July 13, 1994

July 22, 1994 - added A.7 and A.8

     AutoCAD Release 12 introduced the PSOUT command.  PSOUT allows
very high quality output from AutoCAD to a PostScript device, and
incorporation of high quality AutoCAD drawings into many other
programs' data.
     The ability to use PostScript fonts as the basis of AutoCAD text
styles was also introduced in AutoCAD 12.

     In several years on the CompuServe ACAD forum, 90% of the
questions I have seen regarding PostScript fonts and PSOUT are
duplicates.  I wrote this file in an attempt to collect all the
common problems with PostScript in one place, together with answers.

     If the problems and limitations of PSOUT are not acceptable to
you, you can try AutoScript from Preco Industries (913) 541-0066.  I
have no experience with this product.

Disclaimers:  I am not an employee of Autodesk.  Any errors or
opinions in this file are my own.  The information herein is provided
"as is", with no warranty or liability for any damages (although I
certainly expect none!)
     Several of the answers herein include "get PSLWGS".  I am the
author of PSLWGS, but since it is free for any use by anyone who
downloads it, I don't feel bad about recommending it freely.
     Other products mentioned herein are not necessarily recommended.
     I have very little experience with Macintoshes, and haven't
addressed any Mac-specific issues in this file.

Jon Fleming   CIS 70334,2443



A. FONT PROBLEMS

1.  When I use PostScript fonts as the basis for my text styles, and
plot the result, the characters aren't "filled"; they're just
outlined.  How do I get filled fonts?

      PostScript fonts will print "filled" ONLY when PSOUT is used to
 produce an EPS file, and the resulting file is sent to a PostScript
 device.  If you cannot meet one or more of these conditions, you can:
 
 a.  Use a "real" stroked AutoCAD SHX/SHP file that closely mimics the
 font you want to use.  Such fonts are available from various third
 parties (check the "AutoCAD Resource Guide" that was included in your
 Release 12 documentation) or from various electronic sources.  As of
 today, the only such file available in the ACAD forum on Compuserve
 is HELVO.ARC in library section 3, which includes only upper case
 characters; I do not know what the quality of this font is.
 
 b.   Compile the PFB file to a real AutoCAD stroked SHX/SHP file,
 using a third-party tool.  The only tool of which I am aware to do
 this is FontASM!, available from G. Gibson & Associates, (604)
 732-0218 (or CompuServe 76310,340).
 
      A demo version of FontASM! (convertible to a full version over
 the phone) is available on CompuServe, in section 10 of the ACAD
 forum library.  The filename (as of today) is FAD118.EXE.
 
      Note that, depending on the degree of fill chosen and the amount
 of text in the drawing, using these fonts can increase drawing size
 appreciably.
 
      Unfortunately, it is not legal to distribute fonts produced by
 FontASM! to third parties unless you obtain permission from the
 original PFB copyright holder (see question E.2) or compile a public
 domain font..
 
 c.  Use a PostScript interpreter to convert the PSOUT-produced EPS
 file to a format suitable for your output device.  This may be
 difficult if your output device is a pen plotter.  PostScript
 interpreters include Ghostscript (available in the IBMAPPS forum on
 Compuserve and an out-of-date version is on the Bonus CD that comes
 with AutoCAD 12; it's free but quirky, and poorly documented) and
 Freedom of Press (ColorAge Inc, (508) 667-8585; the Windows version
 can produce output to any device that has a Windows driver) and
 GoScript (I don't have a source for this).  There may well be others.
 
2.  When I use PostScript fonts as the basis for my text styles, and
PSOUT the drawing, when the resulting EPS file is printed all my text
is printed in the Courier typeface.  How do I get the correct
typefaces to print?

      For a PostScript device to use a font, that font must be
 "resident" in the device.  If the font is not resident, some other
 font (usually Courier) is substituted.  A PostScript device is not
 required to have any fonts built-in (in ROM); in practice, all (or
 almost all) PostScript devices have a selection of fonts built-in,
 including Times Roman and Helvetica.  I am not aware of any
 PostScript devices that include the fonts supplied with AutoCAD in
 their list of built-in fonts.  There are three ways of handling this
 situation:
 
 a.   Download the font to the device before sending the EPS file. 
 Fonts cannot be simply copied to the device; they must be translated
 to an appropriate format.  You need a font downloader.
 
