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1991-09-20
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╔═════════════════════════════════╗
║ ║
║ ║
║ Booklet ║
║ ║
║ ║
╚═════════════════════════════════╝
Booklet v2.40, 20/09/91, (c) 1989/90/91 Andy Lawrie
Softronix,
Townsend Road,
Ashford,
Middlesex,
TW15 3PR,
England.
Booklet
-------
'Booklet' prints a file on an HP Laserjet II or III, or an Epson 9 or 24 pin
printer, or any other printer that is compatible with them. It prints on A4
(Laserjet) or 11" x 8" (Epson and Laserjet) in landscape mode, using both sides
of the paper. When the output is folded down the middle it becomes an A5 or 8"
x 5.5" booklet.
'Booklet' is 'shareware'. It is NOT public domain or free software. The un-
registered version may be copied and used, subject to certain restrictions
detailed below, for a trial period of 14 days. If, after the trial period, you
wish to continue using the program, you should register your copy.
The restrictions on the copying and trial use of the program are :-
a) It should not be distributed in connection with any other product or service
without prior written permission from Softronix.
b) It should not be charged for.
c) The three files comprising the unregistered version should be copied
together, i.e., the program BOOKLET.EXE, this documentation file BOOKLET.DOC
and the file README.TXT. The BOOKLET.CFG file produced by a registered copy
should NOT be copied.
Bulletin board operators are encouraged to provide 'Booklet' for downloading to
their users, provided the above conditions are adhered to. Distributors of
public domain and shareware software are granted exemption from b) providing
1) They charge only a moderate sum for the media and copying service.
2) They clearly describe the principle of shareware distribution in their
literature and advertising material. Their customers must be aware before
purchase of the requirement to register shareware in order to continue using it
after the trial period.
Upon registration you will receive a code that will enable you to mark your
current and future versions of the program as registered. You will be entitled
to help with any problems you may encounter, and the opportunity to influence
future improvements. You will receive a copy of the latest version of the
program if the one you have has been superceded.
Registration entitles use of the program on a single machine. Site licenses are
available for multiple machines, please contact Softronix for details.
To mark your copy of the program, select the 'Config/Register booklet' menu
option. Enter 3 lines of name and address information, followed by the user
code.
Registering your copy
---------------------
Registration costs £10.00 for U.K. customers, £12.50 for European users and
£15.00 outside Europe. Please include your name and address in capitals, refer
to 'Booklet', and send your remittance to :-
Softronix,
Townsend Road,
Ashford,
Middlesex,
TW15 3PR,
England.
Page 15 contains an order form for your convenience. Your registered copy will
normally be despatched on the working day following receipt of the order.
Arrangements will be made where possible to cover for holidays, etc., but this
cannot be guaranteed.
All payments direct to Softronix must be by sterling cheque or postal order. To
facilitate payment by credit card (Barclaycard/Visa and Access/Mastercharge) we
have appointed an agent :-
D & M Systems,
24 Agar Crescent,
Bracknell,
Berks.,
RG12 2BX.
Tel. 0344-412347
Fax. 0344-488110
Orders can be accepted by telephone, facsimile or post and will be passed to
Softronix for processing. Please allow a few extra days for delivery. Prices
are the same except that it may be necessary to charge V.A.T. in the future.
An unregistered copy of 'booklet' is available to prospective purchasers on
request, for a nominal handling charge of £2.50 for the U.K., £5.00 for
European users and £7.50 for all others, refundable against subsequent
registration.
Registered users wishing to upgrade who are unable to download a copy, may
obtain the latest release for the same nominal charge as listed above.
Softronix will re-issue a registration code in case of loss, but may make a
similar charge for this service.
All prices and terms are subject to change without notice.
Availability
------------
Booklet will be made available on bulletin boards (BBS). The filename will
normally take the form 'bookXXX.YYY' where 'XXX' represents the version number
(e.g., currently 240) and 'YYY' is the extension used by the BBS file packing
program. Please try to adhere to this convention if you upload the program to
another board.
How to use 'Booklet'
--------------------
Selecting a file
----------------
Enter the file you wish to print by selecting 'File/Enter filename' from the
menu (selections are made by moving the highlighted option with the cursor keys
or the initial letter and pressing ENTER to select it). The current working
directory is displayed. 'Booklet' will not let you enter an invalid filename.
If you want to return to the menu without entering a filename, press ESC.
