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- COPYRIGHT
- =========
-
- THIS PROGRAM COPYRIGHT 1993 BY WOLF FAUST. ALL RIGHTS
- RESERVED. THIS PRODUCT (PANAPLUS) IS SUBJECT TO PROPRIETY
- RIGHTS.
-
- DISCLAIMER
- ==========
-
- THE DRIVER HAS BEEN PROVIDED TO YOU STRICTLY 'AS IS', WITHOUT
- WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. IN NO EVENT SHALL PANASONIC OR FAUST BE
- HELD LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF ANY ACTION,
- FROM WHATEVER SOURCE, CONCERNING THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE
- DRIVER. SAVE IN RESPECT OF DEATH OR INJURY ARISING OUT OF THE
- NEGLIGENCE OF PANASONIC OR FAUST.
-
- Trademarks
- ==========
-
- Amiga is a registered trademark of Commodore-Amiga, Inc.;
-
- All other trademarked products and company names used herein are
- used for identification purposes only. No infringement of
- trademarks is intended. Trademarks remain the property of the
- trademark holder.
-
- Welcome to the PanaPlus Driver
- ==============================
-
- The PanaPlus driver is a software for controlling printers
- with the Commodore-Amiga personal computer with the purpose of
- creating high quality output. PanaPlus's main qualities
- include:
-
- o Freely definable dither routines (many are included).
-
- o 16-point colour adjustment for each colour component. This allows
- you to do gamma correction, adjust the contrast and brightness,
- plus more.
-
- o Ink compensation for the correction of ink impurities.
-
- o Workbench 2/3 graphical user interface (GUI).
-
- o The driver can print up to 256 shades of grey from normal
- Amiga applications. Standard Amiga drivers are limited to 16.
-
- o Full control over page size, paper margins and size of the printed
- graphics.
-
- o Full control over built-in printer typefaces.
-
- o The software is very fast and automatically uses improved routines
- if the software is run on an Amiga with a 68020/30/40 CPU.
-
- o Builtin support for the arXon electronic centronic switch box.
-
- o Free definable tab stops.
-
- o Job end signal.
-
- o Supports Workbench 1.3, 2.0, 2.1 and 3.0.
-
- o Prints up to 256 greyshades instead of 16.
-
- These are not the complete capabilities of PanaPlus, merely
- some highlights.
-
- System Requirements
- ===================
-
- PanaPlus is compatible with the entire family of Amiga computers.
- These include the A500, A1000, A1200, A1500, A2000, A2500,
- A2500/30, A3000 and A4000. PanaPlus was designed to run under
- Workbench versions 2, 2.1 and 3. The PanaPlus printer driver also
- work under Workbench 1.3, but must be controlled via the keyboard
- (CLI) because all PanaPlus programs with that have a GUI require
- at least Workbench 2.
-
- Installing PanaPlus
- ===================
-
- The PanaPlus driver is a replacement for the Commodore
- supplied printer drivers. It is a 100 percent Amiga compatible
- printer driver, except that it offers many more functions than a
- normal printer driver. The additional functions of the driver are
- controlled by a preferences program included with PanaPlus.
-
- The programs and driver are described in detail later. Start the
- installation by a simple double click on the Install icon, found
- in the main drawer of the PanaPlus disk.
-
- You should follow the checklist below for installing the
- PanaPlus software:
-
- o The driver was designed for the Panasonic KX-P2xxx series of
- QuietPrinters. Older Panasonic printers may not work properly
- with this driver!
-
- o Set up and connect your printer as described in the printer's
- user manual and Amiga system manual.
-
- o Ensure your printer's Initial Setup is configured to Epson
- emulation and USA character set. KX-P2023 users should use
- the provided "KX-P2023-Setup" program.
-
- o Boot your Amiga with your usual system or Workbench disk.
-
- o Double click on the Install icon found in the driver drawer of
- the PanaPlus disk. The install program will copy the driver to
- your system disk. In order to do so, you need 30 KByte empty
- disk space on your system disk.
-
- ! Most likely floppy users must make space on their system disk in
- order to install the driver. This can be done by deleting unneeded
- programs using the Workbenchs 3.0 "Delete..." menu item.
-
- Here is list of programs that might be deleted:
-
- Sys:Utilities/Clock (13 KByte)
- Sys:devs/printers/generic (1.5 KByte)
- Sys:system/nofastmem (1 KByte)
- Sys:c/Edit (15 KByte)
- Sys:c/Diskchange (0.5 KByte)
- Sys:c/Lock (0.5 KByte)
- Sys:c/Search (1.5 KByte)
- Sys:c/MagTape (1.5 KByte)
-
- o Start Preferences on your system disk (if you own Kickstart 2.0
- use the "printer" preference program). Select the PanaPlus
- driver and adjust all other preference parameters to your
- environment. See your system manual for more information about
- the preference program.