      You may have a font downloader on a utility disk supplied with
 your PostScript printer.  A downloader is available on CompuServe ()
 and may be available in other places.  Most downloaders will write a
 file that you can then copy to the printer when you want to use the
 font.
 
      Downloading a font takes up room in the printer's memory that
 may be needed for other things (see question D.1).  Making sure that
 the font is in the printer when you need it can be difficult,
 especially in a network situation.  It is not legal to supply fonts
 in any form to a third party (such as a service bureau) that does not
 own a license to use the font unless you have permission from the
 party that owns the copyright to the PFB file (see question E.2).
 
 b.  Use only Sans Serif (filenames beginning with SAS) and Romantic
 (filenames beginning with ROM) and substitute Helvetica for Sans
 Serif and Times Roman for Romantic in the EPS file (presuming the
 imaging device has Helvetica and Times Roman built-in, which is a
 pretty safe presumption).  To do this, you edit ACAD.PSF (in AutoCAD's
 SUPPORT subdirectory) and add a semicolon in front of each of the
 following lines:
 
  rom         Romantic
  romb        Romantic-Bold
  romi        Romantic-Italic
  sas         SansSerif
  sasb        SansSerif-Bold
  sasbo       SansSerif-BoldOblique
  saso        SansSerif-Oblique
 
 This will activate some font-file-to-font-name mappings later in the
 file that use Times Roman and Helvetica.
 
      If you upgrade your version of AutoCAD, you must remember to
 modify the new ACAD.PSF.  The results on the paper will not be
 _exactly_ the same as on the screen though it may take a discerning
 eye to detect the difference.
 
 c.  Use font files (as the basis of your AutoCAD styles) that are
 built-in to the imaging device or already downloaded to the imaging
 device.  Obtaining individual PostScript font files can be a
 noticable expense.  Adobe Type Manager comes with a complete set of
 Helvetica and Times Roman PFB files.  ATM is bundled with many
 applications (including OS/2 2.x), so you may have it on your system
 already.  ATM is available for approximately $50 through many
 outlets.

3.  I want to use the fonts supplied with AutoCAD in other programs. 
I have Adobe Type Manager, but it will not "add" the AutoCAD fonts. 
How can I get ATM to accept AutoCAD fonts?

      Unfortunately, ATM will add only a subset of all legal
 PostScript Type I fonts.  Early releases of AutoCAD 12 came with PFB
 files that ATM would accept.  Later releases of AutoCAD 12 came with
 PFB files that have more characters than the earlier fonts, and are
 legal Type 1 fonts, but are not accepted by ATM.

      The only way I know of to get AutoCAD's PFB fonts into ATM is to
 use an early-release PFB file.  PFB files from AutoCAD DOS R12 (the
 first release) and DOS R12c1 will work.  Early-release files from
 other platforms may work.

      If you have a general-purpose font editor (such as TypeMaster)
 you may be able to edit AutoCAD's PFB files to amke them acceptable
 to ATM, but I do not know how to do this or if it can be done.

4.  How can I use TrueType fonts?

     AutoCAD R12 does not support TrueType fonts as the basis of text
 styles.  You can convert TrueType fonts to PostScript Type 1 fonts
 with any of several utilites, including AllType (from Atech
 Software).
 
     It is not legal to distribute the resulting PFB files unless the
 party to whom you are sending them has a license to use the original
 True Type fonts.

5.  I used the special characters "%%P" (plusminus), "%%D" (degrees),
and/or "%%C" (lower case phi, meaning "diameter") in my AutoCAD
text.  The rest of the text shows up filled, and these special
characters have the right shape, but they're unfilled (just
outlines).  How do I fix this?

     AutoCAD 12 PSOUT produces these special characters as unfilled
 shapes.  It is possible to edit the EPS file with a text editor,
 locate the point in the file where these shapes are produced (though
 it's not easy), and add a "fill" just before the "s" or "stroke"
 command.  This is not for the faint of heart!

