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@Section
   @Tag { prependgraphic }
   @Title { "@PrependGraphic and @SysPrependGraphic" }
@Begin
@PP
prependgraphic.sym @Index { @@PrependGraphic symbol }
sysprependgraphic.sym @Index { @@SysPrependGraphic symbol }
postscript.prependgraphic @SubIndex { used by @@PrependGraphic }
These symbols, which may appear anywhere that a definition or @@Use
symbol may appear, tell Lout to include the contents of a file in the
preamble of its output.  For Basser Lout this means that the file must
contain PostScript (and ideally it would begin and end with the
@Code "%%BeginResource" and @Code "%%EndResource" comments of
DSC 3.0).  For example,
@ID @Code {
"@SysPrependGraphic { diagf.lpg }"
}
appears at the start of the Diag package; the file @Code diagf.lpg
contains a number of PostScript definitions used by Diag for drawing
diagrams.  It saves a lot of space to include them just once at the
start like this, rather than with every diagram.  @@PrependGraphic and
@@SysPrependGraphic search for the file in the same places as @@Include and
@@SysInclude respectively.
@PP
If the same file name appears in two @@PrependGraphic or
@@SysPrependGraphic symbols, the second occurrence is
silently ignored.  This allows several packages to share
PostScript resources:  each includes the appropriate prepend file,
but in the end only one copy ot it is printed to Lout's output.
@End @Section