If you are not sure of the name of the file you wish to print, 'Booklet' can
provide a pick list. Just enter a template using the '*' and '?' characters
(e.g. *.doc, temp?.txt, booklet.*) and you will be presented with a window
containing all the matching files. If you enter a blank line it is the same as
a template of *.*, and all files will be shown.
There is a limit of 600 files in the pick list. If 'Booklet' runs out of space
it will warn you that the list is incomplete.
Files are sorted alphabetically and are displayed in lower case. All sub-
directories (including the parent, ..) are shown before the files, in upper
case. Use the cursor keys to position the highlight bar over the file or
directory you require and press ENTER. If you selected a file you will return
to the menu, but if it was a directory you will be back at the 'Enter filename'
prompt. If the file you require is not present, you can use ESC to return to
the 'Enter filename' window.
You can change to a different drive by putting the drive name and a colon (e.g.
a:, b:temp.txt) at the beginning of the line.
As an alternative, you can supply the name of the file to print when invoking
'Booklet' from the command line.
Editing keys
------------
When entering the filename, or any other string of characters, there are
various editing keys available.
The Backspace key deletes the character to the left of the cursor. The Delete
key deletes the character under the cursor. Shift/Del deletes the whole of the
current line. The Left and Right cursor keys obviously move the cursor to the
left and right. The Home and End keys move it to the start or end of the line.
The Insert key toggles Insert mode. With insert on, the text to the right of
the cursor will be shifted right when characters are entered, with insert off
they will be overwritten. The cursor should be a thin line when in Overwrite
mode, a little larger in Insert mode. Return (or Enter) confirms your entry.
ESC quits with the original line intact.
There are two different editing 'modes'.
In 'First key delete' mode, entering a character as the first key press will
delete the default contents of the field, whereas a non-character key will
leave it in place for subsequent editing. The original contents are highlighted
to warn you that they may be deleted, but after the first key press normal
colours are used. If 'First key delete' mode is off, the first key press will
be dealt with just like any other.
Use the 'Config' menu to select the mode you prefer. Don't forget to save the
configuration as described below if you wish your preference to be
automatically selected next time you run 'Booklet'.
Where relevant, the Up and Down cursor keys move to the previous or next line.
Be careful not to acidentally delete a line if 'First key delete' is active.
Options
-------
Choose any options you require before selecting 'File/Print' from the menu. It
is particularly important to select the printer and/or port. The printer type
should be set before any other options as it can affect them.
You can use 'File/Edit title' to enter the optional header/footer text. If you
wish the current filename to appear, enter /f. In a similar manner the current
date can be entered with /d and the time with /t. To enter a /, use //. If a
mode with a header or footer is selected the title will appear in the Status
window as it will be printed.
Note that the filename printed is the last thing entered in the 'Enter
filename' window. This allows some flexibility. If you first move to the
directory containing the required file and then just enter the filename, only
the filename will be printed. If you wish the whole path to be shown, enter the
whole path at the filename prompt.
There are several page length options. Many documents are already formatted for
66 lines/page. Booklet will print this length page with an optional header or
footer for the filename, date, time, title, etc. If you require the maximum
number of lines/page and don't mind losing the header/footer, you can select 68
lines/page. The line spacing in these modes is reduced to a minimum; a more
pleasing appearance can be obtained, at the possible expense of more pages, by
selecting 55 lines/page with a header/footer or 57 lines/page without one. In
the unlicensed version only options that include a header or footer are valid.
You can choose whether or not to print headers/footers on the blank pages that
follow the end of the file. Not showing them can save a little time when
printing with a 9 or 24 pin impact printer.
You can choose to display 80 or 90 columns/line. The standard for most
documents is 80. The width of the margins is reduced to a minimum with 90
columns selected. Lines exceeding the chosen length can be truncated or wrapped
to the following line. Unfortunately, there is insufficient room to fit 90
columns on US Letter paper in the Laserjet.
Tabs are expanded to every eighth column. This is switchable to every fourth
column if preferred, or they can be shown as spaces. Form feeds in the source
file are normally acted upon, but you can choose to ignore them.
The currently settings are displayed in a Status window in the lower part of
the screen along with the filename, header/footer text, the number of pages,
the number of sheets and the selected part of the document.
You may see how long your document will be before printing it by selecting
'File/Analyse'. 'Booklet' will only re-analyse your document if it is made
necessary by changing one of the relevant options.
Saving Options
--------------
The 'Config/Save configuration' menu option can be used to save the current
settings. These will be restored when 'Booklet' is started, or by using the
'Config/Reload configuration' option.
