The Business Master (4th Edition)

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Text File | 1992-06-25 | 16.4 KB | 412 lines

▀██▀▀█▄ ▄███ ▀██▀▀█▄ ▄█▀▀█▄ ██▄▄█▀ ▄█▀ ██ ██▄▄█▀ ▀██▄ ██ ▀▀▀▀██▀ ██ ▄▄ ▀██ ▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀ ▀▀▀▀ ▄██ ▄█▀▀▀█▄ ██ ██ ▄███ ██ ▄▄ ███▀ ██ ▀▀▀▀▀▀ ▀▀ ▀▀▀▀▀ Introduction ════════════ P4PS performs the DOS Print Screen function using its own small soft font on laser printers. The soft font is the same one used in a related program, P4UP. Run P4PS at the DOS command line, and it Terminates but Stays Resident (TSR). When it's resident, you can snap pictures of your text screen by pressing P4PS's hot keys. The font is small enough that several screen images fit on a single piece of paper. If your screen has the standard 25 rows and 80 columns, six screen images fit on a piece of letter size paper. When you're done capturing screen images, run P4PS a second time to remove it from memory. When active, P4PS takes 35K. P4PS is shareware for $20. To order, see the last page in this document file. Running P4PS ════════════ When you first load P4PS at the DOS command line, P4PS downloads its own small soft font to your printer. P4PS then terminates by stays resident in the background of your computer. It waits until you press a combination of keys that signal a call to P4PS. When you first call P4PS to take a snapshot of your screen, it tells your printer to use the P4PS font, then sends the data. The screen data remains in your printer's buffer until it is cleared. On the second call to P4PS, it formats the second screen of data. The second screen is positioned below the first. So far, nothing is actually printed. You can print manually by pressing the buttons on the printer to take it offline and print the data in the printer's buffer. If you do so, however, P4PS has no knowledge of your actions. When you take the next P4PS snapshot, it will be formatted as page 3, even though you have started a new page. When P4PS fills up a page with screen images, it sends the printer a command to actually print the data. If you want to print the data before this, you should use the P4PS hot key combination to flush the buffer. This will print the data and reset P4PS to the first screen image on the next page. When you run P4PS a second time from the DOS command line, it flushes the buffer before removing itself from memory. P4PS assumes it has exclusive access to the printer. If you are sharing the printer between several computers, or even if you run other printing programs between calls to P4PS, you may get the wrong results. P4PS has no way to know if you have removed its soft font from the printer's memory, and has no way to know if you've ejected the page P4PS was working on. If you are using P4PS in a sharing environment, the safest way to use it is quickly. Run P4PS to load its font; take your snapshots of screen images quickly; and run P4PS again to flush the printer's buffer and remove P4PS from memory. If P4PS's font has been removed from your printer, your printer will give P4PS the closest font available, which will probably be too big. If you use it, the left column will overprint the right column, and the right column will not fit on the page. Format ══════ P4PS has a few options to let you control the print operation. Examples of these options are what ID to give the soft font and what size paper you're using. You can enter the values for any option on the DOS command line. Each option on the DOS command line is preceded with a dash (-). An example of using P4PS with an option is: P4PS -S3 This loads P4PS and tells it to use paper Size 3, or Legal size. You may use upper or lower case for all P4PS options. Changing the Paper Size ═══════════════════════ P4PS assumes you are using letter size paper (8 1/2 by 11 inches), but it also has support for Legal and A4 size paper. If you use different size paper, you get a different number of P4PS screen images on each page. To tell P4PS what size paper you are using, use the -S command line option when you first run P4PS. For example: P4PS -S3 Follow the -S option with a number indicating the paper size, 1 for Letter; 3 for Legal; or 4 for A4. Changing the Soft Font ID ═════════════════════════ P4PS uses it own small soft font. Use the -I option to give the soft font a specific font id for referring to it by other programs. Normally P4PS gives its font the id 16384. You can give it a different id with the -I option, as in -I33. Pick an id not in use by other programs. You can use this ID later to select the font (with the Escape(nnX printer command.) Changing the Device ═══════════════════ Normally P4PS prints to the device LPT1. You can use the -D option to name a different printer device including: LPT1, LPT2, LPT3, COM1, or