6.  I inserted special characters in my AutoCAD text by holding down
the ALT key and typing the three-digit character code on the numeric
keypad (or some way of inserting a character that doesn't appear on
the keyboard).  When I print the EPS file produced by PSOUT, a number
appears instead of these characters!  How do I fix this?

      This is a bug in PSOUT.  The only way to fix it is to edit the
 EPS file with a text editor, locate the strings (search for the
 string as it appears on the paper), and replace the extraneous number
 with "\nnn", where "nnn" should be the OCTAL (base 8) code for the
 desired character

7.  My text, on the paper and on the screen, is smaller than I
expected.  What happened?

      On the paper and on the screen, the text is the same size
 relative to other entities.  The problem arose when you told AutoCAD
 how high the text should be.  You did this with the STYLE command (if
 the text style is fixed height) or in the responses to the DTEXT or
 TEXT or ATTDEF or DDATTDEF command (if the style is variable height).
     AutoCAD fonts measure text height by the height of an uppercase
 letter.  PostScript fonts measure text height by the distance from
 the lowest descender of any character in the font (e.g. "y") to the
 highest point of any character in the font (usually "I" but sometimes
 "f").
      When you ask AutoCAD for text that is one unit high, if the
 style is based on a true AutoCAD "stroked" font, uppercase letters
 will be one unit high.  When you ask AutoCAD for text that is one
 unit high, and the style is based on a PostScript font, the distance
 from the highest point of a string containing all the characters in
 the font to the lowest point of that string will be one unit. 
 Therefore, in the latter case, the uppercase letters will be one unit
 high.
      This is a fundamental incompatibility that cannot be compensated
 for automatically.  The only solution is to increase the height of the
 text based on PostScript fonts.  A rule of thumb is 1.5 times the
 size you want it to _really_ be.  For higher precision, print a
 string of characters and measure their height.
 
 8.  When I create dimensions using text based on a PostScript font,
 the witness lines don't line up with the middle of the text.  What
 gives?

      This is due to the same height-measurement-method
 incompatibility explained in A.7, above.
      The solution is to live with it, use grips to move the text to
 where it looks correct, or set the system variable DIMTVP to a small
 positive number that makes the text look correct (this only works if
 the system variable DIMTAD is "off").

B. ENTITY APPEARANCE PROBLEMS

1.  When I PSOUT my drawing, and sent the EPS file to a PostScript
printer, almost all the drawing appears in shades of grey.  Lines
actually look dotted.  How do I fix this?

      PSOUT was intended more for incorporating AutoCAD drawings into
 desktop-publishing programs than for copying directly to printers. 
 PSOUT by default produces entities in the same colors that they
 appear on the AutoCAD screen.  When a DTP file containing an AutoCAD
 color EPS file is printed through a printer driver that knows the
 printer is monochrome, the colors get translated to black (or the
 driver takes some appropriate action; in Windows, use "Control Panel"
 "Printers" <select your PostScript Printer>, "Setup", "Options",
 "Advanced" and check the "All colors to Black" checkbox).  If you copy
 the EPS file directly to a monochrome printer, it translate the
 colors into shades of grey.  Grey shades are produced by darkening in
 only some pixels of a box of pixels; single-pixel-wide lines will
 appear dotted or may diappear entirely.
 
      If all you want is black lines, you can add the following to the
 end of ACAD.PSF (in AutoCAD's SUPPORT subdirectory):
 
 *AllBlack
 \ACADColor { pop pop pop pop 0 setgray } bind def
 
 (you can also add all but the first line to an existing prolog in
 ACAD.PSF).
 
 Then, at the AutoCAD "Command:" prompt. type:
 
 psprolog
 AllBlack
 
 NOTE that case matters on the second line!  NOTE that the PSPROLOG
 system variable is stored in ACAD.CFG, so when you change it in one
 drawing you change it for all drawings and, if you lose or destroy
 ACAD.CFG, you lose your PSPROLOG setting!
 
      If you want more sophisticated control over the mapping of
 entity color on the screen to grey scale (or color) at the printer,
 obtain PSLWGS.ZIP (from library section 3 of the CompuServe ACAD
 forum, or from many BBS systems).
 
     Whenever you change ACAD.PSF, be aware that an AutoCAD upgrade
 may wipe out your changes.
 
