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README.1ST
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1994-12-07
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**NOTE**: PCPS is now available for some Unix platforms - see the file
"unix" for further information.
**NOTE 2**: PLEASE NOTE THE CHANGE OF ADDRESS OF
MicroSource
AND THE AUTHOR
A utility to print text files from a PC onto a PostScript(tm) laser printer
/*****************************************************************************/
For DOS & OS/2:
The original distribution file (PCPS800.ZIP) should contain the following:
CVARG.DOC - Short explanation of CVARG.EXE
CVARG.EXE - Utility for converting old style arguments to new
IBMCHARS - A handy chart of the full IBM character set
LICENSE .DOC - PCPS Plain English license specification
NEWARGS .TXT - A table to help convert old args to new
PCPS .EXE - Family mode version (OS/2 and DOS)
PCPSD .EXE - DOS only version
PCPS .MAN - Detailed documentation
README .1ST - This file
REGISTER.DOC - The registration form
UNIX - Unix availability announcement
LICENSE
-------
PCPS is released as SHAREWARE and for full details please refer to the file
LICENSE.DOC
Happy printing,
Paul Carapetis (pcps author) Internet: P.Carapetis@as03.bull.oz.au
Address: Phone: +61 3 7535115
c/- MicroSource
3 Hughes Road
Upper Ferntree Gully 3156
Australia.
Version 8.00 over 7.92
----------------------
Enhancements in this version:
- Added the utility CVARG.EXE for converting files containing old
style PCPS arguments (prior to V7.90) to the new style.
- Added support for background "SHading" of lines (-sh) with
configurable shading level and number of lines.
- Added support for "BoXing" the printable area (-bx)
- Added argument to filter out DOS EOF characters (-cz)
- Added configurable page flushing between files in duplex mode (-nf).
- Improved the header line detection algorithm in mail mode.
- Improved the format of the source for easier installation.
Bug fixes in this version:
- When -g1 was used with more than 1 file, the text over-printed
the gaudy banner on the first page of the second file onwards -
rectified.
- Finding the origin directory of pcps was not implemeted correctly
for most Unix systems - rectified.
- Some people were having trouble with the 'more' prompt -
something screwy with CURSES. Unix version now opens a pipe to
a 'more' type command rather than trying to do it internally. The
user may configure what command to use (default is "more").
- Some printers with non-genuine Adobe interpreters were having
trouble with Man Mode (-mo1). The PostScript code has been
modified to use a totally different approach which appears to
have no compatibility problems (Thanks to Olivier Roussel in
Lille, France for the fix).
Version 7.92 over 7.91
----------------------
Minor bug fix - unfix a bad bug fix in 7.91 :-) Apologies to those people
inconvenienced.
Version 7.91 over 7.90
----------------------
Minor release with changes to the source required for distribution.
Bug fixes in this version:
- Sometimes blank lines were still being included in output.
- Under certain circumstances, an extra lf sequence would be
processed.
Version 7.90 over 7.80
----------------------
Enhancements in this version:
- All arguments are now 2 characters (apart from -P in the Unix
version) which allows them to be more meaningful.
- Support for Gaudy banner on the first page only (-g1)
- Support for configurable tumble in duplex mode (-dpt)
- Support of Danish characters oslash and Oslash (-dk)
- Support for line overstrike if the line is terminated by a
<cr> only.
- Support configurable font size for the user identification
string (-id[n]).
- Support for printing more than 1 copy of each page (-cp<n>)
- The filename in the banner may be replaced by a user configurable
string of text (-fn)
- The text from all of the arguments -fn, -ga, -g1 and -wm may
contain the characters ##id and these will be replaced with the
user@host string.
- Support for Mail Message Mode which will print mail header lines
in bold font (-mo2), as well as Man Page Mode (-mo1).
