Creating a PDF or BMP document from any Windows app

 (without needing to buy PDFWrite from Adobe)

---------------------------------------------



Info from Bob Blick <bob at TED dot NET>:



0. Get both Ghostscript and GSview from here. Install Ghostscript first

and then GSview:  http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/



1. Have a postscript printer driver installed in Windows. I chose the

QMS PS 2220 because it is an 11x17 printer. Note: I don't actually have the

printer. For connection, choose FILE: not an LPT port.



2. From your cad program, or your word processor, whatever, print to this

new printer choosing whatever paper size you want(my choices are usually

either letter 8.5x11 or Tabloid 11x17). Up pops a file requester, name it

something and suffix it .prn



3. Open up GSview and load in this prn file.



4. Then use the Print command [editors note: Convert command on GSview 4.3]

and choose "pdfwrite" for the device and "print to file". Choose a resolution

that's big, like 300 or 600dpi. Up pops a requester. Give it a name ending in .pdf



That's all it takes to make a PDF. I have subsequently figured out that to

get the pdf to view properly in a landscape format you need to ignore what

it looks like in GSview and select or create paper that is wide("ledger"

works for 11x17 plots but you have to create custom paper for letter size

landscape. Create this paper in GSview under "Media"



OK, say you want to make a bitmap for display on a web page. Follow steps

1 through 3 above and then do this:



4. Use the print command in GSview but choose "bmp256" as the device along

with "print to file". Up pops the file requester and name it something

ending in .bmp . Note: you can also use bmpmono or bmp16 depending on

compatibility with the program you use in step 5. Choose a resolution that

makes sense for web viewing or higher if you want to do smoothing in your

graphics program later.



5. Open this .bmp in a graphics program that lets you save in GIF or JPEG

and save it how you like.