 2.  When I send a PSOUT EPS to my color PostScript printer, all the
 entities are the same color as they appear on the screen.  How do I
 change this?
 
      This can be solved by using the "user prolog" facility of PSOUT.
 Actually writing the program to do it is somewhat complicated, and
 requires significant acquaintance with PostScript programming.  A
 powerful user prolog that performs this function (and others) is
 available as PSLWGS.ZIP from library section 3 of the CompuServe ACAD
 forum, or on many BBS's.
 
     Whenever you change ACAD.PSF, be aware that an AutoCAD upgrade
 may wipe out your changes.
 
3.  When I PSOUT my drawing and send the EPS file to a
high-resolution PostScript imager, all my lines are hair-thin.  How
do I make my lines wide enough to be seen?

     By default, AutoCAD PSOUT produces entities (except for polylines
 with explicit widths) as "zero-width", which the PostScript imager
 interprets as one pixel wide.  On an imager with physically small
 pixels, you get hairlines.  There are several solutions:
 
 a.  You can make all your entities polylines with appropriate widths;
 this is seldom convenient!
 
 b.  If you want all your lines to be the same width, edit the EPS
 file produced by PSOUT (don't include a preview!).  There will be a
 line near the beginning reading:
 
 0 setlinewidth
 
 Replace the "0" by the desired width in 300ths of an inch.  (The
 standard PostScript unit is 72nds of an inch, but the "0.24 dup
 scale" immediately preceding the line of interest changed the units). 
 For example, for 0.003333 inch wide lines, replace the "0" with "1"
 or "1.0".
 
 This will not work in all circumstances.  In particular, it will not
 work if you have polylines with explicit width and these polylines
 are not the last entities processed by PSOUT; any entities processed
 by PSOUT after the polylines will be one pixel wide.
 
 c.  Again if you want all your lines to be the same width, you can
 add the following user prolog to ACAD.PSF (in AutoCAD's SUPPPORT
 subdirectory):
 
 *LineWidth
 <nn> setlinewidth
 
 replacing "<nn>" by the desired line width in 300ths of an inch.
 
 (you can also add all but the first line to an existing prolog in
 ACAD.PSF).

 Then, at the AutoCAD "Command:" prompt. type:
 
 psprolog
 LineWidth
 
 NOTE that case matters on the second line!  NOTE that the PSPROLOG
 system variable is stored in ACAD.CFG, so when you change it in one
 drawing you change it for all drawings and, if you lose or destroy
 ACAD.CFG, you lose your PSPROLOG setting!
 
 This will not work in all circumstances.  In particular, it will not
 work if you have polylines with explicit width and these polylines
 are not the last entities processed by PSOUT; any entities processed
 by PSOUT after the polylines will be one pixel wide.
 
 d.  Mapping of entity colors on the screen to various line widths can
 be performed by using the "user prolog" facility of PSOUT.  Actually
 writing the program to do it is somewhat complicated, and requires
 significant acquaintance with PostScript programming.  A powerful
 user prolog that performs this function (and others) is available as
 PSLWGS.ZIP from library section 3 of the CompuServe ACAD forum, or on
 many BBS's.
 
     Whenever you change ACAD.PSF, be aware that an AutoCAD upgrade
 may wipe out your changes.
 
4.  Plotting allows me to control the width of lines by what color
they are in AutoCAD.  How can I do this with PSOUT?

      This can be solved by using the "user prolog" facility of PSOUT.
 Actually writing the program to do it is somewhat complicated, and
 requires significant acquaintance with PostScript programming.  A
 powerful user prolog that performs this function (and others) is
 available as PSLWGS.ZIP from library section 3 of the CompuServe ACAD
 forum, or on many BBS's.

     Whenever you change ACAD.PSF, be aware that an AutoCAD upgrade
 may wipe out your changes.

