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Below is Bruce Patterson's printing troubles with PM5 help guide.
For those of you who are having trouble printing from Pagemaker 5.0
(and who isnt these days?) this may come in handy. I would strongly
suggest that you take a look at the FAQ.FAQ file first; it will
contain the most up-to-date suggestions/bug-fixes. (There is a
whole section just devoted to printing problems with PM5). Bruce
offers some general suggestions that definitely can be of some
help (and not all people may agree with them :-). And the first
person who buys a smart spell checker for Bruce gets an award!
:-) (All in fun)
Geof.
[gwp@cs.purdue.edu]
--------------------------------------------------------------------
******************************************************************
My document wont print how do I fix it?
A guide to printing troubles from PM5
this is very much a pointed at the PC version
By Bruce Patterson
Email bruce@tickle.equinox.gen.nz
******************************************************************
The Majority of the problems people have reported about Pagemaker have
been in the area of printing. I have jotted down a few notes with
things I have noticed personally since I got PM5 for the PC. I have
had a number problems in the printing with PM5 but pretty well with
out exception I have been able to fix them by altering something other
than PM5. By this I mean the trouble has been with a font or a graphic
etc. One could argue that its was the other things that were at fault
or that PM5 is to fussy. For example you cant import an EPS or Adobi
Illustrator EPS that was created in Corel Draw 4 but you can import
the same EPS into Freehand and Word. So you would say that there is
nothing wrong with the EPS from Corel Draw and PM5 import filter is
busted. But you can import EPS files created from Freehand (yes you
can import them into Freehand and out again and then into PM5). I
don't know who is at fault but I do know Corel Draw have altered there
EPS export filter to allow stuff to go into PM5 see your Corel Dealer
for the maintenance update (or if you bought Corel late enough
you probably already have an updated version).
A FEW WORDS ABOUT DRIVERS
=========================
Below I have quoted a bit from the PM5.0 Readme file off of the PC
disks. Read the readme file especially if you are running Aldus
photoshop.
PREPARING TO INSTALL PRINTER DRIVERS
============================================
The HP LaserJetIII driver included with Windows 3.1 does not
support the newer universal driver technology required by
PageMaker 5.0. To install the HP LaserJet III driver
included with PageMaker, follow these steps:
1) When Aldus Setup opens the "Printers" Control Panel,
remove any HP printer listings from the "Installed Printers"
list box.
2) Follow the steps with the heading "To install a printer
driver in Windows," beginning on page 6 of the PageMaker 5.0
Getting Started manual.
3) When finished installing, use the File Manager to delete
the files HPPCL5A.DRV and HPPCL5A.HLP from your
Windows\System directory. (Note, if you receive an error
message, restart Windows and try deleting these files
again.)
I wouldn't ignore the instruction to delete the HPPCL5A.DRV files from
Windows\system directory. PM5 really wants to use the new driver and
if you load up an old document then it will find the driver in the
windows system directory and use it. Once you have deleted it it will
give you the message cant find HPdriver when you load the old document
and all you have to do is change it to the new driver in the Pagesetup
box. This could account for a lot of complaints about not being able
to do something like print reversed print in one document but being
able to do it in another.
PRINTER DRIVERS
===============
The most important question is are you running the right printer
drivers. PM5 comes with drivers for HP laserjet and Postcript and it
really wants to use them. The drivers are on disk seven and you can
install them in the normal way from the printer icon in the control
menu. PM5 is distributed with a new postcript driver if you are using
postcript you should use this driver. If you don't you will get a
message saying that the postcript driver is an old one and it doesn't
guarantee the results (this is very polite for no way no how). I have
a postcript driver with a higher version number but an earlier date on
the file and it doesn't like this driver. PM5 postcript supports PPDs
these are ascii files that contain extra info about the postcript
printer (pagesizes screen angles etc). With the extra information PM5
can tailor its output better for the intended printer. So in the past
I had no hesitation in using pretty well any driver for basic stuff
and used to use the driver that had the paper size I wanted. I don't
do this any more since I have had different results on the same file
using different drivers. I had a WMF created in Corel Draw four have
bits of it drop out using the Linotronic 530 driver but was present
when printed from the Linotronic 330 driver. It turns out the WMF file
was at fault and if I shrunk it and printed it with the 530 driver the
bits didn't drop out and if enlarged it and printed it with the 330
driver bits did drop out (resolution made no difference). The WMF was
at fault but one PPD found the fault easier than the other so use the
correct PPD. See the section on PPDs later in this file.
WHY I CAN'T DO REVERSE TYPE ON MY PRINTER?
==========================================
A very common cry since PM5 came out. It seems that Aldus has changed
the way it reverses type or what it thinks the colour paper is.
Unfortunately it seems that all printers that emulate a Laserwriter 3
don't emulate it 100%. You may have to go back to your old driver. If
all else fails have a go at the printer manufacture (through your
printer dealer). PM5 is a big enough force in the market that printer
manufactures want it to work on there printer and will be releasing
new drivers for windows to make sure it works. I have got drivers off
of the agents before and never had any trouble getting them. It is
called customer support. Customer support... a term you probably
remember the guy who sold you the printer using when he couldn't
remember the price or the features. Test him out.
