Commodore Free 32/Commodore_Free_Issue_32_2009_Commodore_Computer_Club.d64/user experience

Text File | 2023-02-26 | 15KB | 454 lines

u


*************************************
  Doing Postscript output from Geos
    Lord Ronin from Q-Link
*************************************

Actually this isn't 100% Geos or
Commodore. More like 99.99%
originally this was planned to be
sent to Nigel after I sent a long
lamer beginner's look over the Geos
manual series. Good news, some pipe
smoking long haired, bearded hippy
freak broke one of the basic rules. I
didn't back things up! Meaning that I
have to do it over again. At least
this time I can take a few JPEGs of
screen shots with an old camera that
saves the image to disk. Which is
what prompted me to do this one. OK
one of the things for this one. Now
there should be an image installed,
the choice was either the top hat
wearing freak with the pipe or the
Constable for the A.C.U.G. #447. The
cat won out, she has claws! Those
reading this on the fantastic .D64
file that Al Jackson of 5C's makes,

(EDITOR AL many thanks for the work
with the D64 image)

like my users group, won't be able to
sec that image of the black cat
posing for her snap. Not too worry
she won't be upset, though there is
some way to make the JPEG show on the
disk; this was done by a long
distance member for us once. I don't
know how, and it would cat up too
much space for Commodore Free.

(EDITOR Juddpeg can display JPEG
images on the C64 you can download it
from here
http://www.ffd2.com/fridge/JPEG/)

Let's cover the title; no it isn't a
misprint or fanciful dreams on my
part, You can actually and really
make a file that can be converted to
a PDF on the C=. Got a long story so
pour yourself one, and light up,
this may make it easier to read my
dream.

The story goes like this; I knew that
we could get postscript files that
would and could be opened in
postprint in Geos. I did that with a
file Maurice sent me and other post
print users. I wondered how to make
one and send it to another types of
PC platform, other than Geos on the
C=. My adopted son Lord Alberonn
a.k.a. sho-vah now <132S blocks of
rant deleted for content was going to
do the experiment with me on his
Amiga, but seems to not have had the
right programmes installed. A local
member said he would help with the
test, and that never came about. My
son who gifted me with the camera
mentioned above said he would give it
a try* but hey, he got married and a
new job. The old man sort of got
pushed to the back burner. Well he
did give me his Commodore stuff, long
distance member said he would help
too; And yeah destined/weirdwolf/#8
did help me. Now then that paragraph
covers about 9 years of events! So
this has been a bit of a time in
becoming a reality.

OK the steps are this way.

I write the drivel that I put out
here in GeoWrite, I use Times Roman
from Dale Sidbottoms laser lovers
disk, I understand is still
available. That is the easy part; as
that font is set to work with
postscript things. Some of the normal
GeoFonts are not recognized by post
print or are a bit too jaggy. I have
tried some of the LQ fonts, and they
arc a bit smoother. Though I am not
using the Perfect Print programme any
more. So then lets say that I have a
bunch of drenn written and am ready
to do the next step.

That is put the GeoWrite file into
PostPrint. I use the B3.8 one for
most things. But I have the B4 one,
which is fine it even has some nice
additives and cuts of about 4 lines
at the top of a GeoPaint image even
on the HP printer that I am using.
Which is a lower model than what I
understand Maurice was using.
Embarrassing story on this part; Sec
there arc no-docs that I have ever
seen for the use of Post Print, my
thanks go to Sunfish from COPS mail
list. He told mc how to use an
imported font, which is what I do for
the print edition of the newsletter.
I would never have figured that out,
nor how to convert a pfb postscript
font to the needed pfa for post
print. He sent me to a site and I
grabbed the programme that works on a
128. Currently on that hard drive
with Maurice awaiting repair.

OK back on track. I had found the
pull down options in post print for
installing the information. GcoPub*
GcoWrite* Complaint. pegs. Those are
the first four that can be done with
hot keys, the C= and one of the
numbers 1-4. Now 5 and 6 are also
listed, but the way they are listed
is obscure to my literal mind. I
didn't understand what they meant. So
for about 9 years, 1 never messed
with them.

Instead I just put in the pages one
by one, like the 20 page newsletter.
Make a page, and then press C= and 2
for GeoWrite. Select the page number,
press return, then a mouse click.
Followed at times by sizing the page
of text to the size of the postprint
page. I feel like the south end of a
north bound mule. when I discovered
that C= and 6 will put in the entire
document. C= and does the same for a
GcoPub document. Lets just say that I
use that method now and my work load
is a lot smaller in my Desk Top
Publishing duties.

