods of compression (e.g. Flate) than PS2 and so even smaller files may be generated, but these files may not be usable by PS2 printers.

A PS file may be rendered as a graphic only or as a graphic with text. The 'graphic only' option will produce an accurate image from the file, including an image of the text, but cannot be used for extracting text for further processing. Exporting the file as 'graphic with text' retains the text features (e.g. search) and consumes less memory, but note that EscapeE will always place text and drawn lines on top of any opaque elements, e.g. shading. You may override this feature by selecting the 'Keep original element order' option.

Text phrases can be stored as longer phrases to improve searching. As this entails deciding whether individually positioned words form part of a continuous string the results may sometimes be unsatisfactory.

PostScript printers are fed their media (paper) from numbered trays. The numbers may not correspond to the physical layout of trays so check the printer's .PPD file (or use 'TRAYS.PS', obtainable from RedTitan) to ensure that the correct tray is selected in the 'Configuration' dialogue. This will also show you the MediaType (name) of the tray if it has one.

The output is sent to a bin that has a number and a name. Note that the names may be longer than eight characters, may contain spaces and are case-sensitive. For production printers the output document must be created with a PostScript DSC header that lists the attributes of the paper stock being selected, so the size, weight, colour and type of the paper associated with this PCL tray must be specified. A document will not normally be printed until all its specified media requirements are met - be careful not to set up a long list of trays that result in a media list that cannot be actually configured on the printer. If different documents require different tray configurations then you should save each separately and only apply them to the appropriate one.

The tray/bin selection specified in the PCL data can be overridden using /TRAY and /BIN - see Command line syntax. Note that this is still the PCL tray/bin number so it may be necessary to define the equivalent Postscript tray/bin using the 'Configuration' dialogue. Select the 'Printer' tab to set up the default tray and bin - see Setting the configuration | printer defaults.