MY PRINTER DOESN'T DO LASERWRITER 3 OR POSTCRIPT
================================================
Try your normal driver. If it doesn't work try another one. Again get
on to the dealer and local agents. There has been a lot of work done
on the printer drivers by the manufactures since windows came out. The
latest drivers aren't on the Windows disks. They are obtained off of
BBS's or from local agents. Just because one driver doesn't work
doesn't mean that another driver for the same printer wont work. One
company I look after was having trouble with the landscape on there
printer. It wasn't a PM5 bug it was a basic bug that was common to all
windows programs using that driver (even PM4). The trouble was it got
the position of the page wrong in landscape (about 6 mm out). I got on
to the local agents and they sent me a driver that brought the error
down to about 1.5 mm but unfortunately it wouldn't do reversed type on
PM5. PM4 yes but not PM5. So they went back to the old driver they
were using that came with Windows and we are after yet a third driver.
The point is both drivers were written for that printer but they were
different. If PM5 doesn't work with your printer driver it doesn't
mean it wont work with another printer driver for your printer.
*******************************************************************
ALL DRIVERS PRESENT AND CORRECT SO WHY WONT IT PRINT
====================================================
Try printing something else and see if you get results. If not then
turn printer off and on and reboot and have another go. If it wont
even print the simplest of things (a new document with one word in it)
then see farther down this list for WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS.
When I get a page that wont print I have a standard procedure I use.
First Save the document under a different name. The reason for this is
you will be deleting stuff and if the machine hangs windows will try
to save it for you and you will lose your original copy. Now try and
print just one page. If it wont print then try the second page. If it
wont print then Kill the first page and try to print the second. When
you print PM does a quick run through the document and there maybe a
fault in the first page that is stopping the second page being
printed. If neither page will print then pick the one with the least
variety of things on it (different typefaces, graphics, lines).
Graphics
The first thing I do is kill the graphics and try to print it. If it
prints then try placing them again (not relinking them actually
replace them). I have had this work twice on some WMF files created in
Corel Draw 4. They would print one day but not the next then I
replaced them and never looked back. If the fault is with the WMF or
PM5 I don't now but on two separate occasions with different files on
different machines I have fixed a file by replacing them. I don't know
if the problem is restricted to WMF file or could relate to graphics
in general. If it is the graphic but replacing it didn't help then try
loading it into something else and printing it as a test. Remember you
do get graphic files with faults in them or compatibility problems. If
possible export it in another format that you can place in PM5.
Sometimes just re-exporting it can fix it up.
Fonts
The next thing to do is look at the fonts. Have you ever had trouble
with the fonts you are using before. If you have a Laserjet printer
with a postcript board will the job print on a the Laserjet but not on
the postcript. I have found fonts that will print on the Laserjet but
not in postcript. It seems that Adobie Type Manager (ATM) is more
forgiving toward a bad font being printed on laserjet than postcript.
One explanation offered to me was there is definite restrictions on
the number of points that can be used to define a letter and if the
type was originally scanned into the type creation package instead of
constructed by hand it could be over the limit. Something that a
particular postcript might not like but laserjet mode wouldn't care
about. I use the Corel Draw 4 fonts and found that both Geographic
symbols and Common bullets in ATM format work fine when printed in
Laserwriter but go toes up when printed in postcript. I have a friend
report that Common bullets in TTF format did exactly the same thing.
Try deleting the type or changing the face and see if it makes any
difference. If the type prints but there is something wrong with the
spacing between some of the letters then you may have a font with
corrupted font pairs. I had trouble like this with Gatineanu from
Corel Draw 3. It printed fine on the Laserwriter but certain letters
mucked up when printed in postcript. The funny thing was changing
typeface wasn't enough. It still mucked up between some of the letters
(yes I retyped it heaps of times and no there was no hand kerning). I
fixed the problem by sticking the typeface through Font Monger and it
regenerated the kerning pairs and everything was fine. I have also had
trouble printing in postcript with Swizerland Narrow but I cant
remember if it was the one that came with Corel draw 3 or 4. I thought
is was the one that came with 3 but looking at both manuals I see 4
has a set as well and it could well be the ones that came with 4 that
were faulty. I am very confordent that the faces that come with Corel
Draw 4 are fine with the above exceptions because I did 3 A3 posters
of the fonts and printed them out through an immagesetter to prove the
definitions were sound.
LINES AND GRAPHICS CREATED FROM WITHIN PM5
==========================================
I have never had any trouble with lines etc from PM5 but I had a
document in Freehand that wouldn't print from Postcript until I killed
all the lines and redid them so they are not above suspicion in my
book.
*********************************************************************
GENERAL GOOD IDEAS FOR FAULT FINDING
====================================
If it is at all possible try the document on another computer. If it
works then there is something wrong with the setup of the first. When
you get a crash on a PC you can get problems with the structure of the
hard drive. You can get files that were open when you crashed not
being cleaned up by the system. To check your hard drive drop to dos.
