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SAVER.FAQ
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1996-04-11
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: The Paper Saver does not wrap words around to the next
printed line. Why not?
A: The program will reformat your text files ONLY IF you let
it. Should you select a file from the directory listing
and The Paper Saver detects that it contains lines of text
that are much longer than will fit on a single page, the
program will prompt you if you wish to reformat the file.
If you answer "Yes" to this prompt, the program will try
to reformat the contents of your file. Don't worry...the
original file is preserved. The reformatted file will be
AUTOMATICALLY used when you start the actual print job.
Q: I am using a Hewlett-Packard DeskJet 540 printer, and I
am trying to print using the condensed font in portrait
mode. However, at various places on the printed output
letters of text are chopped off and at other places lines
of text are missing. The chopped off text looks as if
the bottoms of the characters are missing. This chopped
off text only occurs at the end of a printed line. This
problem only occurs when using condensed font in portrait
mode. The full height font, and landscape modes work
great. What is causing this?
A: When we first heard about this problem, we thought that
the user had a bad printer cable. Only after we had
another user report the same problem did we decide to do
some investigation. It turns out that all these
complaints were coming from owners of H/P DeskJet 540
printers. After notifying Hewlett-Packard's printer
division, H/P admitted that there is a bug with the
DeskJet 540's firmware when using half-height condensed
Courier font in portrait mode. They have no
"work-around", and since the DJ540 is no longer in
production, they have no intent to correct the problem.
In short, DJ540 owners must live with this glitch. It
appears that H/P rewrote the firmware for their inkjet
printers starting with the DJ540. This is why all
previous models do not manifest this problem. H/P stated
that their newer model 600 series printers has this bug
corrected.
Therefore, the only suggestion I have is to use condensed
text only in landscape mode IF you own a DeskJet 540.
Q: When I print a file with my Hewlett-Packard DeskJet the
printed pages come out in reverse order, and I must
therefore abort the print job. What is wrong?
A: There is nothing wrong. The DeskJet series of printers
will often begin printing with the last page of the
document because The Paper Saver collates your print job.
If you wait until the complete print job is complete you
will be pleasantly surprised to find the page on the top
of the printed stack will be page number 1! No
re-shuffling of the stack is required. In order to have
the last page print as page 1, the first page printed
must be the last page. Don't panic early...The Paper
Saver knows what it is doing.
Q: In the dual column and quad page modes, some of the
letters at the end of each line are printed missing.
What is causing this?
A: There is only so much room horizontally on each page to
print text. If the file you are attempting to print has
more than 78 horizontal characters per line, then you
will lose some characters beyond column 78 in your file.
One way to compensate for this is to strip the left
margin of unnecessary blank spaces. From the
"Configurations" menu you can strip leading spaces, or
shrink the left margin to give you more breathing room
along the right margin.
If you have no left margin to shrink, and you can't
afford to lose any characters along the right margin,
consider switching to landscape mode, or consider doing
away with dual column or quad page format. You can use a
full page condensed print mode instead.
Q: The Paper Saver locks up when I try to print Word Perfect
document files. What is wrong?
A: The Paper Saver works only with pure ASCII text files.
Files saved by Word Perfect, Ami Pro, Microsoft Word,
etc., are normally saved in binary format, and are not
ASCII files. When you consider the literally dozens of
proprietary file formats that exist, it would be a major
task for The Paper Saver to be able to convert or read
all of them. The Paper Saver only works with simple,
plain ASCII text files. Neither does it print graphics.
If you do have a Word Perfect file that you would like
The Paper Saver to print, you must first save or export
your Word Perfect, Ami Pro, etc. document as an ASCII
text file.
Q: When I print using any double-sided format, I receive a
prompt window instructing me to remove the printed sheets
and to reinsert the stack back into the printer's paper
tray...while the printer is still printing! What's
wrong?
A: Nothing is wrong. The Paper Saver simply does not know
how fast your printer is printing. Each printer has a
buffer where data received from your computer is stored.
