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-
-
- BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING: make sure that your printer is set to receive
- a downloaded soft font. Most Epson and compatible 24 pin printers
- have a 'buffer' memory that can be set to do one of two jobs (but not
- both). 1. To accept a text for printing so that you can do something
- else with your computer while the printing is going on 'in the back
- ground.' 2. Accept, store and use a downloaded font. You determine
- which of the two jobs the buffer is to do by setting a printer dip
- switch (or make changes from the Setup in the control panel). Usually
- the switch must be set to the off position for downloading. CONSULT
- YOUR PRINTER MANUAL. (On the Epson 550 the switch is 2-5 and on the
- old Epson LQ 1500 it is 1-8.)
-
- The Panasonic printers require that you purchase, as an extra, the
- memory buffer. Cf. PNSONIC.DOC on this disk for more information.
-
- You can see what each of the fonts looks like within the current
- directory by running the PRN_FONT.EXE utility. It will print out each
- font. To work, LQ.EXE must be present.
-
- A First TRY with LQ.EXE and LQMATRIX
-
- DOWNLOADING.
-
- Now, with the dip switch set correctly the very first thing you will
- want to do is to see how your printer prints out the fonts on these
- disks. Nothing could be easier.
-
- After you unpack the fonts (GO) you proceed as follows: At the prompt
- (A>) simply enter LQ <font file> and hit the CR. Font file will be
- the name of any of the fonts present. You need not type in the
- extension. For a start why not try Mr. Philipps' GOTHIC.LQP. Turn on
- the printer then enter:
-
- LQ GOTHIC
-
- after downloading, send a text file to the printer. You should be
- able to do that via your usual word processor (assuming it does not
- reset the printer before printing).
-
- Or if you are in a big hurry use the DOS copy routine:
-
- At the prompt enter:
-
- copy con prn
-
- and hit the CR. Now type in something, as many lines as you want.
- When done enter ^Z (control Z) and then CR. The message will be sent
- to the printer.
-
- All of the fonts have an LQ? extension, thus GOTHIC.LQP, PRES.LQN &
- CAPS.LQD. A final P means it is a proportional font, N a NLQ (near
- letter quality) font, and D a draft font. The proportional fonts are
- the really attractive ones and show off the 24 pin printer at its
- best.
-
- There are various switches that go with the LQ program and the full
- documentation describes each of them. If you enter LQ without a font
- page 2.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- name you will get a short explanation of each of the switches.
-
- If you want to see what the font looks like use the /P switch. Enter
- LQ GOTHIC /P and hit CR. As the font is downloading it will be
- printed out at the printer.
-
- Most of the time you will want to use the fonts from within a word
- processor. In the simpler word processors (WP) and some of the
- earlier versions of the major WPs all you need to do is download the
- font before you boot up or download from the DOS shell.
-
- However, many WPs nowdays reset the printer before they print. In
- doing that it eliminates the downloaded font. There are ways to
- circumvent the resetting. What you have to do is to customize the
- print driver used by the WP by removing the offending code sequence
- which is <esc>@, i.e. ASCII 27, 67 (Hex 1B,40).
-
- Your first job is to find the print driver that you created when you
- installed your program. It is a file that is read by the WP each time
- you boot up. If it is a text file, bring it into your editor and
- remove the code (<esc>@), then save it as an simple ASCII text. If it
- is like the WordPerfect .PRS file you will need to use whatever print
- definition utility comes with your package (WordPerfect's PTR.EXE)
- This utility will guide you to the code which you will then remove.
-
- The current documentation gives information on Word Perfect 5.0 &
- 5.1, XYwrite3, PCwrite, and Word 5.0.
-
- I will gladly help any registered user customize his/her print
- driver. Inquire.
-
- If your WP can download a font directly you will have to create a
- download file with LQ. This is easy to do. Enter LQ [filename] /F.
- Where filename is the name of the font and the /F switch tells LQ to
- create a download file which will keep the name of the original file
- but will change its extension to DW? - thus from GOTHIC.LQP LQ
- creates GOTHIC.DWP.
-
- This can be downloaded from DOS with COPY/B GOTHIC.DWP PRN. Be sure
- to include the binary switch /B after the COPY otherwise DOS will
- stop downloading the first time it reaches the text end of file
- marker: Ctl Z.
-
- EDITING.
-
- Let's say that you would like to make some characters of your own,
- not a full font, but some special characters to take the place of the
- ones you never use like @ or ^ or \.
-
- For this you will use LQMATRIX, the main program. What you do is very
- simple. Enter LQMATRIX and hit the CR. First you will be asked what
- size font you want. Chose one of the three. Now give your file a
- name...say, TRYME.
- page 3.
-
-
-
-
-
-
- You will go to the main menu where you will go directly to the editor
- by hitting E.
-
- You will see on the left a box with the cursor on the left on the
- lower cross line. Move the cursor around with the cursor keys and
- anytime you wish to make a mark hit CR or the space bar (SP). To
- remove a mark put the cursor on the mark and hit either SP or CR.
-
- Many things can be done in the matrix and the Help screen tells you
- about them (also the main documentation). Just hit F1 and scroll
- through help.
-
- If you want to test a character hit P and it will print out. When you
- are satisfied with you design save the character with S and give it a
- position - replace the unwanted @, for example.
-
- After making your extra characters exit the Matrix with Q or ESC and
- then exit the program with Q or ESC again. Your new font will be
- saved.
-
- Download the new font with LQ (or with P then D from the main menu of
- LQMATRIX).
-
- In downloading not only will your new characters be sent to the
- printer's RAM (temporary) memory, but the other built in (Rom)
- characters as well.
-
- Now try writing a document with your new characters and print it out.
-
- Once you have mastered making a few extra characters you are ready to
- make an enterly new font of your own!
-
- Have fun.
-
- J. David Sapir
- [Jimmy Paris Software]
-
- --------------------
-
- LQMATRIX is copyrighted by J.David Sapir 1985,9l,92
-
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-