COM2. For example: P4PS -Dlpt2 Changing the Hot Keys ═════════════════════ P4PS uses two sets of hot keys, one for calling up P4PS to take a snapshot of your screen, and a second to flush the printer's buffer. By default, P4PS is called up with the hot key combination of Alt, Left Shift, and C, and the printer's buffer is flushed with the combination of Alt, Left Shift, and F. (C for Call up, F for Flush.) If these are not convenient for you, or if they conflict with another TSR program you are running, you can change either or both with a command line option. Use the -C option on the P4PS command line to change the hot keys necessary to Call up P4PS or the -F option to change the hot keys necessary to Flush the printer's buffer. Both of these options use the same codes, and so are described together. As an example: P4PS -C0A2E -F0A21 would give you the same hot keys you get by default. The first two characters after the C (in the example, 0A) indicate what shift keys must be pressed for the hot key to be recognized. There are 4 shift keys: the CTRL key, the ALT key, and the Left and Right Shift keys. In this example, the 0A means the ALT and Left Shift keys must be pressed together. The last two characters after the C (in the example, 2E) indicate what letter or number key must be pressed for the hot key. In this case, the 2E means the C key. You can choose from any of the letter keys, number keys, or function keys. It is important that you choose a shift and key combination that does not interfere with other software that you run. For example, Lotus 1-2-3 uses the F1 key for Help. You could tell P4PS to pop up whenever the F1 key was pressed, but if you did that, you would never be able to get Help from 1-2-3. In addition to any normal software you use, such as spreadsheets, databases, or word processors, you have to make sure that the P4PS hot key doesn't interfere with any other TSR programs you may also be running. However, it is often unnecessary to leave P4PS resident in your machine, so you may not have to find a hot key combination which fits in with all your other software. If you make a mistake, and P4PS turns up where you don't want it, just run P4PS another time to remove it from memory and to release its hold on any hot keys. Then you can enter keys directly to your other application. The following is a list of Shift Key combinations you can use with the -C or -F options: -C Code or Shift Key Meaning -F Code 00 No shift keys needed 01 RightShift 02 LeftShift 03 RightShift+ LeftShift 04 Ctrl 05 RightShift+ Ctrl 06 LeftShift+ Ctrl 07 RightShift+ LeftShift+ Ctrl 08 Alt 09 RightShift+ Alt 0A LeftShift+ Alt 0B RightShift+ LeftShift+ Alt 0C Ctrl+ Alt 0D RightShift+ Ctrl+ Alt 0E LeftShift+ Ctrl+ Alt 0F RightShift+ LeftShift+ Ctrl+ Alt The following is a list of character codes you can use with the -C or -F options: Char -C Code Char -C Code Char -C Code -F Code -F Code -F Code A 1E J 24 S 1F B 30 K 25 T 14 C 2E L 26 U 16 D 20 M 32 V 2F E 12 N 31 W 11 F 21 O 18 X 2D G 22 P 19 Y 15 H 23 Q 10 Z 2C I 17 R 13 Char -C Code Char -C Code Char -C Code -F Code -F Code -F Code 1 02 F1 3B F11 57 2 03 F2 3C F12 58 3 04 F3 3D 4 05 F4 3E 5 06 F5 3F 6 07 F6 40 7 08 F7 41 8 09 F8 42 9 0A F9 43 0 0B F10 44 The last two codes, F11 and F12, will not work on all machines. Try them out if you are interested. The default hot key combination for Calling up P4PS is Left Shift-Alt-C. To set such a value, find the Left Shift-Alt line in the top table. It is next to code 0A. Then find the code for the letter C in the next table. It is code 2E. Placing these two next to each other gives -C0A2E. If you ran P4PS with this combination, you would get the default setting. The P4PS Character Set ══════════════════════ P4PS contains the shapes for all 256 characters in the 8-bit ASCII code. This includes all the single and double box characters. A few of the low numbered characters won't print out because they are intercepted by other hardware and software and interpreted as special control characters. The following table shows the P4PS character set: !"