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1992-01-30
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JETCOL
Shareware Version 1.1
A Compressed Print Utility
Copyright 1992
by
ARCaine Technology
960 Neilson St
Albany, CA 94706
(510) 527-9859
All Rights Reserved
Introduction
JETCOL prints two columns, each up to ninety characters wide, on
laser printers in portrait mode. It is intended to greatly
reduce the huge volume of paper that results from printing
reference manuals and text files. Regular use of this program
should cut your paper bill by 60 to 70 percent.
It provides better readability than other compressed print
programs because it normally ignores page breaks and eliminates
consecutive blank lines (according to your option).By eliminating
more unnecessary white space on the page JETCOL can use a
larger,more readable, type face while printing the same number of
average pages/sheet as other compressed print programs. It is
designed to take maximum advantage of laserjet features to further
enhance readability. JETCOL will print anywhere from two to ten
pages of source material on one side of a sheet of paper. By using
its even/odd alternate side print feature four to twenty pages of
text can be printed using both sides of a page.
By reducing the volume of paper, JETCOL also reduces storage
requirements and the bulk one has to carry around when traveling.
As a side benefit, many JETCOL users actually find it easier and
faster to read the compressed versions than the originals because
they can take in more words at one time without having to scan
across the page.
JETCOL has been tested on several brands and models of laser
printers. If you run into difficulty with your model, please let
me know and I will try to provide a version that is compatible
with your printer.
Every effort has been made to make this program easy to use and
highly readable. Eight different font sizes have been specially
designed for JETCOL. These fonts are automatically selected and
downloaded according to the degree of compression requested when
you specify the number of lines each column should contain
(anywhere from 50 to 240). At the user's option JETCOL will
override its automatic font selection and pick either a larger or
smaller font for a given line spacing to provide either more or
less white space between lines.
The font is nominally pitched at 21.5 characters/inch to allow
adequate space for a left margin and two 80 character columns.
When either a smaller margin is specified (-Mx) or the column
width is reduced (-Wx) the character spacing is automatically
expanded for further readability. The default margin is nine
spaces and the default column width is 80.
JETCOL may be executed via a path statement but all font files
must be located in the same sub-directory as JETCOL.exe if they
are to be found by the program when it comes time to download
them.
Suitability
Compressed print programs are not for everyone. You should
carefully explore how much compression you are comfortable with
before eyestrain becomes a problem. The greater degrees of
compresssion are intended more for archival use than for documents
which will be frequently read.
This program should run on any PC compatible computer with at
least 256K of memory.
Registration
I will keep improving the program if I know enough people are
finding it useful.
My registration policy is very flexible. The nominal fee is $30.
If you don't feel you will get $30 worth of use out of the
program,then send whatever it is worth to you.
This is not freeware or public domain. Shareware is simply a
distribution method for commercial software. You are required to
register if you intend to use this program after a reasonable
trial period.
The registered version of JETCOL permits multiple document names
and wildcards to be used on the command line and eliminates the
registration screen. It allows output to be directed to a file
instead of the printer. It also allows the automatic font
selection to be overridden to customize the document appearance to
your taste.
Please tell me the version number you have when registering.
Registration checks should be made payable to "Tony Caine".
Multi-site fees for commercial users can be negotiated.
Registered version features
* Automargin
The automargin option significantly improves the readability and
appearance of your document. It scans the entire document before
printing, determines how much blank space there is and expands
the lines to utilize this wasted space. The result is a less
crowded, easier to read document.
To get an idea of what the automargin does, first type: JETCOL
JETCOL.DOC <enter>. This prints with the default settings which
are designed to accommodate any documents up to 80 characters
wide. Next type: JETCOL JETCOL.DOC -W69 <enter>. This is the
setting that automargin would choose automatically for JETCOL.DOC
Compare the two printouts for readability and appearance.
*Fixpage
Prints an exact number of pages/column. Original pagebreaks and
formatting retained.
* Multiple document names
Multiple document names and wildcards can be entered on the
command line.
* Append
When specifying multiple documents to print, registered users
have the choice of starting each file at the beginning of a page
or treating all documents as one continuous file without breaks.
* Redirection of output
Registered users can choose to send the output to a disk file for
later printing in background (while running other programs) or
send to LPT2, COM1, COM2, etc.
* The registration screen is eliminated, of course.
Terminology
Since several pages from the original source file are combined
onto a single page of printer output, there may be some confusion
about the word "page." We will always refer to the original
document pages as "source pages." What is actually printed will
simply be called "pages."
Usage:
JETCOL [options] path\filename [options] [path\filename]...
Options may be specified in any order before and/or after the file
name(s). Options must be separated from each other by spaces and
preceded by a "-". Upper and lower case are interchangeable. Each
option, no matter where it is located, will affect the printing of
all files equally.
Options are defined as follows:
-Lxx = Each column will be xx lines long
-Cxx = No more than xx consecutive blank lines will be printed
-Sxx = Skip xx pages before starting to print
-O = Print only odd # pages
-E = Print only even # pages
-Wxx = column width (number of characters in each column)
-P = Pause before printing each page.
-N = Prints filename and page # at lower left corner
-D = Delimit each (source) page with a line and page #
-T = Truncate long lines instead of wrap.
-Fx = Put a margin of x blank lines at the top of each page.
-Mx = Set left margin x spaces from the edge.
-Rx = Create a right margin of x spaces.
*Options available in registered version only*
-A = Append multiple files.
-Z = Route output to disk or another port.
-B = Biases font selection toward larger or smaller fonts.
-Ux = Automatic margin and column width adjustment.
-Xx = Print an exact number of pages/column keeping page breaks.