Bug fixes in this version:
- Fix null pointer in family mode if no valid filename specified
on command line
- Fix obscure font size problem
- If x-$ was used in specifying page ranges, only pages x and x+1
were printed
- PCPS would spit the dummy if it found a DOS EOF character (^Z) in
a .adm or .cfg file - this has been rectified.
Version 7.80 over 7.70
----------------------
Enhancements in this version:
- Duplex printing supported (-dp)
- More paper and envelope sizes and trays now supported: A4, US
letter, Legal, Executive, and Monarch, Com10 and D1 envelopes.
(NOTE: to select US Letter, change "-du" to "-slt")
- More flexible paper tray selection
- Support of two column printing in Portrait as well as Landscape.
- Support of configurable line feed spacing (-y<n>).
- Support of decimal font sizes to one decimal place.
- Support of configurable date formats in the banner (-d1,-d2,-d3).
Bug fixes in this version:
- The DOS & OS/2 version was not printing the "\" in the path of
non-gaudy headers.
- The last line of the file was not being printed if not terminated
by a line feed sequence.
- Lines that were truncated caused an extra line feed sequence to
be issued.
- Some Form Feed characters were being skipped.
- Sometimes the EndPage sequence was being lost when using margin
swapping.
Version 7.70 over 7.60
----------------------
This version was the following enhancements:
- Support for an Administrators config file to enhance operations in
a network environment.
- Support for total quiet mode (-qt)
- Support for default action to be taken when a file already in
PostScript is encountered (-df<s|o|p>)
- Support for identification of originator by printing [user@host]
in the bottom corner of each sheet (-di).
- I have had many requests to change the order of the search rules
to find the config and printer preparation files (pcps.cfg and
pcps.ppf) to be more usable in multi-user environments. The
files are now located thus:
For each file, if the related environment variable is set (See
ENVIRONMENT in pcps.doc), the file is sought from the directory
specified by the variable. If the variable is not set or the
file is not found in this directory, the file is sought in the
current directory and if that fails, it is sought in the
directory that PCPS originated from.
- The argument -o- now over-rides pcps's autosense of piped output.
Bug fixes rectified in this release:
- If the argument "-c" was used in 7.60, only the first line of the
file was printed.
- Under unix, the environment variable support did not work.
- If "-v" was used, the job was rejected by the printer.
- If lines per pages was specified (-n#), an extra line per page
was printed.
- If any extended characters were included in the file comment (any
comment following the "-g" argument) and more than one input file was
specified, these characters would not be processed correctly.
Version 7.60 over 7.50
----------------------
This version has the following improvements/bug fixes:
- Support for printing of "man" pages (-mm)
- Handles files already in PostScript - queries user whether to
skip the file, output it as is or process the PostScript into
PostScript.
- Improved processing of pcps.cfg which handles use of double
quotes and offers improved debugging information.
- Many people have requested that spacing out tabs (-t) be the
default - this has been implemented.
- The DOS only version (PCPSD.EXE) was finding directories as well
as files - this has been rectified.
- Increased some of the default margins to suit the majority of
laser printers.
- Ported to UNIX!!! At the time of release, PCPS was available for
the following platforms:
Sun386i
Sun3
Sun4
IBM RS6000
Bull DPX2
Bull DPX20
For more information on these versions, please contact the author.
Look for more in the future.
Version 7.50 over 7.40
----------------------
This version has the following improvements:
- A new font (IBMPCFont) which supports the full IBM/PC character
set (for the patient ones out there who have been waiting soooo
long now :-).
- A new fast inverse algorithm when using temporary file sort
similar to the fast memory sort. Three "-i" modes now supported:
Memory Sort (fastest), Fast File Sort (Fast) and the original
Slow File Sort (sloooooowww but simple and no overheads).
- Support of some PostScript timing routines for printer
performance analysis (I developed this when checking the
performance of the IBMPCFont).
