Copyright: Copyright ® 1993 Roger Willcocks


contents
RoPS-32 Help

opening a document
closing an open document
moving around within a document
moving around within a page
zooming and rotating the page
copying a page to the clipboard or a file
printing a page or pages
configuration and other advanced options
limitations
about the author


Opening a document

To open a document select the 'open' option from the 'files' menu.  If the document is structured  an index will be built.


Closing an open document

To close an open document select the 'close' option from the 'files' menu.  The document can be closed at any time  - even while it is being loaded.


Moving about within a document

Use the 'page' menu to move about within a document.  If the document is structured any page can be accessed directly.  However if the document is unstructured the pages can only be read in order.   Use the 'page down' key or the 'next' option from the 'page' menu to move on to the next page of an unstructured document.


Moving about within a page

Use the left mouse button to 'drag' the page around within the window, or use the scroll bars at the side and bottom of the window.


Zooming and Rotating a document

To zoom or rotate a document, use the 'view' menu.  If a structured document is open, the current page will be redrawn at the new size and orientation.

n.b. It is usually faster to set a convenient page size and rotation before opening a document.


Colour options

To flip between black and white (monochrome) mode and colour, use the 'preferences' option on the 'edit' menu.  Colour mode uses eight times as much memory as monochrome for a given page size.

If the Antialias option is selected black text will be rendered at twice normal size and averaged onto the screen.  Other colours remain ragged.


Structured documents

A structured document contains numbered pages and an index that describes where each page starts within the document's computer file.  If a document is not structured it is impossible to repaint a specific page.  Because of this, options that require the page to be repainted (such as zooming or changing the colour format) are disabled if the current document is not structured.


Copying a page to the clipboard or a file

The 'copy' option on the 'edit' menu copies the currently selected region, as an image, to the clipboard.  The 'copy to' option copies it to a file.

The 'copy text' option extracts the textual information from the currently selected region and copies it to the clipboard.

To select a region point at one corner and press the right mouse button; then - still holding down the button - drag the mouse to the opposite corner and release the button.

To enlarge a previously selected region, hold down the 'shift' key while you press the right button.

To select the entire page use the 'select all' option on the 'edit' menu.


Printing a page or pages

The 'print' option on the 'file' allows you to print the currently viewed page or, if the document is structured, a range of pages.

The data is always sent to the printer at 'device resolution', that is, one dot on the screen corresponds to one dot on the printer.  You can  change the number of 'lines per inch' of the on-screen representation to vary the size and legibility of the printed image.  (See initialisation file options.)

If the image is smaller than the paper, it will be centred on the paper.  Otherwise only the top left corner of the image will be printed.


Initialisation file options

The following options are recognised in the [rops] section of the rops.ini file (which is usually found in the c:/windows directory):

vmsize - virtual memory size, in kilobytes - default: 400
pathsize - number of elements in path - default: 2400
tokensize - maximum length of a token - default: 3000
cachesize - number of bytes in font cache - default: 30000
imbuffsize - number of pixels in image operator buffer - default: 3000
screensize - number of pixels in halftone screen - default: 400
colour - monochrome (0) or colour (1) operation - default: 1
antialias - ragged (0) or smoothed (1) operation - default: 1
bootfile - full path to boot file - default: a:/ropsboot.ps
helpfile - full path to help file - default: a:/rops.hlp

The following options are recognised in the [framebuffer] section of the rops.ini file:

ScreenFreq - halftone dots per inch - default: 20
ScreenAngle - halftone screen angle in degrees - default: 57
WidthMM - width of frame buffer in mm - default - 210
DepthMM - depth of frame buffer in mm - default - 297
LPI - lines per inch - default: 100

Change the LPI variable to set the size of the page on screen and printer.


Configuration and other advanced options

colour options
adding extra fonts
initialisation file options


TrueType Fonts

RoPS draws characters by using Windows TrueType fonts.  However, many PostScript documents contain fonts with names that are different to those of the TrueType ones.  If a font is not available, RoPS uses the Courier font instead.  RoPS requires that the Courier font be available.

The [fontlist] section of the rops.ini file (which is usually found in the c:/windows directory) converts PostScript names to TrueType ones.  For instance, the TrueType font 'Times New Roman Regular' is the same as the PostScript font 'Times-Roman', so rops.ini has a lines saying:

[fontlist]
Times-Roman=Times New Roman Regular

Normally the 'fontscan' program is used to create a name mapping table but you can also edit rops.ini by hand.


Limitations

Type 1 fonts are not handled.
Documents with more than 1000 pages are truncated to 1000 pages.The 'stroke' boolean argument to 'charpath' is assumed to be false.


About the author

Roger Willcocks (rkww@centprod.demon.co.uk) is a consultant programmer specializing in graphics and low-level system programming.  He wrote RoPS as a programming exercise; initially on a Unix system to become familiar with the PostScript language and later on a PC platform to understand the finer points of MFC and Windows.  He would be very happy to receive comments and suggestions about the program.

Incidentally, RoPS is available in both 16- and 32-bit versions, both as an executable program and as a DLL.  Source and binary licences are available.  Contact the author for more information.