-
- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
- !Make sure "Ordered" dither and density > 2 is set in Preferences!
- !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
-
- o In case you use Workbench 2.0 (or higher) use the mouse to drag
- the Settings and PanaPref icon into your Workbench prefs
- drawer. If your Workbench disk does not allow this because no
- space is left on disk, you can simply drag the programs to any
- other wanted drawer.
-
- o Start the PanaPref program wich is located on the PanaDisk. You
- need Workbench 2.0 (or higher) for using PanaPref. Adjust all
- parameters to your wanted environment.
-
- o If your system disk is a hard disk, you may drag the PanaPref,
- "Color-Settings" and "Dither-Settings" icons into your systems
- "Prefs" draw for later use.
-
- Floppy users can keep the PanaPref program on the PanaDisk and
- start it from there.
-
-
- After successfully running the Install program, try printing from
- the application with which you normally print.
-
-
- The Workbench Printer Drivers
- =============================
-
- After installing a PanaPlus driver you should be able to print
- from your normal application programs. In most cases you must
- further adjust the driver settings to your printer to get the best
- printer output possible. Correct adjustments often lead to major
- quality improvements. This chapter describes most of the
- functions for controlling the Panasonic driver. But before
- describing the driver in its own special section, some general
- things about printer drivers, and especially the PanaPlus driver.
-
- Printer drivers offer a way of sending configuration-independent
- output to a printer attached to the Amiga. A driver can be
- thought of as a filter that takes standard commands as input, and
- translates them into commands understood by specific printers.
- The commands sent to the printer via the prt: device are
- standardized on all Amigas so that programmers only have to write
- the software once and not for all possible printer emulations. It
- is the task of the printer driver to translate an Amiga printer
- command into the correct command for a particular printer. For
- each type of printer in use, a printer driver (or a driver for a
- compatible printer) should be present in the "devs:printers"
- directory.
-
- If you want to print text in bold, you have to decide whether to
- use a standard Amiga command (also known as an escape sequence)
- via prt:, or the command mentioned in your printer manual via
- par:. Often people get confused about prt: and par:. Do not
- send commands mentioned in your printer manual to prt:. This will
- most likely fail, or cause wrong characters in your printer
- output. You should always prefer prt: to par: because commands
- send to prt: can be used on every printer, not just the kind of
- printer you have. The par: device has even more shortcomings
- than prt:, but we're not concerned with them in this manual.
-
- An often used argument from programmers using par: is the
- unlimited control over the printer. This is a fallacy. You can
- control every printer feature via the prt: device.
-
- The PanaPlus Printer Driver
- ---------------------------
-
- The PanaPlus printer driver automatically check for the
- processor being used (68000, 68010/68020, 68030, 68040) and
- optimize the print routines accordingly, so there is no need for a
- special `turbo' version of the driver in order to get the most out
- of your Amiga.
-
- The tables below show the graphics densities supported by the
- PanaPlus driver. Density is set in Workbench preferences.
- Often you can also choose a density from within your application
- program. Beside the density tables, a table with all
- driver-supported Amiga escape sequences (use prt: not par: for
- these commands) is shown.
-
- PanaPlus densities.
-
- Density X dpi Y dpi Comment
- 1 360 180 no adjustments/dither
- 2 360 360 no adjustments/dither
- 3 180 180
- 4 120 360
- 5 180 360
- 6 360 180
- 7 360 360
-
- Name Sequence Function
- aRIS ESCc reset
- aRIN ESC 1 init.
- aIND ESCD lf
- aNEL ESCE return,lf
- aRI ESCM reverse lf
- aSGR0 ESC[0m norm.chars
- aSGR3 ESC[3m italics on
- aSGR23 ESC[23m italics off
- aSGR4 ESC[4m underline on
- aSGR24 ESC[24m underline off
- aSGR1 ESC[1m boldface on
- aSGR22 ESC[22m boldface off
- aSFC SGR30-39 foregrd col.