5.  How do I remove hidden lines when I do PSOUT?

      Mostly, you don't.  PSOUT does not offer hidden line removal. 
 THere are a couple of tricks you can pull:
 
 a.  Don't use PostScript fonts as the basis of your styles; use
 clones or true stroke versions of the PostScript files (see answer
 A.1.b) and use PLOT to a file to produce a PS file.  If you must
 import into another application, you can _probably_ just rename the
 resulting file to have an EPS extension.
 
 b.  Turn off all layers except those containing PostScript font text,
 and PSOUT the file.  Freeze all layers with PostScript font text,
 turn on the rest of the layers you want to plot, and PLOT to a file
 with hidden line removal ON.  Use a text editor to copy the script
 portion of the second file into the script portion of the first file,
 making sure that all procedure definitions in the prolog of the first
 file are also copied to the second file.  Not for the faint of heart,
 but it can be done!

6.  When I PSOUT lines that are non-continuous linetype, the result
are "double linetypes":  for example, a dashed line is made up of
dashes, but each dash is made up of teeny-weeny dashes!  How do I get
rid of this?

      This is a PSOUT bug.  It appears only for lines; circles and
 arcs are done correctly.  For lines, PSOUT sets the PostScript
 linetype to match the desired linetype (but gets the scale wrong!) and
 then displays each individual segment of the line rather than
 displaying the entire line.
      The problem may only be apparent on a high resolution printer,
 although there are cases when it can be seen on a 300 dpi printer.
      The only known workaround is to play with the AutoCAD LTSCALE
 system variable to make the problem less obvious.


C. ORIENTATION PROBLEMS

1.  How can I rotate the image (produced by PSOUT) on the paper?

      This is a problem because PSOUT was intended to produce files to
 be imported into other programs, and presumably the other programs
 can rotate the image.  The easiest way of rotating the image is using
 PSOUT as it was intended; import the image into another program and
 rotate it there.  Note that the Windows PostScript printer driver can
 be set to produce EPS files; "Control Panel", "Printers", <highlight
 a PostScript Printer>, "Setup", "Options", "Encapsulated PostScript
 File".  You usually do NOT want to fill in the file name box; if it's
 blank, the driver will ask you for a file name at "printing" time>
     It is possible to rotate the image in the EPS file with a little
 work.  The work is necessary because, in short, the information
 required to perform the rotation is not available when the user
 prolog is executed.  It is available before PSOUT is started, but I
 am not aware of anybody who has done the programming necessary to
 implement general purpose rotation.
      The following prolog may be inserted in ACAD.PSF (in AutoCAD's
 SUPPORT subdirectory), or all but the first line may be inserted into
 another prolog.  The code is not strictly allowable in an EPS prolog,
 but PSOUT already places at least one not-strictly-allowable
 statement in the prolog.  The code as shown rotates an 8" x 10.5"
 image 90 degrees counterclockwise.  You will have to change some
 numbers for different image sizes.  I don't know why the particular
 numbers given work better than the numbers you might expect to use;
 you may have to experiment some.
 
 *RotateImage
 
 % Define conversion to inches - note that AutoCAD has already changed
 %  the units to 1/300 inch (from 1/72 inch) (using "0.24 dup scale")
 /inch { 300 mul } def
 
 % Restore the previously saved (by AutoCAD) graphics state just to dump
 %  the current clipping path that AutoCAD set up
 grestore
 % Save the state again so all the "grestore" calls have a matching
 %  "gsave" call
 gsave
 
 % Move the origin from the lower left corner of the plottable area
 %  to the lower right corner of the plottable area
 7.93333 inch -0.06667 inch translate
 
 % Rotate the coordinate system so X points along the long edge and Y
 %  points along the narrow edge
 90 rotate
 
 % Establish a clipping box equal to the plottable area
 newpath
 -0.06667 inch -0.06667 inch moveto
 10.56667 inch -0.06667 inch lineto
 10.56667 inch 8.06667 inch lineto
 -0.06667 inch 8.06667 inch lineto
 closepath
 clip
 newpath
 
      As before, to activate this user prolog, at the AutoCAD
 "Command:" prompt. type:
 
 psprolog
 RotateImage
 
 NOTE that case matters on the second line!  NOTE that the PSPROLOG
 system variable is stored in ACAD.CFG, so when you change it in one
 drawing you change it for all drawings and, if you lose or destroy
 ACAD.CFG, you lose your PSPROLOG setting!
 
     Whenever you change ACAD.PSF, be aware that an AutoCAD upgrade
 may wipe out your changes.



