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1990-12-17
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LaserJet Print Version 1.01 By: Khalid Aldoseri.
----------------------------
WARNING:
--------
This program can ONLY be used with a Hewlett-Packard LaserJet, LaserJet+
or the LaserJet Series II printer, or an HP LJ compatible printer..
QUICK DESCRIPTION:
------------------
The program's main target is to print out TEXT files onto the HP LaserJet
printer. But that's not all, it can do the following things:
- Print in Landscape or Portrait modes.
- Use any built-in font, cartridge fonts, and even soft fonts.
- Will automatically download soft fonts into the printer.
- EXTREMELY fast printing. (This is done by totally bypassing the
Preferences printer.device).
- Can print one or TWO logical pages on a single paper. (This is the
same as my LJ2 program.)
- Multiple styles of page headers with date/time, file name, and page
numbers.
- Length and Width of page adjustable in inches.
- Has preset lengths/widths for paper sizes of A4, Letter, Legal,
and Executive.
- You can specify the Pitch & Point of a font and it will be selected.
- Selection of Bold and Italic fonts, plus limited support for
proportional fonts. (This will be fixed in a later release.)
- Fine control over the Lines Per Inch setting.
- You can specify the number of characters per line needed and the
correct font size will be selected, if such a font exists.
- Selectable margins for top, bottom, left and right.
- Selectable Tab spacing.
- Multiple copies. (Uses printer's # of pages facility.)
- Can print line numbers, either for the whole file or per page.
- Completely intuition-ized with file requesters for file selection and
soft font selection.
- You can call up your favourite editor directly from the program with
the selected file loaded automatically.
- Serial or Parallel port can be selected.
- The program has SEVEN different sets of settings that can be used
for different jobs as required. These can be SAVED and will be
automatically loaded everytime you run the program.
- Shrink window facility to make the program disappear and just leave
a tiny window that can be selected to have the program come up again.
(Thanks to UEdit for the idea for this.) Also a CLI option to have
the program start up as a tiny window for all you Startup-Sequence
fans.
PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS:
---------------------
OK. Now to get the program running all you have to do is double-click
its icon from the Workbench, or type 'LJP' from the CLI. But first you must
do the following things:
- Tell the program what your favourite editor is. This is done by
assigning the logical name Editor: to whatever your editor is.
E.G. Assign Editor: DH0:c/UEdit
This will issue the command 'DH0:c/UEdit <selected file>' whenever
you click on the program's EDIT gadget. (Any editor can be used,
even my worst enemy, AmigaDOS's 'ED'.)
- Tell the program where your soft fonts are. This is not necessary
if you don't have any soft fonts. (obviously!)
First create a directory on your disk where you will have your soft
fonts stored. Next create a subdirectory for each font set you want.
After that place the fonts into each subdirectory naming them with
just a number describing their font POINT.
Your directory should look something like this:
HP_Soft_Fonts (dir)
Helvetica (dir)
8
10
12 (these are your soft fonts files.)
24
36
Times (dir)
6
10
12
Tiny (dir)
5
etc . . . .
All the fonts are standard HP soft fonts files from the IBM PC world
with the .SFP or .SFL extension.
After than you have to assign the name HPFonts: to where your soft
font directory is:
Assign HPFonts: DH0:HP_Soft_Fonts
- You MUST have ARP.LIBRARY version 1.1 or higher. If you do not know
what this is, ask around in the AmigaTech forum or email me in
Compuserve on 75166,2531.
Now that we have gotten through the tedious stuff, time for some fun!
PROGRAM USE:
------------
Run the program from either the CLI or Workbench. You should get a big
window with tons of gadgets. Don't worry, most of these are very easy to
understand.
Notice that the cursor is on the 'File To Print:' gadget. Press
'Return' and you will get a file requester for selecting which file to print.
This is like any other requester you might have seen except for one thing:
If you click the RIGHT mouse button you will get a list off all the system
Devices added to the list of files.
After selecting the file you want the requester will disappear. If your
printer is connected to the parallel port, fine, otherwise click on the
gadget saying 'Parallel' to change this into 'Serial'. Next click on
'PRINT'. And that's that!
DESCRIPTION OF GADGETS:
-----------------------
This is a description of all the program's gadgets, which is intended to
be a full description of the program's facilities:
1. Directory/File To Print:
These two work together in order to select a file. You can directly type
in the name of the file you want to print in either of them. If the
program can't find it, it will pop up the file requester. If you only
enter a directory name, then the file requester will come up with the
directory you selected as the current directory.
2. PRINT:
Very easy. Click on this after you have made all the settings you need
and the file will be printed. The gadget text will be replaced with the
number of the page currently being printed.
3. STOP:
This will stop printing a file. A requester will appear asking you
whether you really want to stop printing. Clicking on 'PRINT' while it
displays the page number will achieve the same effect.
4. EDIT:
This will load your favourite editor and load the currently selected file
(from the Directory/File To Print requester) into the editor.
WARNING: If you did not assign anything to Editor: or assigned something
other than an executable program, you might well meet the guru.
If you get a requester asking you to 'Please insert volume Editor in any
drive', do not CANCEL the requester, or the program will guru, instead,
open a CLI, and assign Editor: to C:ED for example, and click on Retry.
5. Serial/Parallel:
This is the port your printer is connected to. It does not reflect the
printer currently selected from Preferences.
