HylaFAX The world's most advanced open source fax server

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

Re: [hylafax-users] Pagechop does not chop pages



christian79@xxxxxxxx wrote:

No I don't use a FaxModify script, it is not existing and at the moment I don't need it. What I have also done within the pdf2fax script is to comment out that line:
#FIXEDWIDTH="-dFIXEDMEDIA"


This is what did it, and not the $unlimitedlength change.


In fax there are a few discreet page widths (pixel-widths) that must be used, and mathematically they don't match up to A4 or letter or legal or B4 or A3... they're just predefined fax widths. Also in fax it is permissible for a receiver to accept only full-length pages and not more or less. Receivers need not support unlimited (variable) length pages.

Ghostscript has a couple of behaviors that are of interest to us with faxing. The first one is that it, by default, even with specifying -sPAPERSIZE, uses the page size specified in the PDF/Postscript document for the output. This will prevent HylaFAX from controlling the page size... so if you have a legal sized PDF and want to send it to a destination that only supports A4 page length ... well, then you'll have problems. This is why -dFIXEDMEDIA is used... to give HylaFAX that control.

The problem with -dFIXEDMEDIA is that it fixates the output width *AND* length, and sometimes (well, most of the time) receivers support variable page lengths... which means that it's impossible to send a single job containing pages of mixed length (i.e. letter and legal).

To support the discreet page widths Ghostscript has built-in a feature that if it thinks you're trying to produce a fax page that it will try to help out and will force the output to 1728 pixels wide. The problem, though, is that this doesn't work for other page widths and non-standard resolutions... and again HylaFAX cannot control it and sometimes it works against us.

So somewhere here you have to kind of pick your poison. If you are going to be sending a lot of mixed-pages and if you know your destinations will support it, and if you know that you won't be using non-standard resolutions, then removing -dFIXEDMEDIA may be a good move. Otherwise, you pretty much have to tolerate -dFIXEDMEDIA behavior until Artifex/Ghostscript come out with a better option for us.

In my opinion, Ghostscript really is HylaFAX's Achille's heel. Unfortunately there's not really a better option, and the only way to compensate is to re-prepare the fax images after Ghostscript is done with a tool that we'd have to create... making sure that page widths and lengths are what they're supposed to be... even after Ghoscript is done (because its output cannot be fully trusted/controlled).

Lee.


____________________ HylaFAX(tm) Users Mailing List _______________________ To subscribe/unsubscribe, click http://lists.hylafax.org/cgi-bin/lsg2.cgi On UNIX: mail -s unsubscribe hylafax-users-request@xxxxxxxxxxx < /dev/null *To learn about commercial HylaFAX(tm) support, mail sales@xxxxxxxxx*




Project hosted by iFAX Solutions