Page Preview
------------
You can check the layout of your document by selecting the 'Preview' menu. In
preview mode you can scroll the document around the screen using the cursor
keys. You can go to the top/bottom of the current page with the 'Home' and
'End' keys, and to the next/previous page with the 'Page Down' and 'Page Up'
keys. The page, sheet, lines and columns being previewed are shown on the
preview screen border.
Printing
--------
When you select 'File/Print' from the menu, 'Booklet' will open a window on the
screen, request you to make the printer ready, and wait for you to press Enter.
You can alternatively press ESC to quit back to the menu if this item was
selected by mistake.
Print the first side in the normal manner, ensuring on a dot-matrix printer
that the paper perforation is in the correct position for the start of a page.
If the printer has a push feed, leave a blank page before the start of the
document to provide purchase when printing the second side. Laser printers
should just use the normal tray feed. 'Booklet' will report on its progress,
and when the first side is complete, will ask you to re-install the paper. This
procedure is slightly different for laser and dot-matrix printers.
With the Laserjet II or III, you should lift the paper out of the output tray
on the top of the machine, blank side uppermost, without turning it over or
rotating it, and place it straight back into the feed tray. Alternatively, for
short documents, you can simply feed the sheets into the manual sheet feeder
with the top sheet first, again keeping the orientation exactly as it was in
the output tray. If you do it this way, you must judge the time to feed in
subsequent sheets carefully, but this is very straightforward with practice and
is the method I most often use.
The Laserjet IIIP (and probably the IIP too) benefit from a slightly modified
procedure. For the first side, select the front paper output tray. For the
second side use the top tray. In other respects follow instructions as for the
Laserjet II and III.
With dot matrix printers, eject an extra complete blank page before tearing off
the paper (this is to provide a purchase for the tractors, and is not strictly
necessary with a pin or push feed printer). Pull out the blank fan-fold paper
from the feed slot and replace it with the end you have just torn off; don't
turn the paper round or feed in the start of the listing. Feed the blank page
through the printer and line up the perforation. The blank side of the paper
should now be at the front.
When you are ready press Enter again. 'Booklet' will print the second side.
When it has finished, you should trim the sides and separate the pages on fan-
fold paper, and stack them in order (not necessary on the Laserjet of course).
Simply fold the paper about the centre line to produce your booklet.
Printing part of a document
---------------------------
You will normally want to print the whole of the selected document. However,
there may be occasions, for example if the paper has jammed in the printer or
if you have had to interrupt a print run, when you wish to print only a part.
'Booklet' has two ways to split the document. You can select either or both
sides of the paper, and you can choose to print a single sheet, a range of
sheets or the whole document. These options are all found on the 'Select' menu.
The program defaults to both sides of the whole document.
'Booklet' works with sheet numbers because there is little point in printing
only one of the pages on a side. However, you can if you wish convert a page
number to the relevant sheet number. When the program is requesting the sheet
number, press the Cursor Down key and enter the number of any of the pages on
the sheet. 'Booklet' will fill in the sheet number.
Another way to find the sheet numbers is to look at the Preview window heading,
which displays both page and sheet numbers.
When printing the second side of a document, the sheets have to be printed in
reverse order. Bear this in mind when loading the paper.
Printing part of a document is an advanced option, and should not be used until
you are familiar with the operation of the program and the orientation of the
paper on your printer.
Colours
-------
You can change the colours used in colour mode with the 'Config/Set colours'
menu option. You can modify the window and border colours of the Main,
Information, Menu, Warning and Help windows. After choosing the attribute you
wish to change use the left and right cursor keys to view the different
foreground colours. The up and down cursor keys change the background colours.
The background keys are inoperative when setting the 'Information highlight'
attribute. Use ENTER to select the combination you require or ESC to leave the
colours unchanged.
There are menu options to restore the original or the default colours while
remaining in the 'Set colours' routine. To exit, select 'Exit/Save new colours
& exit' or, if you wish to revert to the original colours, 'Exit/Restore
original colours & exit'.
The colours you choose will be fixed for the remainder of the session. If you
wish to retain the colours you have defined in future sessions you must use
'Config/Save configuration' before quitting the program.
You cannot change the attributes used in mono mode.
Back to DOS
-----------
When you have finished, return to DOS by selecting 'File/Quit'.
You can go to DOS temporarily by selecting 'File/DOS shell'. To return to
'Booklet' type 'exit'. Don't forget to do this; if you carry on working with
'Booklet' still active it occupies about 100Kb of your computer's memory.
