1994.07.20 18:53 "printing tiff", by Derek Jean-Baptiste

1994.07.20 20:28 "Re: printing tiff", by Wes Chalfant

are there any solutions (public domain or commercial) to print TIFF files other than converting the TIFF to postscript and printing to a postscript printer. What I am really after is a quick way to print TIFF files (like a TIFF printer).

There are ways to do this using publicly available pieces. If you're using a HP LaserJet printer or compatible, you could convert the TIFF to postcript and then use ghostscript to print the image, for example.

You'd probably do better (speedwise) if you got rid of the postscript intermediate step. You could, for example, use pbmplus to generate an appropriate bitonal bitmap, and then write a small(ish) program to package that bitmap appropriately for the printer that you're using. For generating the bitonal bitmap, you could use tifftopnm (which uses libtiff) plus ppmtopgm and/or pgmtopbm, depending on whether the image is bitonal, greyscale or color. You might also have to scale the image (also possible with pbm tools). The program to package the bitmap for the printer depends on the printer; for HP LaserJets (and compatibles), you might start with the ghostscript modules that convert rendered postscript bitonal bitmaps for printing on LaserJets.

There are various commercial packages. The commercial packages are likely to be quite a bit faster, especially if you're only interested in printing some types of images. Kofax Image Products, which specializes in document image processing (e.g. Group 3 and Group 4 TIFF images) has something for MS Windows (appropriate sound of disgust here) that decompresses, scales and writes bitonal images to any printer supported by Windows. Peabody Systems (me) is developing the same sort of functionality (and API) for various UNIX platforms. There are certainly other commercial packages as well.

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