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.every heading (|Pressedit|,|June 1, 1982|,{page})
.once center
~Pressedit~
.skip 3
Pressedit is useful for combining ~Press file~s 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 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 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.