By that I mean exit windows until you get a prompt that says
C:
it may have a directory name after it but that doesn't matter and type
CHKDSK /F
this invokes the program check disk and the /F means fix any faults
you find. If you have never done this I would put money on it you will
have some lost clusters. Lost clusters are no crime most PC get them
after a crash. Just reply Y to when it says convert to files. A lost
cluster is a file that is marked as being used by the system in the
File Allocation Table but has no name associated with it (because of
the crash). Converting it to a file just gives these lost clusters a
name so you can delete them. The files to delete can be found in the
root directory (C:\) and are called FILE0001.CHK and FILE0002.CHK and
FILE0003.CHK etc depending on how many lost clusters and chains of
them there are. Deleting them will remove nothing that you haven't
already lost already from the system. Do not hesitate kill them.
Printing the postcript file on your printer. When push comes to shove
postcript is postcript and you should be able to print it on any
postcript printer. Where is differs is things like resolution and
colour etc. But I have dumped many a colour postcript file set at 2400
dots per inch and then printed the file out on our postcript printer
to test it before sending it the file off to be immageset. The way to
print the dumped file is to exit windows (go back to MSDOS) and change
to the directory that the file is in example
CD C:\dump
will change to the dump directory in the root directory of the hard
drive. Then type
PRINT FILENAME.PS
then press return if it ask you if you want to print it to PRN.
Filename.ps is of course the name of the file. Make sure your printer
is set to postcript. I will say that again MAKE SURE YOUR PRINTER IS
SET TO POSTCRIPT. A postcript file is a text file of instructions. A
two meg file is nothing for postcript. If you don't set your printer
to postcript it wont treat the file as a list of commands it will
instead treat it as a text document and print out hundreds of pages of
little numbers. Be warned you need quite a bit of memory on your
printer to do big postcript files. If you are testing a postcript file
you have had trouble with on an immage setter you might try taking out
big Tif's and eps's etc. Find out how much memory your printer has got
and look at the size of the postcript file. If it is very big then try
printing one page at a time. Memory shouldn't be a consideration when
you get it immageset they have quite a bit of memory in immagesetter
but most normal printers don't have anywhere near that much. A
postcript viewer is a good test of a files integrity. See HANDY TOOLS
FOR FAULT FINDING towards the end of this article.
********************************************************************
OTHER PROBLEMS WITH THE PRINTER
===============================
WHERE HAVE MY FONTS GONE?
Reason one and reason two are quite long if you have no trouble with
vanishing font you may want to read the rest of the file instead and
just give this a quick scan after.
Possible reason one
If you have installed heaps of fonts you may find that they aren't all
there when you go to use them with a postcript printer. Normally the
first thing you will see is the message cant find font "BLAG" when you
load the document. Note this is not an uncommon message because some
of the fonts are printer resident on one printer but not on the other.
The fonts I am referring to are Softfonts that should be common to
both printers (ATM fonts for example). Another good place to look if
you suspect all is not well in the garden is in the Addition
Publication Info (under Utilities menu). It lists the fonts in the
document and on the system. If you find the fonts are there from the
Laserwriter but not postcript. There is a couple of reasons that this
could happen. The first thing to find out is if there vanishing is
common to all programs. By this I mean if you start up an other
Windows program and set the printer to postcript do you have the same
reduced number of fonts. If the answer is yes then I would say the
reason is you have to many fonts installed for your WIN.INI file to
handle. When you install fonts using ATM they go onto your system and
can be used by a Laserwriter etc without anything else happening. But
When you have a postcript printer installed it needs to tell the
computer where to find the downloadable font definitions. It does this
by updateing the WIN.INI file which is in the WINDOWS directory. This
magic file contains a lot of different info about programs (defaults
etc) as well as postcript font info. The only trouble is it can only
be 65535 bytes long (and be reliably accessed by the programs that
need it). So have a look and see if it is close to this. If it is
close then it is possible that when you installed extra fonts it
didn't have room to put them in the file and the font info isn't in
the WIN.INI file. The way to really tell is to look at the WIN.INI
file. You can do this by printing it out or loading it into a
wordprocessor or viewing it in a file viewer like XTGOLD. If you load
it into a wordprocessor make sure you don't save it down again as a
wordprocessor file because it is a pure ASCII file (simple text file)
and the machine wont run if you save as a wordprocessor file. A
wordprocessor file gets extra info such as margins typefaces tabs etc
that don't belong in the file. Anyway look at the file and look for a
section called POSTCRIPT on LPT1: Below it you will see a list of
names of font files and the line that says for example SOFTFONTS=295.
Note the list may look a bit different to yours I have loaded up mine
but I run font minder which lays it out a bit differently. I have
moved it around as I remember it being before I had Fontminder (see
Handy tools later in this file for Fontminder). The area is very
distinctive it is normally enormous. You cant tell the fonts by name
from this list they are called softfont1 softfont2 etc. Don't confuse
them with other fonts listed in the same WIN.INI file which are either
Truetype fonts or system fonts.
[PostScript,LPT1]
ATM=placeholder
softfonts=295
softfont1=C:\PSFONTS\1102A___.PFB,C:\PSFONTS\1102A___.PFM
softfont2=C:\PSFONTS\1103A___.PFB,C:\PSFONTS\1103A___.PFM
softfont3=C:\PSFONTS\0001A___.PFB,C:\PSFONTS\0001A___.PFM
etc down the list. Go to the bottom of the list and see what the last
number is and if it matches the number of fonts that should be on the
system as marked in the line SOFTFONTS=295. If the number is short
then that is why you cant find all your fonts.