D. PRINTER PROBLEMS

1.  When I send the EPS file produced by PSOUT to my printer, it
processes for some time then quits without producing any output. 
How do I fix this?

      Your printer is probably running out of memory.  There are
 several possible solutions:

 a.  Make the EPS file smaller.  Either delete entities or turn off the
 layers containing them (I realize this is seldom possible, but I'm
 including it for completeness).  If the image you are producing does
 not cover all of the extents of the drawing, see question D.2.

 b.  Reduce the number of fonts or application programs (such as an
 error handler that prints something descriptive when an error occurs)
 downloaded to your printer.  Note that the Windows PostScript printer
 driver sends an error handler to the printer by default; deep inside
 "Control Panel", "Printers", <highlight a PostScript printer>, "Setup",
 "Options", "Advanced" is a checkbox for "Print Error Information".

 c.  Add more RAM to your printer.

2.  The EPS files produced by PSOUT are gigantic!  Are there any ways
to make them smaller?

      EPS files can easily get pretty big; they are a text
 representation of data which is stored much more efficiently in the
 DWG file!  Other than PSOUTing fewer entities, there are two things
 you can do:

 a.  Early versions of R12 (e.g. the original DOS release) produced
 larger EPS files than later releases.  Look at your EPS file with a
 text editor or file viewer.  If, after the first screenful or so of
 the file, you see words and lines of text that are less than 72
 characters or so long, you have an early version of PSOUT; upgrade to
 the current release.  If you see lines that are all about the same
 length and all about 70-80 characters long, and there are no words,
 just one or two letter combinations and numbers, you have a late PSOUT
 version; upgrading won't help with your EPS file size.

 b.  The designer of PSOUT understandably did not want to deal with
 the problem of clipping entities using whatever plot window or area
 the user defines.  PostScript offers a sophisticated and efficient
 clipping mechanism.  When you PSOUT a drawing, all entities on
 visible layers are sent to the EPS file, no matter how far your view
 is zoomed in or how big your plotted area is.  The PostScript
 interpreter takes care of the clipping.
      Therefore, if you are PSOUTing anything less than the entire
 drawing, you can make the EPS file smaller by WBLOCKing only those
 entities in which you are interested to a temporary file (remember to
 UNDO the WBLOCK or exit without saving changes!) and running PSOUT on
 that temporary file.

3.  I want to automatically select paper from a different tray than
the default.  How do I do this?

      I don't have access to a device with multiple trays, and exactly
 how multiple trays are handled varies, so I can't provide a tested,
 working answer.
      Printers that implement PostScript Level 1 will probably have a
 proprietary method of selecing a different paper tray.  You will have
 to extract the method from the documentation (you may need a
 technical manual for your printer).  If you have a printer driver or
 utility program that can select the tray remotely, you might try
 capturing the output of this program to a file and inspecting the
 output to see how it is done.
      Printers that implement PostScript Level 2 must provide the
 "setpagedevice" operator.  This is described in section 4.1.4 of the
 "PostScript Reference Manual".  "setpageddevice" requires a
 "dictionary" as input; there must be at least one entry in this
 dictionary, for the page size.  There may be more entries. 
 "setpagedevice" matches this dictionary to a dictionary defining the
 media in various trays to select the tray containing the best match.
      For example, to select 11" x 17" paper, you might do:
 
 << /PageSize [792 1224] >> setpagedevice
 
 I _think_ this is appropriate, giving the paper size in 72nds of an
 inch (11*72 = 792, 17*72 = 1224) because the dictionary used by
 "setpagedevice" is set up before the PSOUT EPS file changes the unit
 to 300ths of an inch.
     If you know from your printer's documentation or your setup that
 the "setpagedvice" dictionary includes entries named "MediaType" and
 the possible values are "letterhead" "bond" and "vellum", you could
 select 11" x 17" vellum by:
 
 << /PageSize [792 1224] /MediaType (vellum) >> setpagedevice
 
 or select 8.5" x 11" letterhead by:
 
 << /PageSize [612 792] /MediaType (letterhead) >> setpagedevice
 
     Any of these statements may be placed in a ACAD.PS (in AutoCAD's
 SUPPORT subdirectory.  Such statements are not strictly allowable in
 an EPS prolog, but PSOUT already places at least one
 not-strictly-allowable statement in the prolog.