Well that is good so far; I could
then print it out for some one to
read assuming there arc any that hard
up for reading material. Ah but for
the print edition of the newsletter,
That isn't going to happen! I now
exit the layout and go to the print
icon, There I select the print job.
First thing I do is send via GeoCable
the font I want. BTW it is called
Village Plain, the font from the
Prisoner TV show of the 60s. That is
I25kb. What it is in normal blocks I
don't remember. Oh I am looking to
replace a font. LowWeRegular if any
one has a copy. Anyway after that is
sent to the printer. Next is to make
a disk file. That is done by
selecting the output in the print
options* Here instead of selecting
GeoCable or the other to printer
stuff. I select disk file. That will
send the output to the RAM in the
SCPU.

Now there are a collection of option
screens, like where is it going and
the name that I want to give that
file. The main one is the setting
file, here I can select to send it as
a GeoWrite, or something for Linux,
Amiga and Mac Or for the heretic
system. Tell you right now that in my
experiments; all but the heretic
format for the disk file will fit on
a 3 1/2" floppy. Heretic one was too
bloated, though it was the same file.

For the print work that I do; I make
the GeoWrite disk file, followed by
going into GeoWrite.,Where I go to
page #10. Again thanks to Sunfish for
that information. Where I just
substitute/Times-Bold with
/VillagcPlain, then out of that and
back to print options; Where it is
just a simple change of direction for
the output from disk file to GeoCable
right to my laser printer. In a few
minutes out comes the booklet edition
of the users group newsletter, or
what ever I am printing at the time.

Ground work laid for the next part;
which is that postscript to PDF
thing, take pretty much all the steps
above, Save for the font change. I
haven't figured that out yet. Change
the output option to disk file; but
at this point, I select the Linux
option. In a short spate of time,
There is a file in the RAM that is in
Linux style and in postscript. Of
course I can't read the smegger on my
Commodore system. If I put it on a
disk, how could the Linux system read
it? Here we have the use of another
Geos tool. GcoDos, and that is a
powerful tool, that I am still
learning about. Grabbed it to do just
one thing; copy files from heretic
formatted disks to the Commodore,
Docs require the FD-2000 for that
work. Also it will not only read a
heretic formatted disk, but will
format them as well. OK then I fire
up GcoDos, I wish it would tell me
that I need to switch to 40c. But it
doesn't, and the first few times I
thought something was wrong. Anyway I
make the copy from the RAM to the
heretic formatted disk. This is where
the problem with the heretic OS being
bloated happened on a test. Next is
take the disk out of the drive, tell
it to go back to desktop, yeah 8 out
of 10 times it locks up and 1 have to
reset the 128. Disk in pocket and
taken to the little cheap Linux
system.

Most readers know that I don't know a
lot about PCs, even the sacred and
most holy Commodore. Tell you about
Role Playing Games for hours. But
very* lame at best on computers. So
this part is going to be a bit
convoluted in explanation. The file
that I make goes into the drive on
the Linux system; I copy it over and
(here is the front page as an Icon.
My first tests where bad for many
reasons; One was that I still had
bold face on for the document, as
that is needed for the print one for
spacing of the replacement font. As a
postscript file or a PDF it looks
like bold on a quad print printer
that was stuck. Took me many attempts
to find out the problem, I also had a
problem with sending the file to
people. Linux users could see it but
not other PC platforms. Oh and the
biggest problem was that there may
have been 20 pages, but only the
first one would show up in any reader

OK our long distance member that was
helping mc out. Had an idea. Convert
the file to PDF, more people could
see that on different computer
platforms. Right and this is done how

So he told me about something called
"imagemagick" I found it, downloaded
it, and after he told me how to use
it. The file came out as a PDF And by
some miracle that I don't understand,
all the pages could be seen. Well
there was still the too black of the
test part, but hey I got that fixed
and it came out in a form that people
could read.