- Inclusion of a nice one-page IBM/PC character set chart. Try
printing this with the arguments:
pcps -r -f8 "-gIBM/PC character set" ibmchars
(Please note that if you print this with PCPSD.EXE, one line will
not come out correctly due to the fact that the DOS version
swallows up CR's)
- Price drop: 10 or more copies now costs the same as 100 or more
from previous releases.
Version 7.40 over 7.30
----------------------
A couple of registered users reported problems using -i in combination with
some other arguments and this combined with some "quirks" of MSC for family
mode when attempting to use huge pointers prompted a full re-design of the
algorithm for printing inverse. Users should notice a marked improvement
in performance and should now be faced with total reliability (famous last
words :-) Also some minor changes to the PostScript.
Version 7.30 over 7.22
----------------------
Two additional arguments have been added:
-db to download an extended error handler to the printer
-z to better handle margins and banners for double sided printing
Also, the line %%EOF has been added to the end of the PostScript output for
those spoolers requiring this to indicate that the end of job has been
reached.
This version and V7.22 have now been confirmed as working on DEC LN03R
printers.
Version 7.22 over 7.21
----------------------
A couple more bug fixes that crept in during the re-write for family mode
plus the addition of the argument "-k" which allows the user to specify
text to be printed in grey in the background.
Version 7.21 over 7.20
----------------------
Just a minor bug fix - the family mode version couldn't find the origin
directory of PCPS.EXE. Thank you to Wayne Mery for the bug report.
Version 7.20 over 7.10
----------------------
Added the following features as requested by many users:
- Modified and compiled for family mode. Two executables are now
supplied:
PCPS.EXE is family mode and will run under DOS and OS/2
PCPSD.EXE is a DOS only version for those with memory worries
- All margins are now fully configurable (-e)
- Lines per page now configurable (-n)
- Support of both A4 and US paper sizes (-s)
- Ability to print Odd or Even pages for double sided printing (-a)
- Support printing ranges of pages (-v)
- Enhanced Gaudy mode
- Support of ^D (0x04) at start and end of print job (-x)
- Support of two paper bins (-h)
- Support of input from stdin
- Support of output to stdout
Apologies to those still awaiting the full PC font. I have not had time to
fully implement this - please be patient.
Version 7.10 over 7.02
----------------------
Some small changes to the PostScript output for better compatibility and
the addition of a few more european characters including 0xe1 germandbls
for those german users.
Version 7.02 over 6.00
----------------------
The main change in this version over the previous is the addition of supporting
the european characters in the IBM/PC character set. All text fonts will now
print out these characters. I was going to wait until I had also created a good
PC font supporting all of the IBM/PC characters but decided that this feature
would be useful immediately to those many people in European countries who have
queried me about this feature. For those people running in a server environment
I have enhanced the access to the two support files PCPS.CFG and PCPS.PPF -
please read PCPS.DOC for details.
Version 6.00 over 5.33
----------------------
This version has had much "behind-the-scenes" work done on re-structuring and
cleaning up to make future enhancements easier. In addition, this version now
supports the PCPS.CFG and PCPS.PPF files, different screen sizes, and minus
arguments. See PCPS.DOC for more info. Also, the handling of the initial
prolog is now more efficient.
Thanks to Herb, Laurence and many others for the great suggestions. I again
ask those of you who have made other suggestions to be patient.
Version 5.33 over 5.32
----------------------
This version simply corrects a minor bug in the handling of Form Feeds. Thanks
to those people who have made many good suggestions for improvements - I ask
that you remain patient!
Version 5.32 over 5.31
----------------------
This version corrects a couple of bugs in handling TAB characters. Thanks
to Laurence Nicolson of the University of Liverpool for reporting them.
- TAB characters are now passed through if the -t switch is not specified.
- TAB spacing now aligns with the DOS TYPE command and most editors such that,
for a tab spacing of 8, the tabstops will be in columns 1,9,17 etc.
Version 5.31 over 5.30
----------------------
This version corrects a bug only apparent in "-i" mode with memory sort mode
active. There is also a small modification to the display output.