- aSHORP0 ESC[0w normal pitch
- aSHORP2 ESC[2w elite on
- aSHORP1 ESC[1w elite off
- aSHORP4 ESC[4w condensed on
- aSHORP3 ESC[3w condensed off
- aSHORP6 ESC[6w enlarged on
- aSHORP5 ESC[5w enlarged off
- aDEN6 ESC[6"z shadow on
- aDEN5 ESC[5"z shadow off
- aDEN4 ESC[4"z double on
- aDEN3 ESC[3"z double off
- aDEN2 ESC[2"z NLQ on
- aDEN1 ESC[1"z NLQ off
- aSUS2 ESC[2v super on
- aSUS1 ESC[1v super off
- aSUS4 ESC[4v sub on
- aSUS3 ESC[3v sub off
- aSUS0 ESC[0v normal line
- aPLU ESCL part. up
- aPLD ESCK part. down
- aFNT0 ESC(B typeface 0
- aFNT1 ESC(R typeface 1
- aFNT2 ESC(K typeface 2
- aFNT3 ESC(A typeface 3
- aFNT4 ESC(E typeface 4
- aFNT5 ESC(H typeface 5
- aFNT6 ESC(Y typeface 6
- aFNT7 ESC(Z typeface 7
- aFNT8 ESC(J typeface 8
- aFNT9 ESC(6 typeface 9
- aFNT10 ESC(C typeface 10
- aPROP2 ESC[2p prop. on
- aPROP1 ESC[1p prop. off
- aJFY5 ESC[5 F auto left
- aJFY7 ESC[7 F auto right
- aJFY6 ESC[6 F auto full
- aJFY0 ESC[0 F justify off
- aJFY1 ESC[1 F word fill
- aVERP0 ESC[0z 1/8" spacing
- aVERP1 ESC[1z 1/6" spacing
- aSLPP ESC[nt form length n
- aPERF ESC[nq perf skip n
- aPERF0 ESC[0q perf skip off
- aCAM ESC 3 Clear margins
- aTBC3 ESC[3g Clear h tabs
- aTBC4 ESC[4g Clear v tabs
- aTBCALL ESC 4 Clr h tabs
- aTBSALL ESC 5 default tabs
- aRAW ESC[Pn"r 'Pn' raw
-
-
- The PanaPref Preferences Programs
- =================================
-
- Beside all the functions mentioned in the section above, there are
- more options unique to the PanaPlus driver. These options are
- managed using Commodore's standard environment variables and can
- be controlled by using the Shell "setenv" and "getenv" commands.
- But setting environment variables this way can be a very complex
- task, so a PanaPref preferences program is available to make
- the job easy.
-
- The PanaPref preferences programs provide an intuitive GUI and
- requires at least Workbench 2 to run. If you are not using at
- least Workbench 2 (V37 and above), you must use the Shell commands
- for controlling the driver variables (described in detail in an
- extra chapter on page envs ).
-
- The PanaPref preferences programs can be controlled by the
- mouse and/or the keyboard. Each gadget of the program corresponds
- to the underlined letter in a gadget. Pressing that letter is
- equivalent to clicking on the gadget. In the case of a cycle
- gadget, you can use the upper case or lower case letter to cycle
- back and forth. See your system manual on how to control the file
- requester by keyboard or mouse.
-
- All windows are opened directly under your mouse pointer, so you
- don't have to move or scroll the screen to control the program.
- All windows are opened on the default public screen. You may
- specify a special public screen by setting the Tool Type PUBSCREEN
- screenname (the name is case sensitive) and the PanaPref
- preferences program will open its windows on your application
- program's screen. You can specify a screen if you run the
- preferences program from a Shell with the
-
- PanaPref PUBSCREEN screenname
-
- For example, if you use the ASDG CEDPro text editor you may
- specify PanaPref PUBSCREEN CygnusEdScreen1 and the
- PanaPref preferences program will open its windows on the
- CEDPro screen. Make sure the CEDPro screen is public before
- running the example. You need at least CEDPro version 2.12 for
- this example.
-
- PanaPref is independent, which means they use any system font
- you have chosen in preferences for displaying the text in gadgets
- and windows. You can force the preferences program to always use
- the topaz 8 font by defining a TOPAZ Tool Type. This is equal to
- using a TOPAZ Shell argument.
-
- After starting the preferences program, the main window opens.
- This contains several gadgets which the equivalents of the
- appropriate environment variables. The names and settings of
- these environment variables are covered in an extra chapter. This
- chapter covers all you need to know about controlling the
- PanaPlus driver via the PanaPref preferences programs.
-
-
- Each gadget of the PanaPref program will now be described in
- detail:
-
- Fast Graphics
-
- If set to on (with a checkmark), the driver sends out graphics
- faster to the printer. While the printing speed can be improved
- significantly, printing quality may be loosed and vertical lines
- may be printed misaligned.
-
-
- Separation
-
- You may print separations with the help of the separation gadgets
- in the upper right half of the window. Each primary colour that
- is checkmarked will be printed (C=cyan, M=magenta, Y=yellow,
- K=black). An example of the use of the separation function can be
- found in the Tips and Tricks chapter.
