[softwarelist] Re: Imposition signatures?

Anthony Hilton wrote:

In <URL:news:local.opro> on Tue 29 May, David Pilling wrote:

Or would we have to start with the scripts in the
imposition applet to work out what they're doing and proceed from there?

Of course looking at what has been done may help. Nick Kaijaks did an
enhanced print format - he is one of the few people to get their heads
around the complexities.
Yes, I suspect that if you search the mailing list archives for the term 'synapse snapper' you'll probably find me writing about imposition :-) 


The Imposit applet is Nick Kaijacks' work. He may, of course, have decided
that it was sensible to provide what he did and that anything more complex is
a pre-press system which already exists on other systems and can process PS
or PDF files but isn't appropriate to add on to a single DTP app.
That gives me too much credit I think - I just amended half-section handling for the booklet script and did some work on additional formats for things like work-and-turn.
I do recall spending a chunk of one bank holiday weekend about 9 years ago starting to try to do something more automated, and then giving it up as a job for someone who can write proper code rather than hacking around scripts... 

>>IF (asked to write imposition script) THEN
>>PUT (fingers in ears)
>>GOTO (door)
>>RUN (away screaming)
>>ENDIF

Yeah, proper code like that...
I'm scratching my head trying to remember anything useful after so long. I think the trickiest thing to get your head around is the relationship between the different elements: paperpage, paperpagearea, paperarea, papermaxarea. The names make it rather too easy to lose track of which thing you're trying to stick on the page where.
As a curious aside, I've found myself doing almost the same job at work doing some Java code using the iText PDF-creation library. PDFs have a concept of a Form XObject, which you can 'rubber-stamp' onto the page, which I've been using to impose multiple business cards onto a sheet. What goes around...
Anyway, I lose track of whether it's true of OPro imposition as well, but with iText, you get real fun when you start rotating and scaling. The coordinate origins are generally not where you expected. I think this may have bitten me back then on RISC OS too.
I don't know about a flow chart, but much trial and error with a virtual printer (SPrinter or PDF) certainly helps to understand the effects of changes. 

Best,
Nick

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