Netscape Postscript Problems (fwd)

[Mark J Ludwig]

Please excuse this if it is not an appropriate forum for this, but I have
seen some recent traffic regarding Netscape problems, so I thought I would
try ours on you.

We are deploying Sun SPARC 4 workstations in our libraries and offering
various internet based subscription services to our patrons. These include
OCLC Firstsearch and IAC Searchbank. These particular services drive
postscript printers nuts when printed thru Netscape 3.0 for Solaris.(2.5).

I know some libraries solve their postscript printing problems by using
PCs as print servers, and we are considering this, but it seeks like there
ought to to be a way to do this in the unix/postscript environment.

Searchbank's thumbnails cause 6 minute delays each and do not print.
Firstsearch's citations do not print because the printers choke on
their graphical buttons. We also see graphics randomly interspersed in
text or randomly absent on the printout. We also have the OVID web server
and see minor strangemess with some of its pesky little graphics. Most
ordinary web pages seem to print OK, so there is something problematic
with these vendors.

We have tried various printers and now have an HP 5si MX with 12 Mg.I
believe it is a software problem and can isolate which HTML components are
problematic. However, I am reluctant to beat up the service vendors since
their stuff works OK on PCs. 

Netscape generate level 3 postscript and very few printers can handle it.
Is there a way to dumb Netscape down to standard level 2?

Has anyone out there dealt with this one?
Thanks,

Mark Ludwig   

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Mark J. Ludwig                                   phone: 716-645-5952
Senior Programmer/Analyst                        fax:   716-645-3844
432 Capen Hall
University Libraries' Director's Office
State University of New York at Buffalo
Buffalo, NY  14260
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