Each printer's buffer memory size is different. The
larger the buffer, the sooner you will receive a message
prompt instructing you to reinsert your paper stack for
the second pass of printing (double-sided mode only).
You will have to keep your eye on your printer's panel
"BUSY" light to know when it is time to reinsert the
paper into your printer. Once the "BUSY" light goes off,
your printer has finished printing the first side pass,
and is ready to start printing on the reverse side. At
this point, it is safe to remove the printed stack and
reinsert it into your printer.
Q: I own a laser printer and frequently The Paper Saver will
eject an extra blank sheet at the beginning of the print
job. What is wrong?
A: More than likely your laser printer still had data in its
memory leftover from a previous program. Laser printers
retain data in its memory until it receives a form feed
or reset command. An earlier program may have set your
laser printer in landscape mode and failed to reset the
printer upon exiting. The Paper Saver may find your
laser in the wrong mode for your present print job
request, and attempt to reset the printer for you. Often
this results in a blank page being ejected from your
printer. If this is something that occurs frequently, I
would suggest that before using The Paper Saver on your
laser printer that you either turn off the printer and
turn it back on again or press the RESET button on your
printer to clear its memory.
Q: I am attempting to print a text file, but The Paper Saver
informs me that the file is not an ASCII text file, and
refuses to print the file.
A: The Paper Saver expects a file to have no ASCII control
characters from decimal 0-31. The only exception is the
carriage return/line feed combo (decimal 13/10), which
should appear at the end of each line of text. Often
text files downloaded from a BBS or via the Internet will
have line feed characters at the end of each line, but no
carriage return characters. If carriage return characters
(decimal 13) are missing from the file, then The Paper
Saver will reject it, and refuse to print it. This does
not happen very often, but if it does, the best solution
is to load the file in your word processor, then
export/save the file as a text file, then trying using
The Paper Saver again to print the file.
Q: There are strange characters appearing at the beginning
and end of the printed output. What is wrong? By the
way, this problems only occurs when I save files using
Windows Write.
A: Windows Write can save files in various formats. The
most common and default format is the *.WRI format, which
includes binary control codes at the head and tail of the
file (and sometimes within the body of the file). These
control codes are how Write knows what size font to
display, whether to make words bold, margins, etc. These
control codes only mean something to Windows Write. If
you save your files in the *.WRI format, you will
certainly receive strange characters in your output when
using The Paper Saver. This is because *.WRI files are
not pure ASCII .TXT files. If you want to solve this
problem, save your Write files as *.TXT Text Files (use
"File | Save As" from the Write Menu.
One other problem that often comes up when printing files
that originated from Windows Write... If the file was
composed with word wrapping "ON", and the file then saved
as a *.TXT Text File, the resulting file will contain
extremely LONG lines of text. For example, if you
composed a single paragraph in Write that contained 10
lines of text, and then save the file as a *.TXT file,
the resulting file actually only contains ONE SUPER LONG
LINE of text. WinWrite strips all carriage return/line
feeds at the end of each line, resulting in one long line
of of text. A file of this nature will also give The
Paper Saver trouble UNLESS it is reformatted and broken
down into smaller length multi-lines. One way to see
what we are referring to is to reopen the *.TXT file
using Windows Notepad. You will immediately see only the
first part of each paragraph.
What is the solution to these long lines that originate
from WinWrite and similar programs? The Paper Saver will
automatically detect lines that are too long and will
prompt the user if you wish to have the file reformatted
prior to printing (see earlier answer above).
Q: The Paper Saver prints this one file correctly when I
configure it to use my HP DeskJet printer with condensed
mode, but when I use my laser printer (which emulates an
HP LaserJet), the printed output truncates the end of
each line. Why?
A: The DeskJet series of printers have built into them a
20 characters per inch fixed font which is used in
condensed mode output. Most laser printers, however,
only a 16.67 or 15 characters per inch font as its
smallest fixed font. As a result, the DeskJet printers
can print more characters per line than a laser printer.
