printing backwards

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <529 at skipper.dfrf.nasa.gov>, bruno at tongo.dfrf.nasa.gov (Bruno
Chenet) writes:
|>                         I was wondering if there is a way to print
|> a document backwards. By that, I mean the last page being printed first
|> and the first page last. This would spare me reordering them after they
|> have been printed out since the laser printer stacks the sheets of paper
|> with the beginning of the file at the bottom of the stack. I hope that
|> what I just wrote makes sense!!

  Yes, it makes perfect sense, the problem is that you haven't provided
enough information for anybody to be able to answer your question
reliably.  For example:

1. What brand of Unix are you using?
2. What kind of printer?
3. What kind of file are you trying to print (PostScript, plain text,
   dvi, etc.)?
4. How was the file produced (scribe, latex, idraw, MacPaint, MacWrite,
   by hand, etc.)?
4. What printer queuing software are you using?
5. What command do you normally use to print files?

The number of possible permutations of set-ups, based on the possible
answers to the questions above, is huge.

  I can give you an example, though, of how I would print a file with
the printing order reversed.  We have a program called "psrev" here
which will reverse the printing order of any PostScript file which is a
valid Encapsulated PostScript file.  Also, the dvi2ps filter we use to
convert dvi files (produced by tex or latex) into PostScript has a "-r"
option to print pages in reverse order.  Finally, our ditroff troff
processor also has a "-r" option to reverse the ordering of the pages.

  If any of the above examples have helped, I'm glad.  Otherwise, please
answer some or all of the questions listed above, and I'm sure that I
(and other people) will try to help more :-).

Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
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jik at Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
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