Ok you what do you do about it?
Go into ATM and deinstall all the fonts. It doesn't remove them from
the harddrive. The ATM fonts are normally in the directory
C:\PSFONTS Outline definitions
C:\PSFONTS\PFM Letter wides (matrix)
To reinstall them I normally copy them all into a temporary directory
(both the .PFB and .PFM files into the same temporary directory). The
reason I copy them into the same directory is I have never been sure
if ATM is intelligent enough to find the .PFM in another directory and
I have always been scared it just assignees a standard PFM file if it
can't find the real one. To reinstall them click on the top font name
then scroll down the list to the bottom and hold down the SHIFT key
and click on the bottom font name. This will select all the fonts
inbetween. Normally if it didn't fit the first time it wont fit the
second time unless somethings else has happened inbetween such as you
reinstalling windows or doing something else that would make the
WIN.INI file smaller. When you are installing ATM fonts it puts the
download font information in the WIN.INI file under any entries it
finds for postcript printers. So if you have a postcript (anyname)
printer installed on LPT2 then you will find an entry in the WIN.INI
file for POSTCRIPT on LPT2 and a complete copy of the fonts. This in
also the case for a POSTCRIPT printer installed for FILE. Which was
the standard way to get postcript to print to a file under PM4.0. PM5
lets you Write postcript files to the harddrive without having to have
a printer set up as FILE. You do this by selecting Write to file in
the printer dialogue box from inside PM5. If you still have a printer
set up to FILE as a hang over from PM4.0 then removing it would let
you have twice as many fonts in the WIN.INI file. You remove it by
going to the Printer icon in the Windows Control Panel and removing
it. Note you may need POSTCRIPT PRINTER on FILE for another program
such as Freehand. You can write an EPS to harddrive from inside
Freehands printer box but it is an EPS I don't think it is really
intended for remote printing. When you print to FILE you get a total
capture of a postcript file that is intended for a printer. You may
try something simple and it look as if it works but try doing a four
colour separation and then print it. Basically if you have Freehand
keep the Printer on File. If you have to have FILE and all the fonts
you have a problem. Note we are talking about a pretty large number of
fonts here so it may not be that much of a problem. You can reinstall
and de-install fonts as needed or reinstall and de-install FILE and
LPT1 printers as needed but a better way to keep a handle on your
fonts is with a program like Fontminder. It lets you install fonts on
only LPT1 or only FILE instead of installing it automatically under
both for you. For a better description of the virtues of Fontminder
see the section called Handy tools later in this file. Note if you
have clobbered your WIN.INI file by installing to many fonts it is
possible that it has become corrupt and you may have to reinstall
Windows. See the section called "When all else fails" for some special
considerations about reinstalling Windows. A small note True Type
doesn't download font definitions so it wont clobber the WIN.INI file
by over filling it with type definitions.
Where have all my fonts gone? Possible reason two.
If you find you changed to postcript and the font list seems corrupt
there is another possible reason. Have a look under an other program
an see if the fonts are still there. If they are test that it isn't
lying by trying a couple. If it looks like the problems is Pagemakers
only then the reason is because PM5.0 keeps its own list of fonts on
the system instead of building a list every time it starts up. This is
one of the reasons PM5 loads faster than PM4.0 did. PM4.0 had to say
hello to all the fonts where PM5.0 only has to update the new fonts it
finds on in the system list as it starts up. If you are having trouble
it is possible that this list has become corrupt. I have had this
trouble but it certainly isn't wide spread. We run a tremendous number
of fonts at work to keep the designers happy (upwards of 1000). When I
was doing some type posters of 755 fonts I had this trouble. I was
doing the posters as I had time in my normal work. So I was doing
quite a bit of putting on and removing of large numbers of fonts.
There was a number of times I when I changed printer to postcript (on
any job not just the type posters) and there were no fonts there. All
that was left was a small list of about 35 fonts none of which were
soft fonts they were all the printer resident fonts. I had this
trouble from any document. I reinstalled fonts it made no difference.
I reinstalling PM5 it made no difference. I reinstalled Windows and
PM5 and it made no difference. Then I removed both Windows and PM5 and
reinstalled them and it came right. It was then I realised that PM5
keeps a file of the fonts in the Windows directory and just
reinstalling a new Windows and PM5 wasn't enough to overwrite it. The
good news is all you have to do is delete it and it recreates it the
next time you start PM5. The file is called _LPT1 and if you have a
printer installed for file you will also have the file _FILE they both
are in the Windows directory. Another file that can be deleted and PM5
will recreate it is PM5.CNF but I have never had a need to do this.
See when all else fails for some notes on reinstalling Windows and
PM5.
IT PRINTS ON MY POSTCRIPT PRINTER BUT NOT ON THE IMMAGESETTER?
