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Printing and Postscript Help

If you need paper copies of our maps, use the Postscript files provided on our FTP site. There is a link to the Postscript file on every "Explanation of Analysis" page. The Postscript files are compressed using InfoZip, you can uncompress them using UnZip, Pkunzip, or a compatible software package. All of our Postscript files are in the Encapsulated Postscript format.

If you have a UNIX machine you can print a Postscript file directly to a Postscript-capable printer with an lp or lpr command.

If you do not have a Postscript-capable printer, or you want to be able to manipulate the Postscript file you will need to import it into another program. Most graphics software packages will import an Encapsulated Postscript file. If you're going to do much work with Postscript files consider using Ghostscript, a free Postscript viewer/interpreter.

If you are having difficulty printing the Postscript file directly (your printer does not support Postscript or will print it only in black and white) you can use Ghostscript to convert a Postscript file into a PDF file, which you should be able to print on any printer.

You can also use Arcview to view and print Postscript files by following these instructions:

  1. Open Arcview
  2. Open a new Layout by double-clicking on the Layouts icon
  3. Create a view frame on the display. To do this click on the right-most icon in the second row on icons. This displays a pull-down list of icons, choose the bottom icon. This will allow you to draw shapes.
  4. Use the mouse to draw a box in your layout window. This box will define your printing area so it should take up most of the page.
  5. A "Picture Frame Properties" dialog box will pop up. Click on the [Browse] button and find the Postscript you want to print. Click [OK].
  6. Wait while your image draws. If your image looks correct you can choose [print] from the [file] menu at the top of the screen and print your file. Be sure to choose a Postscript-capable printer.
  7. If your image is not correct you can choose [Page Setup] from the [Layout] menu to change the orientation of the image or the page size. You can also choose [Size and Position] from the [Graphics] menu to resize or shift your image.

Links to more Postscript resources.

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