This difference shows up as truncated lines (missing
characters) when you print using a laser printer in
condensed, dual column PORTRAIT format. The best
solution to this problem is to switch to LANDSCAPE mode.
Usually this gives the printer more room in order to
print the wider characters when using a laser printer.
Q: In the "Configuration options" menu you ask why the "Draft
print: OFF" remains locked (i.e., the menu selection bar
jumps over this option).
A: The reason can be attributed to the fact that you have
selected a laser printer for your default printer. 99.9%
of all lasers ever produced do not have the capability to
print in a "draft" mode. The "Draft print" is only
accessible when you have selected the DeskJet inkjet
printer as your default printer. The Hewlett-Packard
DeskJet printers are the only printers supported by The
Paper Saver capable of printing in a "draft" mode.
Q: Sometimes when I change page layouts (e.g. landscape to
portrait) and then print a file in a condensed font, the
resulting output has the lines double spaced, and the
dividing column line running down the center of the sheet
is dashed, instead of solid. What is causing this
problem?
A: Make sure that you have not changed the "Lines per inch"
configuration setting. The dual spacing between lines of
text occurs when the vertical "Lines per inch" setting
has been changed from its default value of 12 to 8.
Q: How do you adjust the left margin, so that there is room
to punch holes for a three-ring binder?
A: You can adjust the left margin at which printing will
begin by choosing "Left margin:" selection from the
"Configuration Options" sub-menu. The value you enter
represents the number of columns over from the left edge
of the page at which printing will occur. Please be
aware, however, that using a large "left margin" value
will cause the text on the right hand side of the page to
possibly be truncated.
Q: Over here (outside of the United States) we use A4 paper,
and our date format is "day-month-year". How do I change
the program to support these formats?
A: From the "Configuration Options" sub-menu, you can toggle
between American and foreign paper sizes and date
formats. Look for either | USA 8½" x 11" | or | A4 210mm
x 297mm |. If the selection displays "USA...", then
selecting this choice will change it to "A4". The date
format also will change automatically when you do this.
Q: If you print a file with 80 character lines in four quarter
format (portrait) the last two characters do not print. In
two column format (landscape) they do print. Why?
A: The micro print font that is being used by the program is
20cpi (characters per inch) - a native, built-in fixed
spaced DeskJet Courier font. Also, please note that all
DeskJets can not print within the 0.25 inch margin on
both sides of a sheet of paper. Therefore some math will
tell you that an 8.5 inch paper, minus two 0.25 inch
right and left margins, leaves 8 inches of printable
area. 8 inches multiplied by the 20 cpi font will allow
a maximum of 160 characters across the sheet. There is
no way that you can have two columns of text, each column
with 80 characters, and also provide a divider line
between the two columns. 80+80+1=161. The maximum
number of characters per physical sheet of paper is 160.
Therefore you will find the second column of text missing
a character or two IF you insist on printing 80 columns
of text in dual column portrait format.
If you have 80 columns of text in your file, and you must
use the microprint option, then the only solution is to
print in LANDSCAPE mode, rather than in PORTRAIT.
Q: Does The Paper Saver support my printer, the "Wiz-Bang
Electronics model XYZ"?
A: To be honest, we don't have the foggiest idea. We wish
we could afford to buy one of every printer ever made in
order to test The Paper Saver on a wider range of
printers, but obviously on our limited income we cannot
do this. We have provided 3 generic printer formats
which correspond to the way paper is normally fed through
the most common printers. Please pick the one that
matches the way text is printed and the paper is fed
through your printer. If one does not work for you, then
try one of the other two. If you have tried all three
methods, and you still are not happy, then send us an
e-mail message only if you are willing to work closely
with the author to resolve your problem. Provide as many
details as possible, and be ready to submit detailed
answers when we respond.