==============================================================
I had this problems with a big 32 page brochure full of text and a
large mixture of graphics. The postcripted file would print on our
postcript printer but the when I took it to the Mac and immagesetter
it wouldn't even print single pages. So I took the same single pages
to a Mac we have at work and used the same downloading software to
print the exact same files on its postcript printer and it printed
fine. So I then sent it to another bureau and they couldn't print it
either. Much pulling out of hair then followed. It turns out the file
was created by printing to FILE using a printer setup to print to FILE
(POSTCRIPT ON FILE) instead of the file being dumped using the write
command from the print box within PM5. The reason it was being done
like this was my designers at work and scared of change and were doing
it the way they used to do it in PM4.0. We certainly had lots of jobs
work by printing them to FILE but there is definitely something
different about it because when I wrote the file to disk using the
Write to file option in the printer box the job worked first time
without a hassal (all 32 pages). I don't know if it goes through a
different set of code that has been fine tuned or if printing it
instead of writing it requires the printer to be physically hooked up
to it for handshakeing purposes but there was definitely a difference.
I GET A MESSAGE SAYING THAT THE TRIM MARKS WONT FIT ON THE PAGE WHEN
I PRINT IN LANDSCAPE?
====================================================================
If you want to get pagemaker to print the trim marks for you, you of
course have to print to a bigger papersize. If you do a portrait job
in A4 (or letter) and try to print it to A4 extra (or Letter extra) it
works fine you get no message warning you about the trim marks not
fitting. If you try to do the same thing with a landscape you get this
worrying message about them not fitting. This is not the sort of
message that gives you a warm feeling when you are dumping a 16 page
four colour brochure to film. The good news is the trim marks go on it
is just that PM5 get the calculation wrong for the warning message
when it is in landscape. It seems to me it forgets to rotate the
figures when it is checking for landscape. I say this because you
don't get the message if you make the printed pagesize big enough to
be able to print a portrait page to the landscape page. In other words
you get the message if you try to print A4 landscape to A4 extra
landscape (should fit) you get it if you try to print A4 landscape to
A3 landscape (about three inches all around it) but you don't get the
message if you print A4 landscape to A3 extra landscape (which is tall
enough to have an A4 extra portrait page printed on it). It is a bit
hard to explain but there is nothing stopping you printing to the
extra sizes and ignoring the message. I am not just saying this I have
tried it. If you don't have the extra sizes in your printer PPD then
see the section on PPDs later in this file. A small note about
userdefined printer pagesizes. I tried using userdefined pagesizes
when I was using PM4.0 and never had it work once. Since then I have
been to scared to waste money trying them out. I am very confident
about sizes in the PPD and would have no hesitation about adding a
custom size there and using it.
BOY DO MY TIFFS COME OUT DARK WHEN I GET THEM IMMAGESET?
========================================================
What kind of immagesetter are you going to. There is a known bug when
printing to the AGFA Imagesetters. I read about this early on but
thought it was just something wrong with the PPD and it didn't worry
me because I was using the Linotronic 330 PPD anyway because the Agfa
one didn't have the extra pagesizes (see PPD section for solution).
But I had the same trouble with the Linotronic driver. Since then I
have started using the Agfa driver and just added the fix and the
extra pagesizes. To fix the tiff problem either print it as a EPS or
add the following line to the PPD. You go right to the end of the PPD
and you will see a few lines of comments. Place the new line above
these and after the last line that starts with
*ColorSepScreenFreq........
make sure it is the last line because there are heaps of lines that
start with ColorSepScreenFreq..... in the file (it may work anywhere
in the file but that is where mine is).
The line to add is as follows
*JobPatchFile 0:"/ALPS where{ALPS begin /colorexists false def end}if"
and then save the PPD. Words cannot express the difference this will
make. See the section on PPDs for more information of PPD updating.
Note you have to have this fix on your system if you are sending
Postcript files to an immagesetting house. It is not enough for them
to have done the fix at there end. The PPD is used by Pagemaker when
it postcripts the file they are not used when the already postcripted
file is put on to another computer and printed.
*********************************************************************
UPDATING PPDS
*********************************************************************
WHAT IS A PPD?
PPD=Postcript Printer Definition. There are a number of different
postcript printers in the world each having different fonts, default
screens pagesizes etc. Before in PM4.0 on the PC you had a separate
driver for each postcript printer. This has two problems. One a lot of
the code is repeated in each driver so it is a waist plus you cant
just update one base level driver and have a new version for all the
drivers. Two you cant edit any of the info or add things to it. This
is what a PPD file is for. Basically you have the base postcript
driver (Postcript on LPT1) and separate files containing information
that the is used in conjunction with the baselevel drivers. These
files or PPDs can be edited and added to in a wordprocessor.
WHERE ARE THESE MAGIC FILES?
They go on when you installed PM5 (printers files). They live on the
hard drive in the directory
c:\ALDUS\UKENGLISH\PPD4
or
C:\ALDUS\UNENGLISH\PPD4
this is depending on how you answered the question which keyboard
would you like when you started the install. If you have installed
PM5.0 more than once and answered this question differently you could
have more than one copy of the PPDs. This is no crime but only one
will be being used. I would move the files out of one of the
directories restart PM5.0 and see if your PPDs appear in the printer
box. If they are there then you must be set up to be using the others.
