Combining the Files into a Single File

Once all applications have been run, you will have a potentially long list of PostScript files in your current directory. These need to be stacked together to produce a single PostScript file which can either be printed or included in a document. To do this, we use PSMERGE as follows¹⁷:

   % psmerge display.ps contour.ps stars.ps > total.ps

This stacks the three specified PostScript files into a single file called total.ps. This will be a normal (i.e. not encapsulated) PostScript file, so you can print it, but it will be difficult to include it in a document. If you include the -e option when running PSMERGE, then an encapsulated PostScript file is created instead:

   % psmerge -e display.ps contour.ps stars.ps > total.ps

The output file can be included in other documents but often causes problem when being printed.

Note, the order in which you supply the input files is important because later files are pasted `on top of' earlier files, and so can potentially obscure them. In general, you need to list the input files in the order in which they were created.

PSMERGE has other facilities which allow you to scale, shift and rotate individual input files before including them in the output. See SUN/164 for details.