John Deubert's Acumen Training - Engineering classes in PostScript & PDF

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PostScript Foundations
(5 days, hands-on)
Printable course description (PDF)

A First Class in PostScript Programming

The PostScript Foundations class is a five-day, hands-on class that teaches the student how to write programs in the PostScript language. It discusses all of the major mechanisms and features common to all versions of the PostScript language.

This class lays the foundation for writing PostScript code for producing documents or modifying currently-existing documents. It discusses PostScript programming, efficiency, and underlying language structure.


Objective

The student will learn how the PostScript language works and to write programs that employ all the main capabilities of the language. The student will know the principles of writing fast, efficient code in PostScript.


Prerequisites

Familiarity with computer concepts. Previous programming experience helps.


Audience

Printer engineers, software engineers, advanced software and hardware support personnel.


Course Outline

Day 1

  • Background to PostScript
  • Basics: Selecting fonts, the coordinate system
  • CTM Operators: scale, translate, rotate
  • Paths: lines, line widths
  • Specifying color
  • The Graphics State
  • Circular Arcs

Day 2

  • Operand Stack
  • Stack errors and operators
  • Variables and procedures
  • Loops
  • Comparison and conditional execution
  • Clipping
  • Converting objects to strings

Day 3

  • Device Space
  • PostScript objects and data types
  • Scanner/tokenizer
  • The four stacks
  • Binding
  • Bezier curves
  • Even-odd and winding rules
  • Line caps, joins, and dash patterns
  • Memory management
  • setpagedevice

Day 4

  • File operations
  • Introduction to filters
  • Transformation matrices
  • Images
  • Color and color spaces
  • Variations on show
  • Error handling

Day 5

  • Font dictionary contents
  • Changing fonts
  • Creating fonts
  • Downloadable fonts
  • Encapsulated PostScript
  • Common efficiency errors


Pricing & Availability

See class schedule for a list of locations, dates and class cost.


On-Site Classes

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Register for class

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