¢DTP Atari8¢¢Part 7¢¢by Eric Bemrose¢¢¢Separate Creation & Layout Programs¢¢ Up to now I have examined all-in-one packages that can create and then print your work. However many individual programs are available that will create panels and others that will print them out.¢¢ There are many art packages around, which one you use will be largely a matter of personal preference. Individual program capabilities vary widely, obviously one that allows text to be incorporated will be useful in this application. Almost anything will do as long as you end up with a standard 62 sector MicroPainter format file that most of the printing programs need. Some examples are given below.¢¢ R-DRAW 1.3 by Randy McSorley, is a program for Graphics 8. Text can be added in in four sizes but in the standard font only. Drawing options include; freehand line (solid and dotted), fill line (solid and dotted), line, box, circle, spray, mirror, copy, star pattern, reverse.¢¢ This program was designed for use with the 130XE, but there is a version for 64k machines, written by Les Taylor and Richard Prescott, and released under the name DRAW & TEXT. This is much the same as the original program, but it also includes a printer dump for the often neglected 1029. This allows printing left, right, or centre, normal or inversed.¢¢ For Graphics 7+ (15) screens, like our esteemed Editor, I favour BBK ARTIST and PIXEL ARTIST DELUXE. These and other art programs can be found on the NOSAUG PALLETTE (U07). Both are excellent four colour packages but BBK ARTIST also offers good text handling. Up to 20 characters can be printed in any standard font, in any colour or texture. Height and width are fully adjustable. The text can also be printed in four directions, up, down and right to left (this is printed upside down) as well as the normal left to right. Pictures are saved in the compressed (Koala) format.¢¢ Having created your panels you will need to print them out. One program I have previously mentioned is BILLBOARD by Chris Wareham. This is one of the best printer dumps available, it will print Graphics 7.5/8/9 pictures in many variations of size from very small to huge poster size, upright or sideways, regular or inversed. For use in DTP up to eight single width single height panels can be put on a page. However this needs each panel to be individually loaded and printed. This takes time and careful manipulation of the paper, other more specific programs can do this job with less trouble. ¢¢ PAGE LAYOUT by John McGowan, is a TurboBASIC program for Epson and Star NX10 printers. It will print a page (in one pass) from up to eight panels which can each be in standard or inversed modes. panels can also be repeated elsewhere on the page. A single panel can be stretched across the page to form a banner, so a page could be made from four banners, or any combination inbetween.¢¢ Helpful advice is given to help you modify the program to suit the capabilities of your particular printer. The input routine is rather crude and time consuming, so help is also given for those who wish to improve it. Also included is some interesting information on how to inprove fonts used for printing. Finally, a sample page is included in the package, which consists of panels created with the help of Print Shop, Screen Magic, Antic Publisher, Graphics Master, Digital Editor and Micro Painter.¢¢ HI RES DUMP by Klaus Pruegel of ABBUC, is another eight to the page program, though it will print just two, four, six, or all eight panels, no banners are possible. It needs TurboBASIC and a 130XE to run as it stores the panels in the ramdisk, where panels can be swapped about or inversed before printing. Despite this advantage it is slower than Page Layout when printing, about twelve minutes for eight panels. It supports Epson, CP-80, TXP-8100, Riteman/Panasonic and other printers after modification. The documentation is included as the sample page, which was created with Design Master.¢¢ SMALL PRINTERY is another program from the ABBUC group. This also needs TurboBASIC and a 130XE or expanded machine to work. Unlike the other programs this prints six panels sideways to form a page. This is just what you need to create a landscape format publication. Another option inserts a 'gutter' between the two columns of three panels in order to create two A5 pages. At last something to create a small newsletter. Two versions are supplied on the double sided disk. Version 1.32 requires each panel to be loaded manually. Version 1.7 has been improved to allow configuration of several types of expanded memory and one operation loading of the panels into the rambank.¢