So then the next part; Creating the
newsletter for those long distance
members that wanted it in electronic
format. Or as we termed it the
CyberSpace edition. Not hard to do at
all, In fact for several months we
have been sending CommodoreFree the
CyberSpace issues. Ah but there have
been some comments about how to make
it better, like installing some
JPEGs. Yes postprint will let you
install them, So would make a page of
colour images and try to plant text
in the right places. As it is
installed in the layout part of
postprint. Hey you can install a
border and how thick and how far away
it will be around the image. I think
that one can also adjust the levels
of colour etc, As I tried that out
and well; came up with some ugly
results. No documentation like I said
earlier. Well I sent a test to Nigel
at Commodore Free. Asking if it was a
good way to send submissions, he said
it looked OK as it seemed to be
bitmapped. I sort of got lost at that
point. Said I was a lamer. (EDITOR
the text in the postscript file seems
to be a picture rather than text so
this whole part of the document had
to be OCR{SHIFT-*}d Optical Character
Recognition to use the text in the
magazine, normal text is usually
selectable or saveable in a PDF
however these files appear to have
the text as pictures, this means the
quality is less sharp, I am working
to find out why this is the case it
could be the software that converts
the PS file to PDF)

Well recently I scored up a copy of
GcoPub. Replacing the one that
corrupted on mc. Been experimenting
with it in adding colour into the
pages, and then installing JPEGs in
the text areas. As this is written
that is still a project that needs
more training on my part. But sample
CyberSpace issues have gone out. Mind
you a 45kb or 1902 block post script
file with 4 JPEGs and some colour
added. Becomes 5.2mb when converted
to a PDF Don't ask, I haven't a clue
as to why.)

Now you may think that I sat down and
scrawled this out in one sitting. Be
almost right, does seem to read that
way doesn't it?  Ah but I have
dabbled in other things as well.
Recently received some of that
feedback I had asked for on the
sample issues. Complaints on some of
the colour choices, I mean in what
was the box colour and what was the
text colour. I can't see them till
the issue is converted as the text
and box patterns use the 32 fill
patterns to represent the colours,
it's hard to see if they are clashing
till the work is finished. The other
thing is that in one report the
colours mentioned by the submitter,
didn't match what I saw on the copy
on my screen. This is a new thing to
me and I have not got the theory at
this time.

Using Bruce Thomas's tutorial, or
really bits and pieces, I learned how
to make some circles and elongate
them for a sort of Egyptian
Cartouche. Still needs practice with
the size and with the colour choices,
I learned how to make a shadowed box,
and install text in it for the page.
Much more of course for me to learn
to present the layout right as 1
stumble along for the newsletter.

Problem here is that I have so many
ideas flooding in my mind. Well OK I
admit, what is left of my mind.
Monographs on different things for
the C=. Which I will probably torment
Nigel with and you the readers as
well. But not all the colour stuff,
just the text with attached images
for the work. CDs of C= things in
monographs with all this colour and
JPEG stuff. Now that is something
that can come about. Like for our
yearly MossyCon CD. OK many readers
are waiting for it from me. Yeah that
CD fanzine idea. Having the
adventures and articles in colour for
the Role Playing Games, but hey done
on the Commodore, in Geos with
GeoPub, PostPrint and GcoDos.

I Just convert that postscript file
to PDF on the Linux system. Seems so
logical in retrospect that I wonder
why others haven't done the same? Or
if they have, why I haven't heard
about it yet? Then I look at the lack
of information presented to us. I
mean there arc no documents that I
know of for postprint. COPS mailing
list has been very silent over the
past few months. How to find out the
information on that Linux tool, let
alone the fact that it existed is
also past me. And no "google" is not
my friend. I don't speak it's
language. OK I don't speak search
engine language at all.

So wrapping this up on page #4 in
GeoWrite. We can make PDF files
99.99% on the Commodore. 0.01% on
another PC platform. Allowing us to
make and share with non C= users our
work and interests. We can add colour
to the document and add JPEGs. You
can also add GIF and EPS
(encapsulated post script) images as
well. Just takes some practice to
gain the experience for a pretty
document, something that I lack at
this time. Still it blows the minds
of other PC users than C=. When they
sec the output! That is worth all the
hours I spent making the first colour
with JPEGs issue of our newsletter.
Also learned from T&E. Oh in parting,
since you are seeing this. Just have
to tell you that I wrote this in
GeoWrite (as if you hadn't guessed
already) Ran it through postprint and
added the kitty picture at the
bottom. Converted it to PDF all as
described in the preceding pages. In
case the image fails to come out,
I'll attach it as well to the email
that I will send to Nigel. Fingers,
toes and eyes crossed that this works
for CommodoreFree.

=====================================