Either way I would only have one copy of the PPDs on the drive to make
sure you are altering the one you want to alter.
HEY I HAVE A DIRECTORY UNDER ALDUS CALLED PPDS AS WELL?
This means you also have Freehand. Freehand had PPDS before Pagemaker
but the two are different which means Freehand reads Freehand PPDs and
Pagemaker reads Pagemaker PPDs but they will both work with the base
printer driver.
I DON'T HAVE ANY PPD FILES ON MY DRIVE?
Who ever installed your copy of Pagemaker didn't think it was
important and skipped or cancelled. Go back to the install disk and
just select Printer files from the install menu. Then select the PPDs
you will need.
HOW TO GET AWAY WITHOUT DOING IT
The professional desktop publishing houses are not exactly noted for
having a very high percentage of programmers and general hackers. The
average designer is not the sort of person who dives in with both feet
and starts altering system files on the computer. If you need an
updated PPD and don't want to updated it yourself try your local
immagesetting house or the local supplier of PM5. The immagesetter
houses are very keen on you having a PPD that works because the last
thing they want you to discover is that your files don't work with
them but when you change PPD and use the bureau down the road
everything works fine. If they haven't got a fixed one from the
supplier the chances are that they might have already gotten one from
a local source that has updated the PPD for there own use. I have
updated a couple of PPDs and the first thing I did was give them to
the bureaus to hand out. On the Mac there is a PM5 addition update PPD
which I am told reads papersize etc from the immagesetter. I have no
such addition in my PC version but there is a file in the
ALDUS\Utilities directory that has a postcript file that looks like it
is something to do with it. But I don't like the idea of using a
program to update it and sitting in front of me I have a piece of
paper talking about it and using it for updating the papersizes but it
mentions people having had trouble with it and says this is a known
problem to Aldus corporation, who are currently working on a fix.
WHAT CAN I ALTER?
Answer only what you are sure of. There is default screen rulings and
angles. I would be very reluctant to alter these. I am picking someone
has gone to a lot of trouble to make sure these are correct (at least
I hope someone has). But if you find you are always altering your
screen angles when you do a job this is the place to change the
defaults. This is the place to put in fixes such as the one mentioned
above for fixing the dark tiffs on the Agfa immagesetter. But if you
know enough to work out your own fixes you wouldn't be reading my text
so I would only put in fixes you have been instructed work. Reading
other files and seeing something you don't understand and copying it
over in hopes that it will fix something is dumb. The only thing I
would feel safe about altering is the Pagesizes and luckily enough
this is the easiest to do. Unfortunately not all PPDs have all
papersizes. The paper sizes are expressed in points (1/72 of an inch)
this is because postcript thinks in points not mm or inches. If you
find your PPD doesn't have for example A4 extra the easiest way to add
it is to find a PPD that has it print out the PPD and use the extra
bits as a guide to adding lines to the one you want to alter. It may
be a bit confusing to look at for a first time. You see lines that
define A4 as being A4. Just defining A4 Extra as being A4 Extra isn't
enough. A4 is defined as a size in points toward the beginning of the
file. I altered the Agfa Accuset PPD by printing out the Linotronic
330 PPD and adding in the extra lines from that and it worked. Note
you have to modify it in a few places for each paper size. If you are
adding a size that you cant find an example of (A1 or A2 for example)
then you have to have a look at the structure and actually start
working things out in points. I added A1 and A2 to a QMS driver to be
used on a Big bubble jet and didn't find it to much trouble. When it
came to the area on immagable area I just gave it the same area as the
papersize. If you don't feel confident doing this then don't do it.
Get on to your bureau or supplier and moan until they get you one.
Note PPDs are ascii files if you load one into a wordprocessor such as
Wordperfect or MSword to alter it then make sure you save it as ASCII
or plain text files. Normal wordprocessor files have lots of
information on margins tabs fonts etc saved with them that will render
the PPD unintelligible to PM5.0.
A SPECIAL NOTE ABOUT ALTERRING PPDS
If your PPD wont load and gives an error after you have altered it
then you will probably find the editor you used to do the changes has
put a Control Z at the end of the file. Microsoft says that Ascii
documents should have a Control Z after the file and PM5 says they
shouldn't. I found the editor that comes with Xtgold puts a Control Z
at the end of the file but the editor that comes with MSDos 5 (edit)
doesn't. Isn't it nice to see Xtgold sticks the specs but Microsoft
doesn't. To fix this all you have to do is load it into an editor that
doesn't put a Cntrl Z on the end and go to the last letter in the file
and delete anything after it and save it again. Note there is a
checksum mentioned in the last few lines of the PPD it is not checked
when the PPD is loaded it is only there to see if anyone has altered
it. What the formula is for the checksum is a mystery to one and all.
But not need to alter the PPD.
*********************************************************************
HANDY TOOLS FOR FAULT FINDING.
*********************************************************************
If your problem is not getting the results you were expecting when you
got the program immageset then there are a few things that could help
you.
