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

[Lee Howard <faxguy@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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.


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