6. Landscape/Portrait:
This selects which orientation the text will be printed in.
7. Wide Print/Double Print:
Wide Print: Normal printing.
Double Print: Prints two pages on one paper. (Try it to see what I
mean.) This is best used with the Line Printer font, or a
similar small sized fixed spacing font.
8. Font Selector:
This selects the font from a list of about 14 fonts. The font will only
be selected if it exists in the printer's internal font list or in one of
the installed cartridges. To select a font just keep clicking on the
gadget until you find the font you want. If you select 'SOFT FONT'
another gadget will appear with the currently selected soft font. To
select any other font, click into the soft font gadget and press 'Return'.
A file requester will come up with the names of font sets. Select the
font set you want and then the font size. The soft font will be
automatically downloaded from the disk into the printer when you select
the 'PRINT' gadget.
9. Page Size:
This will select one of four default paper sizes: A4, Letter, Legal, and
Executive. Or you can use 'Custom' for your own paper size.
10. Length:
This is the paper length in inches.
11. Width
This is the paper width in inches.
12. Pitch:
This is the font pitch. This affects which font will be selected when
printing. This also affects the number of characters per line.
13. Point:
This is the font point. This also affects which font will be used.
This also changes the Lines Per Inch and the number of lines per page.
14. Lines Per Inch:
This is the number of lines per inch. Control ranges from 0 to 24 in
increments of .1, allowing very fine control of line spacing. Use with
discretion!
15. Margins: Left, Right, Top & Bottom:
These are fairly evident. (You can use these to print on any size of
paper, including envelopes.)
16. Tab:
This selects the number of spaces that will be used instead of a tab.
The default for this is 5. A selection of 0 will turn off tab printing.
17. Number of Copies:
This selects the number of copies required of the printed file. This
will currently only work with the LJ Series II printer as the older
printers do not have a 'number of copies' command. Sorry!
18. Characters Per Line:
This number is calculated from the Paper Width and the Font Pitch. You
can, however, enter a number directly in here to have the font pitch
recalculated to suit this number. Use carefully.
19. Lines Per Page:
This is calculated from the Paper Length and the Lines Per Inch. You
can, however, enter a number directly in here to have the Lines Per Inch
recalculated to suit this number.
20. Bold:
This will select whether a font is printed in Bold or not.
21. Italic:
This will select whether a font is printer in Italics or not.
22. Font: Fixed or Proportional:
This currently does not work correctly. It now only corrects tab
alignment when printing proportional fonts. There will be more support
for proportional fonts in a future release.
23. Numbering:
This will print a line number in front of every line in the file being
printed. It has the following options:
OFF : No line numbers printed.
PAGE: The numbering is reset every page.
FILE: The numbering is used for the whole file.
24. Headers:
This will print a line on top of each page with some info on the file
being printed:
OFF : No Header Printed.
PAGE: Prints the current page number.
FILE: Prints the file name.
ON : Prints both the page number and file name.
25. Time/Date:
This works in conjunction with the previous gadget and adds a time/date
stamp on each page's header.
26. Vertical Line:
This only works if 'Double Print' is selected. If this gadget is on, a
vertical line separating the two logical pages will be printed across the
center of the paper.
27. Preset Buttons: 1,2,3,4,5,6 & 7:
These are storage places for all the gadget selections in front of you.
They allow you to have different settings for different jobs.
28. Load & Save: L & S:
The 'S' (Save) gadget saves all the programs, current presets into a
configuration file on the program's directory called 'LJP-Config'.
This file is automatically loaded when you start the program.
The 'L' (Load) gadget will load the last saved settings.
There are also some hidden gadgets:
29. Presets/Locked:
This is the 'Preset' next to the preset numbers. If this is click upon,
the text will change to 'Locked' and you can change the preset number
without affecting the current settings. This can be used to copy
settings from one preset to another. E.G. To copy Preset 1 to Preset 5,
select Preset 1, click on 'Preset', select Preset 5, and then click on
'Locked.' Voila!
30. File Name Lock:
Click between the Directory and the File To Print gadgets. An 'L' will
appear. This will lock the file name so that you can change the Presets
without affecting the file name.
31. Sleep:
This is a hidden gadget in top left-hand corner of the program's window.
If you click there, the program will go to sleep, and a tiny window will
appear instead of the program's window. You can move this window out of
the way if you like. Click into this window again to wake the program up.
The position of the sleep window is also saved as part of the program's
setting when you select the 'Save' gadget.
You can also have the program come up in the sleep mode if you use the
CLI. Just issue the command: LJP SLEEP.
This will also free up about 20 kilobytes of the program's 55K of memory
usage while the program is sleeping in case you need some extra memory.
THE END:
--------
Well, Folks. That's about it. Sorry about the docs being so long, but I
guess the program warrants such a detailed description, even if only so that
I don't forget how the program works! (grin)
This program may be distributed through any means as long as this file,
the program itself, and the .info file are kept together, and are not used
as part of any commerical package.
I do not wish to place the program in Public Domain right now since I
have worked for more than three months on it, but still need to polish it
some more.
I have tested the program extensively for about one month before
releasing it, but if you find any bugs, problems, or if you have any
complaints, suggestions, etc. about the program you can contact me in the
AmigaTech Forum on Compuserve or via Email.
Many thanks to all the people on the AmigaForum for all their support and
insights on how to program this wild beast.
Khalid Aldoseri,
75166,2531.