#$%&'()*+,-./ 0123456789:;<=>? @ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO PQRSTUVWXYZ[\]^_ `abcdefghijklmno pqrstuvwxyz{|}~ ÇüéâäàåçêëèïîìÄÅ ÉæÆôöòûùÿÖÜ¢£¥₧ƒ áíóúñÑªº¿⌐¬½¼¡«» ░▒▓│┤╡╢╖╕╣║╗╝╜╛┐ └┴┬├─┼╞╟╚╔╩╦╠═╬╧ ╨╤╥╙╘╒╓╫╪┘┌█▄▌▐▀ αßΓπΣσµτΦΘΩδ∞φε∩ ≡±≥≤⌠⌡÷≈°∙·√ⁿ²■ The line separation used by P4PS is larger than the minimum to make the P4PS output easier to read. Unfortunately, this means that even though all the box characters are present, they will not connect up vertically. If you took a P4PS print screen of the following figures, they would show gaps: ╔══╦═╗ ┌──┬─┐ ║ ║ ║ │ │ │ ╠══╬═╣ ├──┼─┤ ╚══╩═╝ └──┴─┘ ╒══╤═╕ ╓──╥─╖ │ │ │ ║ ║ ║ ╞══╪═╡ ╟──╫─╢ ╘══╧═╛ ╙──╨─╜ ███ ▄▄ ▌▌ ▐ ▐ ▐▌ ▐█ ▄▄ ███ ▄▄ ▌▌ ▐ ▐ ▐▌ ▐█ ▀▀ Disk Vendors, Bulletin Boards, and Users Groups ═══════════════════════════════════════════════ You may distribute this program as long as the following guidelines are met: Distribute all files essentially unchanged. Charge less than $10 for distribution of the program. Describe the product as shareware. Please forward problems or complaints to the author. Please let the author know you are distributing the program. Please distribute the latest version of the program available. A Word about TesSeRact(TM) ══════════════════════════ To make this product more compatible with other TSR's you may have, it was developed using the TesSeRact(TM) Ram-Resident Library and supports the TesSeRact Standard for Ram-Resident Program Communication. All licensing requirement for TesSeRact have been met. If you'd like more information about TesSeRact, contact the TesSeRact Development Team at: TesSeRact Development Team c/o Chip Rabinowitz 2084 Woodlawn Avenue Glenside, PA 19038 (215) 884-3373 Compuserve: 70731,20 MCIMAIL: 315-5415 This MCIMAIL Account has been provided to the TesSeRact Development Team by Borland International, Inc. The TesSeRact Development Team is in no way associated with Borland International, Inc. TesSeRact is a trademark of the TesSeRact Development Team. TesSeRact is Copyright 1988 TesSeRact Development Team, All Rights Reserved. What's Shareware ═══════════════ With shareware, the software author sends evaluation copies to a few central places such as bulletin boards. They in turn make copies available to others at little or no cost. Quality software is passed on continuously, making the software readily available to all. Users need only pay for software that works for them. Since there are many shareware authors, and a large audience for quality shareware, some companies called disk vendors have formed to bring the two together. By charging a small copying fee, they can collect catalogs of shareware, pay for toll-free telephone numbers, take credit charges for disk copying fees, and make a profit. A catalog from these vendors is the best survey of quality shareware available. They usually charge $5 or less per disk and maybe $5 or less for shipping and handling. Shareware authors get no payment from the bulletin boards or disk vendors who distribute the shareware. When you pay a vendor for an evaluation copy of the software, the payment covers their expenses and goes to their profit. The shareware authors get paid only when you pay them directly for the products you choose after you evaluate them. Although you can evaluate the software before paying, it is not free. If you continue to use the software after a reasonable evaluation period, you are required to pay for it. Shareware is protected by the Copyright laws. However, since the software author does not keep track of who is evaluating the software, you're not going to get a bill. Rather, you are on your honor to pay for the software. It is much like public supported television. Where's My Copy? ════════════════ If you are ready to buy the software, order it directly from Hexagon Products. See below for the address and price list. If you are looking for an evaluation copy, you should find it from one of the shareware channels. Because of the indirect method of distribution, shareware ends up in many more places than the author ever knows about. If you can't find Hexagon Products sharewarre on a bulletin board or from a local users group, you can use one of the following sources which carry the most recent versions: The HPPERIP forum of Compuserve. Public Brand Software in Indiana, 800-426-3475. Public Software Library in Texas, 800-242-4775. Registration ════════════ The price of P4PS is $20. You also get a small landscape soft font for LaserJets that prints 240 characters across the page, suitable for spreadsheet printing. Send check to: or contact: P4PS Bill Arendt Hexagon Products (708) 692-3355 P.O. Box 1295 76064,1776 Park Ridge, IL 60068-1295 P4PS is a new product, and I'm open to any suggestions you have for improving it. When you register P4PS 1.0, please include your comments as well as the following information: Name:______________________________________________________ Company:___________________________________________________ Address:___________________________________________________ City:_________________________________State:_______________ Zip:___________________Phone:______________________________ Please circle what you use: Printer Brand / Model: II IIP III IIIP Other:_____________________________________________________ Diskette: 3.5 5.25 Either Where did you find P4PS?___________________________________ Suggestions for improvement?_______________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________