Pressedit
Pressedit is useful for combining Press files together, selecting
certain pages from a Press file, or adding extra fonts to a Press file.
The general command format is illustrated in the following example:
pressedit foo.press ← a.press b.press 2 5 c.press 3 to 7 9
TimesRoman10/f
This means "make a Press file foo.press from all pages of a.press,
pages 2 and 5 of the Press file b.press, and pages 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 9
of c.press; add font TimesRoman10 to the fonts defined in foo.press".
The resulting file will be arranged in the same order as the component
input files.
Examples:
To extract pages 3 and 17 from a Press file long.press, and put them in
short.press:
pressedit short.press ← long.press 3 17
To add fonts logo24 and helvetica14 to a.press:
pressedit a.press ← a.press logo24/f helvetica14/f
Here the arguments on the right hand side of the arrow may be given in
any order.
To make a blank, one-page Press file containing all three faces of
Timesroman10:
pressedit blanktimes.press ← timesroman10/f timesroman10i/f
timesroman10b/f
To append to the end of chap3.press all the Press files with names
fig3-1.press, fig3-2.press, fig3-3.press etc:
pressedit chap3.press ← chap3.press fig3-*.press
Caution: when you combine files with Pressedit, try not to use
different sets of fonts, or the same fonts in different orders. This
will result in proliferation of font sets, making the file more bulky
and creating other minor sources of inefficiency.
Merging Press files together: Pressedit allows any number of Press
files to be merged onto the pages of another Press file. This is
useful for inserting illustrations in a formatted document. The
following description assumes that the user wishes to add illustration
figures fig1.press, fig2.press, . . . . fig9.press to a document file
doc.press.
Illustration files should be of one page only; Pressedit will ignore
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Copyright Xerox Corporation 1982
Pressedit June 1, 1982 2
all but the first page. The document file may have any number of
pages. The illustrations are placed in position on the appropriate
page with the aid of an ARROW. The document file must have an arrow
for every occurrence of an illustration; every illustration must also
have an arrow. Pressedit aligns the pairs of arrows when merging the
files, and removes the two arrows.
In the document file, arrows have the form:
<==<fig3.press<
In other words, the name of the illustration file is preceeded by the
string <==< and is followed by the character <. NO SPACES are allowed
before the arrow, but you may use tabs to position it if you wish.
In the illustration files, arrows have no file name:
<==<<
Again, no spaces before the arrow, please.
To merge the files, run Pressedit with a /m switch:
pressedit/m foo.press ← doc.press fig1.press fig2.press .... fig
9.press
This command can of course be typed more concisely as follows:
pressedit/m foo.press ← doc.press fig#.press
for the command interpreter to expand. All illustration files must
thus be included in the input file list, preceded by the document file
name. The same illustration may be inserted on several pages, using
arrows in the document file containing the same file name. In such
cases, it is not necessary to mention the illustration file more than
once in the command file. For example, if doc.press has an arrow on
every page referring to squiggle.press, it is sufficient to type:
pressedit/m foo.press ← doc.press squiggle.press
When merging files, Pressedit uses a special third pass during which it
types out the page numbers containing illustrations and the names of
merged files. If the merged file was not listed in the command line or
was found not to contain the necessary arrow for positioning, Pressedit
will complain, and will omit the illustration.
Three limitations
It is not currently possible to merge with selected pages of the
document file, thus
pressedit/m foo.press ← doc.press 2 to 6 fig1.press fig2.press...
Instead you must select the pages and merge in separate operations.
Illustrations may include any legal Press entities, but at present
there are likely to be difficulties with very large images.
Certain illustration files will give Pressedit problems, and will
Pressedit June 1, 1982 3
result in the message "negative origin." This means that the
illustration was drawn near the top of the page, and is now being
inserted near the bottom, causing the "origin" to move off the bottom
of the document page. This happens only in rare cases of Press files
created with obsolete versions of Draw. If you should encounter this
problem, get an up-to-date version of Draw, read the Draw file in and
write it out as a new Press file: the problem will go away.
ArrowLess Merging: There are some special situations, such as adding
borders to each page of a Press file, in which it is inconvenient to
have to fool around with the arrows that Pressedit/M requires. To take
care of this situation, there is a more limited but simpler type of
merging of Press files provided by the /A switch, where the "A" stands
for "ArrowLess Merge". You invoke an arrowless merge by a command that
looks pretty much like a normal /M merge command:
Pressedit/A result.press ← document.press illus*.press
What happens is this: each page of result.press will consist of the
corresponding page of document.press, along with a copy of all the
images on every page of every one of the illustration files. No arrows
are necessary, and any arrows that are present will be ignored. As a
consequence, the illustration images can't be shifted on the page as
part of the merge process. Since there is no way to specify shifting,
arrowless merges aren't as powerful as normal /M merges. But an
arowless merge is a very convenient way to add a border or logo to each
page of a document in a standard place on the page. Note that
Pressedit/A can also be used to combine any number of single-page Press
files into one single-page Press file in which all of the images are
overlaid.
Page Numbers:
Pressedit will add page numbers to the output file if you use the /p
switch:
pressedit/p foo.press ← doc.press
The /p switch may be used on partial and multiple input files. It will
omit the page number on the first page, and number the remaining pages
starting at 2. Numbers appear about 3/4 inch down from the top and 1
1/4 inches in from the right. To change these default options, append
any of the following paramenters to your command line:
xxx/o omit numbers on the first xxx pages. (default 1) xxx/s start
numbering at xxx (default 2) xxx/x x coordinate of number, in 100ths of
an inch (default about 675), measured from the left edge of the paper.
xxx/y y coordinate of number (default about 1025) measured from the
BOTTOM edge of the paper.
Thus to start numbering on the third page (i.e. omitting the first
two), numbering from 17, with the number positioned at x = 6.5 inches
and y = 10 inches, use the following command:
pressedit/p foo.press ← doc.press 2/o 17/s 650/x 1000/y
Any and all of the page-numbering paramenters may be omitted if the
default value is OK.