4.  I sent the EPS file produced by PSOUT, containing a preview, to
my non-PostScript printer, and the result is horrendously grainy. 
What do I do?

     The grainy image is the preview.  Get a PostScript printer or
 interpreter (see answer A.1.c).



E. DATA SHARING PROBLEMS

1.  I attempted to import an EPS file produced by PSOUT into (Corel
Draw, Adobe Illustrator, ...) and it could not be imported.  How can
I do this?

      <Sigh>.  I don't understand why things are as they are, but EPS
 files are not necessarily EPS files.  You're probably stuck.
 
      AutoCAD PSOUT produces EPS files to the standard defined in the
 "PostScript Language Reference Manual" (the Red Book), written by
 Adobe Systems and published by Addison-Wesley.  Such files can
 contain almost anything that is available in PostScript.  AutoCAD EPS
 files can contain "if" statements, loops, and various other elements
 of PostScript.
 
      Adobe Illustrator and many other "drawing" programs (and some
 high-resolution imager "front ends" used by service bureaus) use EPS
 files that adhere to "Adobe Illustrator Document Format
 Specification", written and published by Adobe Systems (available
 electronically, as a PostScript file, in the library of the ADOBE
 forum on CompuServe). Such files are often called "AI subset" files. 
 "AI subset" is misnomor, since these files are not a true subset of
 EPS files.  In particular, the command names are different (although
 a "Red Book" EPS file can set up a translation).
 
      More significant is the fact that "AI subset" EPS files do not
 allow any conditional ("if") or control (looping or branching)
 constructs.  This makes it very difficult, if not impossible, to do
 some of the things that PSOUT (and PSLWGS) does.  The PSFILL command,
 in particular would be real tough to implement!
 
      Because of these facts, translation of "Red Book" EPS files to
 "AI Subset" EPS files is not trivial.  There is at least one
 company out there that has been trying to create a translator; to
 date, they have not been succesful.

2.  I have a drawing which uses one of the PFB files shipped with
AutoCAD as the basis of a text style.  I want to send an electronic
version of the drawing (or an EPS file produced by PSOUT) to another
site, which does not have AutoCAD 12.  May I send the PFB file?  May
I send the SHX file that I got AutoCAD to compile from the PFB file?

      Generally, no.  By purchasing AutoCAD, you obtained a license to
 use the PFB files and any derivatives on the number of machines for
 which you have AutoCAD licenses. You may not send a PFB file or any
 derivative of that file to a third party unless that third party has
 a license for the PFB file or you have permission from the owner of
 the PFB file copyright.
      If you look at the PFB files supplied with AutoCAD, you'll see
 some text at the beginning which indicates that the copyright is
 owned by P. B. Payne.
      There are many public domain PFB files avaialble on CompuServe
 and BBS's.
      The good news is that Autodesk and Mr/Ms Payne do not lay any
 claim on the DWG files that use PostScript fonts!

3.  I imported a PSOUT EPS file, containing a preview, into another
application, and the application crashed.  What do I do?

      Some applications can't handle "high resolution" previews or
 previews in certain formats.  Try another preview format or another
 resolution.  PowerPoint 3.0, for example, can't handle 512 x 512 TIFF
 previews but can handle 256 x 256 TIFF previews.


F. TIPS

1.  Never press <control-C> to cancel a PSOUT command.  AutoCAD, all
versions to date, exits immediately without saving the drawing.

2.  Only include a preview in an EPS file if you're going to import
it into another application before printing.  Also, do not include a
preview in an EPS file that you want to edit.

3.  PostScript output is sequence dependent; entities cover other
entities that precede them in the EPS file, just as entities that
AutoCAD draws on the screen cover entities drawn previously.  The
order of entities in the EPS file is the same as the order of
entities in an AutoCAD selection set that includes the same entities,
and is difficult to control.

4.  In AutoCAD Windows, using the PSOUT command produces an "alert"
box starting out "read_sbuf warp:".  Click on OK and ignore it; it
seems to do no harm.