You may change the drive or directory while in the DOS shell. 'Booklet' will
automatically return to the drive and directory it was using. This means you
should avoid deleting the working directory, or changing the floppy if it
contains the working directory.
Printer timeouts
----------------
The time 'Booklet' will wait when sending a character to the printer is
affected by the BIOS and the speed of the printer. A few combinations of
machine and printer report a timeout before a character is sent (mainly laser
printers, which can remain not ready for a period while printing a page).
'Booklet' can retry to send the character if necessary, and the facility to set
the number of retries is reached using the 'Config/Set printer retries' option.
You can increase the number up to 9. You should save the configuration if you
wish to retain the new setting in future sessions.
Suitable printers
-----------------
The current version of 'Booklet' supports only LPT1 and LPT2 parallel ports.
This may be changed in future versions if there is a demand.
Any printer compatible with the basic, unexpanded HP Laserjet II can be used.
This includes the Laserjet IIP, III and IIIP, as well as printers from other
manufacturers. The only font employed is the 8.5 point, 16.66 c.p.i. Landscape
Line printer font.
Most Epson compatible 9 pin dot-matrix printers supporting 'ESC L' for 8 pin
Double Density Graphics Mode and 'ESC J' to feed the paper in increments of
1/216" should be acceptable. 24 pin printers should support 'ESC * 33' for
Double Density Graphics mode and 'ESC J' to feed in increments of 1/180". Both
should recognise 'ESC @' as a reset.
Error codes
-----------
'Booklet' returns the following error codes to DOS -
0 - O.K.
1 - Can't find source file specified on command line.
2 - Path specified in command line is too long.
3 - Too many arguments on command line.
4 - Error loading configuration file.
5 - Out of memory (please inform Softronix)
6 - Device error.
7 - Disk error, (A)bort selected.
8 - Incompatible display type or mode.
Hints and Tips
--------------
When you have folded your booklet you can use a long reach stapler as a simple
'binder'. However, this will work only on relatively short documents as the
stapler cannot penetrate too many pages.
One customer mentioned that he overcomes the problem of using a standard
stapler by opening it out and driving the staple through the spine of the
booklet into a cardboard box. The staple is then manually closed. This seems to
work quite well.
Staples should be driven from the outside so the sharp points end up on the
inside.
----------
'Booklet' can print documents up to 500 pages. However, long documents become
very difficult to fold into the A5 format, and a practical maximum is therefore
about 200.
----------
'Booklet' can print the IBM character graphics. If you would like these to join
up vertically in Epson mode, you should use one of the 66/68 line options.
----------
If you have difficulty getting the paper loaded correctly on a dot matrix
printer you could try tearing off a length of paper before you start. The
'File/Analyse' option tells you how many pages are needed, allow 2 more for a
blank page at each end.
----------
If you use ESC to break the program it may be in the middle of sending an
escape or graphic sequence to the printer. This is likely on a dot-matrix
printer but improbable on a laser. If it happens the printer can appear to
'lock up'. Just switch it off (or press the reset button if there is one).
----------
The document to be printed must be an ASCII file. Word processor files often
contain formatting information and cannot therefore be used directly. Most word
processors allow you to either print to a file, or to export an ASCII file.
If you print to a file you should not format the file for re-use with the word-
processor. Choose a 'vanilla' type printer such as teletype (TTY), NOT an Epson
or HP, and select draft mode if you are offered a choice.
----------
Some users have thought the program was malfunctioning when it printed a lot of
blank space at the start. This is quite in order. When you print a document
that is not an exact multiple of 4 pages long, the first page to be printed is
the blank last page.
----------
To produce bold characters, underlining, etc., some documentation contains
backspace characters. At present 'Booklet' is unable to deal with this and the
formatting of the page is affected. Future versions may be enhanced to cope
with this situation. For present, you can use the shareware 'List' program to
strip out such characters. Enable the junk filter, select the whole document
and write it to another file.
----------
I have been unable to properly test the US Letter paper sizes on the Laserjet.
The printer senses a conflict between the selected size and the paper tray and
I'm not sure what effect this has. I would welcome any feedback on performance
from a user of this size paper.
Future enhancements
-------------------
Some of the possible future enhancements for this program, mostly requested by
customers, include :-
Additional layouts, including loose leaf binder format.
Command line switches.
Backspace support.
Offset page numbers.
If there is anything else you would really like to see, or if you find a bug in
the program or documentation, please let me know.