A POSTCRIPT PRINTER
===================
Most PC people go along to there immagesetting Bureau and find them
running Mac to do the printing. The price of PC's has caused a lot of
work to come there way from PC's. This is causing a lot of them to
start adding PC to there immagesetter as well to make it easier to get
files of PC owners. The truth of the matter even if they have a PC
most of them don't have the sort of fault finding experience with PC's
to help you find what is wrong with your document (or the time to
spend). You can find your document prints fine on your laserwriter but
not on there immagesetter. If you had a postcript printer you would
find that it didn't print at your place as well and have a chance to
fix it before you pay money to get it immageset. An immagesetter is no
machine to be sticking endless printouts on in search of an error. You
will beable to find fonts that don't like postcript etc. In a section
above I explained about using the MSDOS command PRINT to test a file
you want to send to a bureau to print. Another good way to test a file
is with a Postcript viewer.
POSTCRIPT VIEWER
================
A postcript viewer is a program that lets you view the postcript file
on screen. It uses the screen as if it were a printer. I consider it
my best tool in the testing files that print on a laserwriter but not
on postcript. It has a number of advantages over a postcript printer.
If is quicker than a postcript printer. We have a very slow postcript
board and this not only gets me the results quicker it lets someone
else use the printer. It will view documents bigger than the printer
can print. This is very handy when you want a quick look a series of
A3 separations before sending them off to the bureau. You could of
course print them scaled down and use the PRINT command from MSDOS to
check them but it is always nice to view the same document you are
sending to the Bureau. Plus it will let me view documents that the
printer cant handle because of memeory restrictions. There are a few
commercial viewers available on the PC which work extremely well
including one Grueber put out for use with there signwriting gear but
last time I looked it cost more than a postcript printer. The one I
use is called Goscript. It was originally a unix program but has been
recompiled for MSDOS. I have never seen a version for the MAC. It is a
shareware program that I don't think has had much use in the Desktop
publishing area. It has been used more in the home computer field.
Where it is used to print postcript files on none postcript printers.
The reason it has not found much use in the Desktop publishing area is
it is not that friendly. The manual is basically the one that comes
with the unix version and you are left very much to your own devices
to get discover the basic few things that will let you use it.
Goscript can be obtained from FTP sites and BBS around the world. You
may have to hunt for it but if you are reading this on Newsnett then
you will probably have access to an FTP site and can get a copy of it.
I have never given Goscript to anyone because of its unfriendlyness.
Now there is a shareware extension to it that has put a front end on
it. It is called Goview and it has made it a friendly program that
runs with a windows interface. It basically hands instructions off to
Goscript (version 261) and has a small manual that comes with it that
is a lot easier to read than all the ones that come with goscript261.
I have used Goscript for quite a few months now and have been
surprised at how good it is for a shareware program. It quite happily
viewed the A3 type posters I did. These were each 17meg files and one
page had 280 fonts on it. It quite happily read each of the type
definitions in the file and used them. A couple of things worth
mention are. There is something wrong with Goview. Every now and then
you go to start it and it says it cant find one of the libraries (or
something like that) and tells you to reinstall it. To get it going
again you delete the icon and add a new icon to it and it will run
again. I have no Idea what is going on but that fixes it. I thought at
first it might be something that was designed to get you to register
it but it doesn't say to register it but instead to reinstall it. What
the hell deleting the icon and putting a new one does to fix it is
beyond me (isn't windows fun). Also it is slower than just running
GOWIN261 which is the program it passes the instructions to. If you
get GO386261 it runs even faster but you have to run it from MSDOS not
windows. I quite often drop back to dos to use it to print a postcript
file on the printer in non postcript mode. You have batch files to
make printing easier for you. There are two things need to happen to
the GSLJ.BAT file to let you print postcript on a non postcript
printer. First change the bit at the start that says @GS to @GS386 or
rename GS386 to be GS.exe there is a 286 version as well so they just
put GS in the batch file and then bury the instructions deep in the
manual so you will never find it. The other thing to change is toward
the end of the line batch file. There is a bit that says something
like ****.PS I cant for the life of me remember what the 4 characters
are but they at the end of the line just before all the % stuff. Take
this out I think it is some sort of initialisation that lets you print
postcript faster on postcript printers. The you can use the batch file
to print out postcript files. Or you can just print them from GOVIEW
which is slower but easier to understand.
ANOTHER PROGRAM TO TEST GRAPHICS IN
===================================
If the graphic wont print from PM5 then try it in something else. If
you can convert it to another format then do it and try it back in
PM5.
FONTMINDER
==========
Font minder is a wonderful program for the PC that lets you have
suitcases for the PC. If you only have a small number of fonts and
aren't constenly take them off and on again then you don't need them
but if you are a design house where every job is preceeded by the
instructions the customer wants something different then you tend to
end up have heaps of fonts chocking up the system. Adobi Type Manager
2.5 lets you add typefaces without having to restart windows. This its
self is a help but when your machine has slowed to a crawl and you
have desided it is time to take a few off it is a lot nicer to be able
to take them off in groups. You have your base lot of font then all
the rest of them in suitcases of A B C etc then when you want to clean
up everything you just take off all the other cases and the base
suitcase. If you are an beauro then it could be a god send you could
have one suitcase for the fonts from firm whatever that you load
everytime you load one of there PM5 files. Suitcases for the PC sounds
a bit to good to be true and I had my doubts about it but when I got
it I figured out what it was doing and have lots of fath in it.
