home
***
CD-ROM
|
disk
|
FTP
|
other
***
search
/
ASP Advantage 1993
/
The Association of Shareware Professionals Advantage CD-ROM 1993.iso
/
files
/
writions
/
ljfont17
/
utility.exe
/
DOWNLOAD.DOC
< prev
next >
Wrap
Text File
|
1993-05-11
|
16KB
|
405 lines
D O W N L O A D
Version 1.9b
Copyright 1987 - 1993 by Elfring Soft Fonts
TABLE OF CONTENTS
SUMMARY....................................................... 1
REQUIREMENTS.................................................. 1
FONT CHARACTERISTICS.......................................... 1
RUNNING DOWNLOAD.............................................. 2
HISTORY....................................................... 5
LICENSE....................................................... 6
WARRANTY...................................................... 6
Downloading Soft Fonts To A LaserJet
SUMMARY
DOWNLOAD.EXE is an IBM PC utility program that manages the pro-
cess of downloading soft fonts to a DeskJet, LaserJet, or compat-
ible printer. DOWNLOAD can also select fonts as they are being sent
making them either the primary or secondary font. DOWNLOAD can
send a font, or group of fonts, through the standard MS-DOS par-
allel printer devices to your printer. You have optional control
over the soft font ID number, whether the font is permanent or
temporary, and whether it is a primary or secondary font. A list
of fonts may be sent to the printer by specifying the individual
font names in an ASCII text file.
REQUIREMENTS
DOWNLOAD requires a minimum of 128K of memory, an HP LaserJet,
HP DeskJet, or compatible laser printer, and a parallel port to
talk to the printer. Parallel printer ports LPT1:, LPT2:, & LPT3:
are supported by the program. Parallel port communication is
significantly faster than serial.
FONT CHARACTERISTICS
All soft fonts have three characteristics associated with them.
Each font must have a unique ID number assigned to it. This lets
you select a soft font through software or the front panel of the
printer. Each font must be defined as either temporary or perman-
ent. Temporary fonts are deleted whenever the LaserJet is reset
and are thus not very useful since most software that controls
the LaserJet sends a reset command out first, (deleting all temp-
orary fonts). Finally, a font may be defined as either primary
or secondary. (Note that only one primary and one secondary font
can exist at one time and you don not have to have a primary or
secondary font.) The LaserJet lets you switch between primary
and secondary fonts with simple control characters. Control-N
selects the secondary font, while control-O selects the primary
font. Embedding these characters in your text file will let you
switch between fonts. You can, of course, always select a font
based on soft font metrics, (point size, symbol set, style, weight,
spacing, orientation, etc.)
The DOWNLOAD program is designed to send soft fonts to the laser
printer and to help you manage all these font characteristics.
You can select the font ID number, and font status at the same
time that you download the font. You can also make batch files
1
Downloading Soft Fonts To A LaserJet
to manage the process of sending a number of soft fonts to your
printer at one time.
RUNNING DOWNLOAD
DOWNLOAD is easy to use. The only thing you need to remember is
that DOWNLOAD will automatically prompt you with a brief descrip-
tion of how to use it if you want it to. Simply type DOWNLOAD
followed by a carriage return. The program will print a short
explanation of its operation and options as shown below:
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Send soft fonts to a LaserJet or compatible printer, V1.9b │
│Copyright 1986 - 1993 by Elfring Soft Fonts │
│ │
│Use --> download fontname [device ID -options] │
│ │
│ where: everything the between '[]'s is optional and... │
│ │
│ fontname = the name of the font to download or the name of │
│ a list of fonts to download preceded by an '@' │
│ character │
│ device = LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3 │
│ ID = starting ID number to assign font to (0 - 32767) │
│ options = T to make font temporary, P to make font primary,│
│ S to make font secondary, or Q for quiet operat, │
│ D delete all fonts in printer before downloading,│
│ R reset the printer before downloading, │
│ or I ignore printer status check- very fast/clone│
│ │
│When optional arguments are not present, download defaults to: │
│LPT1, ID = 0, permanent font, and font is NOT selected. │
│For example: │
│ │
│download he100rpn.usp lpt1: 5 -tp │
│download @font.lst -q │
│download od300rpn.usp 1000 -sq LPT2 │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
To run DOWNLOAD you MUST specify either the name of the soft font
to send to your printer, or the name of a disk file that contains
a list of soft fonts to send to the printer. You can optionally
specify the device to send the file to, LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3. In
addition, you can optionally control the three font attributes,
(ID number, permanent/temporary, primary/secondary), specified
above. To invoke DOWNLOAD type:
download yourfont [port ID# -options]
2
Downloading Soft Fonts To A LaserJet
All items between the "[" and "]" characters are optional. This
means you do not have to include them. Note that the "[" and "]"
characters are not actually used in a command. Also note that
these optional items can be specified in any order.
So, to download a Times-Roman 24 point bold font you would enter:
download tr240bpn.usp
The DOWNLOAD program will find that file, (if it doesn't exist
DOWNLOAD will let you know), and defaults to: printer port LPT1,
soft font ID 0, and permanent status. The font will not be sel-
ected as either primary or secondary. The screen will look as
follows:
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Send soft fonts to a LaserJet or compatible printer, V1.9b │
│Copyright 1986 - 1993 by Elfring Soft Fonts │
│Sending font tr240bpn.usp with ID 0, 12427 bytes │
│Sent 1 file, with a total of 12427 bytes. │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
A more complicated command might involve using a different print-
er port and assigning a soft font ID number. For example:
download tr100bpn.usp 1000 lpt2 -s
sends the bold faced Times-Roman font to the LaserJet via LPT2:
and assigns it font ID 1000, permanent and secondary status. The
secondary status lets you select this font in a document by em-
bedding a control-N, (you can change back to your primary font
with a control-O).