Disclaimer
----------
Andy Lawrie and Softronix specifically disclaim all warranties, expressed or
implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of fitness for a
particular purpose.
It is important that you determine the safety and suitability of the program,
particularly in view of the 'shareware' distribution method which can be
susceptible to abuse by third parties.
Release History (in reverse order)
----------------------------------
2.40 20/09/91 1) Added file pick list.
2) Now show path in 'get file name' window.
3) First key delete is now a switchable option.
4) Added Shift/Del to edit keys, to delete all.
5) Restores original drive and directory at exit.
6) Added disk error handler.
7) Restores original break status before DOS shell and restores
drive and directory afterwards.
8) Help screens tweaked and more added.
9) Return values documented.
2.37a 23/07/91 1) Documentation only, added IIIP note.
2.37 17/06/91 1) Corrected 'Ignore form feeds' operation.
2) Now bleeps on page change with CsrUp/CsrDn in Page Preview.
2.36 16/06/91 1) Added DOS shell option.
2) Corrected 1st help screen format.
2.35 02/06/91 1) Corrected minor bug in 'Printing sheet' routine.
2) Set break off for duration of program.
2.34 07/05/91 1) Added support for US Letter paper on Laserjets.
2.33 04/05/91 1) Default input that will be deleted if the 1st keypress is not
a cursor control is now highlighted as a warning.
2) Cursor key at top/bottom of page now change pages in Preview.
3) Ran docs. through a grammar checker. 85% of US adults can
understand me.
2.32 21/04/91 1) Increased size of Get File window.
2.31 19/04/91 1) Reload config. now changes colour immediately if necessary.
2) Appearance of menu bar.
2.30 14/04/91 1) Improved registration instructions.
2) Registration allows moving back up lines.
3) Corrected minor bug in string input.
4) Preview selections now go straight into preview.
5) Added facility to print parts of a document.
6) Sheets now always numbered from beginning of document, even
when printing reverse side.
7) Help now allows moving back through screens.
2.20 29/03/91 1) Added configurable printer retries to cure timeouts on some
machines, mainly with laser printers.
2) Preview pulldown menu repositioned next to File menu.
3) PgUp in Preview now goes to END of previous page.
4) PgUp & PgDn in Preview don't change the horizontal position.
5) Added an 'ignore form feed' option. Will the people who
requested this item please let me know how well it works.
If the files you want to print use form feeds INSTEAD of line
endings, this may not work very well.
6) Minor modification to the status display.
7) Clarified the colour configuration prompts.
2.12 20/03/91 1) Bug fix release, cured a problem with some Epsons in 66 line
mode.
2.11 14/03/91 1) Added a second digit to minor version number.
2.1 11/03/91 1) Added colour configuration.
2.0 27/01/91 1) Added configuration file.
2) Epson modes now don't try to print completely blank column
pairs. Saves time when using impact printers.
3) Added option not to print header/footer on pages after end of
file. Can improve appearance, but mainly provided to save
time on impact printers.
4) Tabs can now be dealt with as spaces.
5) Page limit increased from 200 to 500 on request. If you try
to use 500 pages you will get a VERY fat booklet.
6) Added page preview mode.
7) Altered the registration mechanism to simplify version
upgrading. A user code is now provided which can be used to
mark future releases.
8) Rearranged the menus to accomodate the extra options.
1.8 24/11/90 1) Now sends select symbol set to HP. The program previously
used whatever symbol set had been selected as the default.
The most noticeable effect was IBM graphics appearing as
accented characters.
1.7 14/11/90 1) Added 24 pin Epson printer support.
1.6 19/10/90 1) Set up printer again before second pass. When the program
uses a printer on a network it seems the network software
treats the second side as a separate job, and resets the
printer between passes. NOT TESTED BY ME as I don't have
access to a network.
2) 'Printing documentation' help added to help menu.
1.5 08/10/90 1) First public release.
Date ______________ Title & Name __________________________
Address __________________________
__________________________
__________________________
Softronix,
Conifers, Townsend Road,
Ashford,
Middlesex,
TW15 3PR,
England.
Please supply a registered copy of 'Booklet'. I enclose the sum of ___________
(£10.00 (U.K.), £12.50 (Europe), £15.00 (rest of the world), plus £5.00 if in
local currency).
Signed _______________________________
5.25" 360 Kb or 3.5" 720 Kb floppy required. _____________________________
Where did you obtain your copy of 'Booklet'? _____________________________
Make & model of printer normally used. _____________________________
Version 2.40
Please use block capitals.