Defaults: 80 characters/column;96 lines/page;1 consecutive blank
line; no pause before printing page; do not number pages;
wrap (not truncate) long lines;4 blank lines at top of
page.
Description of options
-Lxxx
Each column will contain xxx lines of data. Line spacing will
be automatically adjusted to fill the page. As more lines per
page are requested smaller fonts are automatically selected.
-Cxx
Pages of text frequently contain many blank lines of data.
Experience has shown that most of these can be discarded
without sacrificing readability. This option specifies that
when there are more than xx consecutive blank lines, the
excess will be discarded. The default value is 1.
-Sxx
This feature is useful if you have a paper jam or decide to
print part now and part later. Using this option will cause xx
pages to be skipped before printing begins. For example,
specifying "-S2" will cause printing to begin with page 3.
-O
This and the -E option allow you to print on both sides of
each sheet of paper. By specifying "-O", only the odd numbered
pages will be printed. When printing is complete,reload the
paper back into the feeder so that it will print on the blank
side and rerun JETCOL using the -E option.
-E
Prints only even numbered pages. When using this option after
the -O option be sure to use a left margin setting of 0 to
allow space for hole punching or other binding requirements on
the right side of the sheet (this adjustment is made
automatically when using the automargin option).
-Wxx
This option specifies how wide each column will be. Wrapping
or truncating will begin at this position. It also determines
the print pitch. The more characters/column you specify the
smaller the space between characters.
-P
Program will pause before printing each page. Hit any key to
print a page. This option is useful if you are feeding single
sheets to the printer.
-N
This will cause the filename and page number to be printed in
the lower left-hand corner of each sheet. To avoid confusion
when using the -S, -O and -E options the page numbering is not
reset for each document when multiple documents are specified
on the command line(registered version only).
-D
If you need to keep track of each source page, this option
will print a dashed line with a page number in the middle
whenever a form feed is encountered or after 66 lines of data.
Experience has shown that this option will be rarely used
because most documents either number their own pages or it is
just not important to keep track of original page breaks.
-T
Normally when lines longer than the specified column width are
encountered,JETCOL will wrap the data to the next line. If you
prefer to truncate or discard excess characters on a line, you
should invoke this option.
-Fx
JETCOL will insert x blank lines at the top of each page
before printing. The default is 4.
-Mx
This command sets the left margin x spaces from the edge of
the page. Default is 9. This option also affects print pitch.
The wider the margin you request the more crowded the
characters will be on the page.
-A
When multiple files are specified on the command line
(registered version only) you have the option of either
starting a new page for each file (default) or appending them
as though they were one continuous file. The -A option causes
them to be appended.
-Zfilename
Allows output to be routed to a file instead of to the
printer. The file can then be printed in background while
running other programs. For example, to send output to a file
called PRINT.TXT, you should include -ZPRINT.TXT on the
command line.If PRINT.TXT does not exist, it will be created.
If PRINT.TXT already exists, JETCOL output will be appended to
the end of the file. This command is only active in the
registered version of JETCOL. This option can also be used to
redirect output to LPT2, COM1, COM2, etc.
-Bx
This option biases the font selection to pick either a larger
or smaller font than would ordinarily chosen by JETCOL.
Setting x to 1 picks the next larger font. If x is set to -1,
it picks the next smaller font. If x is set to 2, it will skip
two font sizes larger, and so on. This option is active for
registered users only. Examples: -B1,-B2,-B-1,-B-2...etc. (do
not insert any spaces).
-Ux
X is the number of left margin spaces you request. JETCOL
scans the entire document to be printed to determine its
formatting. Leading blanks in the documant are taken into
account to give you the exact left margin you requested.
Column width is adjusted to accommodate the widest line
in the document. The result is that lines are fully spread
across the page and character spacing is maximized for best
readability.
The automargin option automatically puts the margin you
requested on the right side of the page (for binding) if you
are printing with the -E option (on the reverse side of the
page.)
-Xx
Prints exactly x pages/column retaining original formatting
and page breaks. The value of x may be from 1 to 3.
-Rx
Creates a right margin x spaces wide (in addition to the 1/3"
non-printing area already on right side).Default is 0.
Using JETCOL with a word processor
JETCOL will not work with most word processor documents in their
original form; but most word processors have what is called an
ASCII output or DOS output mode which JETCOL will work with.
For example, with WordPerfect, you can create a JETCOL usable
file with the sequence: Control-F5,1,Save.
Suggested Usage with most often used options
Create a batch file named "J.bat" containing a call for JETCOL
with your most often used options as part of the command line.
You need then only type "J" followed by the filename you wish to
print. You could also include options you wish to add or
override as part of the call. For example J.bat might contain
the following line:
JETCOL -N -L120 %1 %2 %3 %4
(%2 %3 %4 are there in case you enter options or additional
fileneames)
The above set of options would cause JETCOL to print each page
120 lines long and would provide page numbers and filenames at
the bottom.
DOSKEY and ANSI.SYS definitions are an equally good way of
automating the JETCOL command line options. See your DOS manual.
Distribution
Permission is hereby given to copy and distribute this program
as long as no fee other than a minimal (<$10) handling cost is
charged. Please include all files in their original unmodified
form when distributing this program.
Ye olde disclaimer
The author has made all good faith attempts to provide a
reliable product. But there are no guarantees expressed or
implied that this program will work perfectly (or indeed at all)
or that it won't cause your data or hardware to self destruct.
If you are a registered user and become dissatisfied with the
program for any reason, I will be glad to refund your
registration fee but will not be liable for any damage(s)
whatever resulting from the use of this program.
-Tony Caine-
GEnie mail:A.CAINE