Basicly it isn't another typemanager it just controls the one you are
running (ATM). It just runs around and updates the ATM and WIN.INI
files as if ATM had done it. The advantages to this is it will let you
do groups of fonts instead of one font at a time. It does it a lot
faster than ATM and it doesn't update both the FILE and the LPT1
settings in the WIN.INI file so you can have twice as many fonts being
in there before the file gets to big. I am sure a future release of
ATM will do exactly the same thing and give us suitcases as part of
ATM. The really nice thing is it works out what length the WIN.INI
file will be after it has finished updating it and wont update it if
is going to get to big so it doesn't corrupt it.
*********************************************************************
WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS
*********************************************************************
Hopefully you are reading this bit just for the fun of it and aren't
actually at the end of your tether. If the document prints on another
machine and you are unable to get this one to work. Or if you are
getting other things happening that are unsortoutable it could be time
for a total reinstall. I have done lots of reinstalls on PC's to fix
font problems (before I discovered the deleting of _LPT1 would fix
it). But I have also reinstalled one machine that was giving amazing
symptoms. I was called in when a file wouldn't dump (using write to
disk command). I thought he meant it wasn't printing but it was going
through all the motions but no file on the hard drive. What he cried
do it again no file. Check the hard drive for errors none found. Dump
again and again singing Alduses praises as you go still no file. Re
install PM5 still wont dump. Reinstall Windows and PM5 still wont
dump. Remove Windows and PM5 and reinstall both of them and then it
works. I would love to be able to try it again and just delete the
_LPT1 file and see if that was enough to fix it but at the time I
didn't know the file existed. If you are going to reinstall PM5 I
think it is a good Idea to remove it. If you have a poke around in one
of the ALDUS directories you will find a log of what happened when you
installed PM5. I have reinstalled PM5 over an existing PM5 and looked
at this log and seen messages to the effect
FILTER BLARG found not replaced.
Which seems dumb to me. If I have corrupted a filter somehow and want
to replace it by reinstalling one from PM5 then it wont get replaced.
REINSTALLING WINDOWS
====================
Windows is brain dead. When you install software a lot of the installs
write information into a file WIN.INI which is found in the Windows
directory. This in its self is fine except when you reinstall windows
for what ever reason it overwrites this file with a default one and
the only way to get the info back into the WIN.INI file is to
reinstall the rest of the software. So be aware of this before you
reinstall windows and make sure you have the software to reinstall. If
someone popped in one day and said here have a copy of "Whatever" and
installed it on your machine and you didn't get a copy of the disks
then there is a good chance when you reinstall Windows it wont run.
WHAT CAN I DO TO AVOID THIS?
============================
Make a copy of the WIN.INI file into another directory. If my WIN.INI
file becomes corrupt (for whatever reason) I just copy an old copy
over it and that will normally fix it. I normally copy all the .INI
files and restore them all at once. I know people who copy all the
.INI files and all the .DLL files into a backup directory. If you
restore the WIN.INI file then the system will be as it was when you
backed up the WIN.INI file. By this I mean the fonts on the system
etc. You can normally reinstall windows and then copy the WIN.INI file
from the backup directory and get away without having to reinstall
everything again. But normally if just coping the WIN.INI file over
doesn't fix it then reinstalling windows and coping over the WIN.INI
file wont fix it either. You should then reboot Windows.
Ok I have restored my backup WIN.INI and it is still sick
Time to reinstall everything. My attitude is if I have to reinstall
all the software anyway to hell with it I am removing windows and PM5
and the Aldus directories. Then I will get rid of any working files
like _LPT1 that have been created (and are corrupted) and might be
causing me trouble. Removing them is only a few seconds extra work in
a program like Xtgold but installing them takes ages. So installing
them is not a thing you want to have to do twice. Make no mistake if
you run PM5, Freehand, Corel draw and ATM and you do a reinstall of
windows then you will have to reinstall the lot.
If you are removing the programs make sure you don't have any of your
documents were they shouldn't be. By default PM5 and most windows
programs saves documents in its main directory. Removing everything in
its main directory will also remove any documents you have saved in
there. You should always have your documents in a separate directory.
You can make PM5 treat this as the default by setting the working
directory by selecting it (click one on the program icon from Windows)
and selecting Properties (under the file menu from Windows) and
altering the line that says working directory. This works for any
windows program not just PM5. If you aren't sure what you are doing
then get someone who knows what they are doing.
I WANT HELP TO
==============
I hope my file has been of help to you. I am sure not everybody will
understand it all but I hope they will be able to pick out something
to help them. In exchange I want to hear from you. If you had
something go wrong and found a fix for it I and the world want to
know. It is only through exchanges of information that clues to faults
are found and the faults in whatever program are fixed. Newsnett etc
is the perfect place to do this exchange. Please post to this area or
to me directly
Bruce Patterson
114 McGregors Road
Christchurch
New Zealand
Home (03) 389-9569
Work (03) 379-2105
or Email
bruce@tickle.equinox.gen.nz