FMi on text symbol encodings

[Paul Thompson]

At 05:42 PM 3/3/99 +0000, you wrote:
>
....Stuff removed....
>Not everyone can run Ghostscript, and it's very slow.
>
Do you really mean Ghostscript?  I have used Ghostscript for 4-5 years, but
have never actually run it.  I use 
GSview.  Far easier, almost instantaneous, utilitarian - I can't say enough.

Last year, I was doing some consulting custom-printing reports all over
Europe.  I had no idea what
printer I would get, and whether it would have drivers.  Usually either it
did, or I did.  However, I could 
not be sure that my dvi-ware would work with the printer drivers.
Solution?  GSview.  I could always get
GSview to recognize the printer, which were NEVER PS native.  So, GSview
was a translation engine from a native 
ps document into some document printable on the printer.  This was in real
time, mind you. I could do mebbe
120 reports (1 sheet each) taken from 120 sheets (optical scanner forms),
process them in SAS, write out
a LaTeX form, compile it, get up GSview and print the whole mess in
1hr15min.  or thereabouts.  So, it was fast
enough, reliable enough and doable in real time.