If you can get the original document in Postscript format you can generate grayscale PCL, PS, or PDF using Ghostcript.
PCL3: gs -sDevice=pcl3 -sColorModel=Gray -sOutputFile=/tmp/mynew.pcl /tmp/mydoc.ps Anything outside of that is a lot of scripting and content mangling. The free pcl2ps script you may see online will not do graphics so don't even consider it. It's fine for simple text PCL documents, but if you printed something from Windows then I'd bet my wallet that the PCL you have is a binary bitmap of the entire document encased in PCL print location and media controls. Try searching for 'grayscale PCL conversion'. The PCL output from Ghostscript is a bit large, but it does work from my testing years ago. You will save yourself tons of time and headaches, however, by buying a PCL or PCL+PS conversion utility specifically for your platform. You will also get better results from the output, as well as tech support. PCL is a tricky language to convert from version to version as well as to other languages. There are companies that have devoted their development and testing time to doing just that. You can get by with free tools, but you're only stemming the tide of frustration. ---------------------------------------- Glen Batchelor IT Director All-Spec Industries phone: (910) 332-0424 fax: (910) 763-5664 E-mail: [email protected] Web: http://www.all-spec.com Blog: http://blog.all-spec.com ---------------------------------------- > -----Original Message----- > From: [email protected] [mailto:owner-u2- > [email protected]] On Behalf Of George Gallen > Sent: Tuesday, May 26, 2009 2:02 PM > To: [email protected] > Subject: RE: [U2] pcl imaging question...(clarification) > > Thank you to all for the program suggestions for > converting an image to PCL (or PS). > > That's not my question. > > Say I've converted an color image to PCL. It produces > PCL code meant for a color printer. Great. Now for the > part that I'm looking for do. How would I then take > that PCL code (color), and change it so that it will > print on a PCL non-color printer (make the assumption > I no longer have the original image to reconvert using > a printer driver, and make the assumption that I'd > rather not, run the color PCL into a program to convert > it b&w PCL. > > I guess I'm looking for information on how to convert > the color to b&w, what does the driver do to achieve this? > It's not something per say that I want to actually write > code to do....what want to understand what the driver is > doing. suggestions on search terms for google would be fine > as well. > > So far the standard "PCL color to black and white" haven't > really turned up the specifics of how it's done. > > George > ------- > u2-users mailing list > [email protected] > To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ ------- u2-users mailing list [email protected] To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