Two other options "D" and "R" give you control over your laser print-
er operation. The "D" option tells DOWNLOAD to delete all soft fonts
in the printer before sending new ones. The "R" option instructs the
program to reset your printer before downloading. So to send a font
to your laser and reset it and revove any other fonts your would type:
download bh100rpn.usp 5 -rd
The last option to discuss is the "I" or ignore option. DOWNLOAD always
checks the parallel printer port status before sending soft fonts. If
you own a not-so-compatible clone the status returned might not match
what DOWNLOAD expects. OR, if you have a VERY fast 386 computer, your
machine may so out speed your printer that DOWNLOAD will think the
printer is off line or out of paper. Use the "I" option to tell DOWN-
LOAD to ignore printer status as follows:
download hv100rpn.usp -i
3
Downloading Soft Fonts To A LaserJet
Finally, DOWNLOAD is capable of using a list of file names creat-
ed with any ASCII text editor. To do this type:
download @fonts.lst 10
This instructs the program to find the disk file "fonts.lst".
This file is assumed to contain a list of font file names to send
to the LaserJet. All files will be sent in the order they appear
in the list. For example, if the file "fonts.lst" looks as fol-
lows:
he100rpn.usp
he100bpn.usp
he100ipn.usp
he180bpn.usp
he300bpn.usp
then the command "download @fonts.lst 10" will load all five fonts
to your LaserJet through LPT1. The "he100rpn.usp" font will be
assigned font ID 10 and loaded first. Font "he100bpn.usp" will
be loaded next with font ID 11. This process will continue sequen-
tially until font "he300bpn.usp" is sent to the printer as font
ID 14. All fonts will be assigned permanent status. The screen
will look as follows after the downloading
process is finished:
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Send soft fonts to a LaserJet or compatible printer, V1.9b │
│Copyright 1986 - 1993 by Elfring Soft Fonts │
│Sending font he100rpn.usp with ID 0, 12427 bytes │
│Sending font he100bpn.usp with ID 1, 18834 bytes │
│Sending font he100ipn.usp with ID 2, 33754 bytes │
│Sending font he180bpn.usp with ID 3, 48531 bytes │
│Sending font he300bpn.usp with ID 4, 68929 bytes │
│Sent 5 files, with a total of 133944 bytes. │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
For a more detailed explanation of soft font ID numbers, and font
status see your LaserJet user's manual OR our Soft Font Manual.
Finally, the "quiet" option lets you disable much of the screen
output from DOWNLOAD. This is particularly useful with batch
files since you are probably not interested in file statistics
when downloading a batch of files. To use the quiet option you
would type:
download @batch.lst 1000 -qt
This would result in the following display:
5
Downloading Soft Fonts To A LaserJet
┌───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Send soft fonts to a LaserJet or compatible printer, V1.9b │
│Copyright 1986 - 1993 by Elfring Soft Fonts │
└───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Note that the "-t" option used above would give all soft fonts
listed above "temporary" status. They would automatically be
erased after the first reset command is sent the the laser
printer.
HISTORY
V1.9 Optional delete all soft fonts prior to sending new ones.
Check printer status prior to sending fonts. Optimized for
size and speed. Ignore printer status.
V1.7 Shareware release of download.
V1.6 Optimized download with archive support. Distributed only
on LaserJet utility disk.
V1.4 This version adds archive storage of soft fonts. Fonts must
be unarchived using the public domain program PKXARC. Addi-
tional documentation and examples included with program.
V1.3 Created as public domain release version of program. Im-
proved command structure, as per commercial version 1.2.
Batch files and archiving suppressed.
V1.2 Commercial version. Much improved command structure imple-
mented. Variable number of arguments now possible, along
with better control of them. Fixed selection problem that
bothered some laser printres that emulate the HP.
V1.0 Original public domain version of the program.
LICENSE
This program is protected by United States Copyright Law and by
International Treaty provisions. This license grants you the
right to use this program just as if it were a book. You may
make archival backup copies of this program, transfer the program
between machines, or transfer this program to another person.
However, just like a book, only one copy of this program may be
run at any time.
6
Downloading Soft Fonts To A LaserJet
WARRANTY
Elfring Soft Fonts warrants the physical disk this program is
distributed on and the physical documentation that comes with the
program to be free of substantial defects in materials or workman-
ship for a period of 30 days from date of purchase. This warran-
ty is void if the program is modified in any way. If you notify
us, in writing, of a defect in materials during this warranty
period we will replace the defective disk or documentation. The
only remedy for breach of warranty will be replacement, and shall
not encompass any other damages. Governing law shall be that of
the State of Illinois.
Elfring Soft Fonts specifically disclaims all other warranties,
expressed or implied, including but not limited to implied warran-
ties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose with
respect to the disk or documentation, and the program License
granted herein. In no event shall Elfring Soft Fonts be liable
for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including
but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other
damages.
7