-
-
- Mirror
-
- If set to on (with a checkmark), graphics will be mirrored;
- especially useful if you want to print pictures intended for
- T-shirt art.
-
- Silent
-
- If set to on (with a checkmark), printing will be done at
- half-speed resulting in less noise.
-
- LineFeed
-
- Many printers have problems with their internal mechanics causing
- unwanted horizontal stripes in the graphics output. Often the
- linefeed is a bit too much or too little, causing dark or white
- horizontal lines. This problem is known as `banding'. LineFeed
- allows you to adjust the driver to the mechanical inaccuracy of
- the printer. Set LineFeed to -1 if you have white lines in the
- output, or +1 if you have dark lines.
-
- Textcolor
-
- With the Textcolor cycle gadget you may choose the default text
- colour for the printer.
-
- Typeface
-
- The Typeface cycle gadget allows you to define the printer
- typeface (or `font') selected by the aFNT0. The typeface selected
- with aFNT0 is your default typeface.
-
- Color Mode/Supergrey
-
- Normal Workbench printer drivers are limited to 16 shades of grey.
- After brightening the graphics output, even fewer shades are
- available. The Panasonic driver does not have this limitation and
- can print colour pictures in up to 256 shades of grey.
-
- With Supergrey enabled, every colour picture will be printed as a
- greyscale picture if you select colour instead of greyscale as the
- graphics output mode. With Supergrey it is the printer driver's
- task to convert the colour data into greyscale data. While this
- can be done by the printer device instead of the printer driver
- (as normal Workbench drivers do), the PanaPlus printer driver
- colour-to-greyscale conversion routines are more precise. Because
- of this you can print a 4096 colour HAM picture in up to 256
- shades of grey instead of the normal 16 shades. Supergrey will
- replace the normal colour dump of the driver.
-
- If you want to print more than 16 shades of grey (and that's what
- Supergrey is all about!) you must define a custom dither matrix in
- the PanaPref program that enables you to print more than 16
- shades. Defining a dither matrix using PanaPref is described
- below. As default, a 64 shade Halftone A dither is used.
-
- Supergrey works with nearly every Amiga application simply by
- printing in Workbench's colour mode, even if your printer isn't a
- colour printer. Application programs that provide their own
- dither routines should not be used with PanaPlus's custom
- dither routines, and because of this should not be used with
- Supergrey . Programs with custom dither routines include Art
- Department Professional's PrefPrinter saver, TruePrint24,
- PageStream. The Studio picture-printing program also belongs to
- this category of programs, but it automatically detects whether
- you are printing in Supergrey or colour.
-
- Supergrey can be disabled in several ways. Take care that none of
- the following special cases are in effect if you want to print
- pictures using Supergrey:
-
- o PanaPlus's custom dither and colour correction routines can
- be turned off by printing with a Workbench density below 3.
- Because of this, Supergrey works only with graphics densities
- above 2.
-
- o PanaPlus's custom dither and colour correction routines can
- be turned off by printing with a Workbench dither method other
- than "ordered". Because of this, Supergrey works only with the
- "ordered" dither routine set in Workbench preferences. This does
- not mean that you cannot print a halftone dither with Supergrey.
- You just have to use the PanaPlus dither routines set in
- PanaPref instead of the dither routines set in Workbench
- preferences, because only the PanaPlus dither routines offer
- more than 16 shades of grey.
-
- o Supergrey can always be turned of using PanaPref.
-
- The Table below shows all parameters that must be enabled for
- printing with Supergrey.
-
- Function Density Workbench dither
-
- Supergrey >2 ordered
- Colour Adjustment >2 ordered
- Ink compensation >2 ordered
- Driver dithers >2 ordered
-
- Note: the number of printable shades of greys in Supergrey
- depends on the number of shades supported by the dither method set
- in PanaPref. Up to 256 shades are possible, and supported by
- the PanaPlus dither routines. Often a dither method that
- produces 64 shades (default) gives best results.
-
-
-
- Timeout
-
- Most people know the "Printer trouble..." requester well. This
- system requester most often appears when you print a document that
- is several pages long. The requester is caused by the computer
- not transferring waiting data to the printer for a period of time
- (usually 30 seconds). If there is a `timeout' the printer device
- assumes an error and the requester appears. A timeout may also
- appear without a real error happening if your printer is waiting
- for (or slowly feeding in) a new sheet of paper, for example.
- This operation often needs more than 30 seconds, and during this
- time no data is accepted by the printer.
-
- With Timeout you can specify a higher timeout value, resulting in
- fewer timeout requesters. A value from 1 to 999 seconds is
- allowed (default 60 seconds).
-
-
- Instead of defining a huge timeout value there is another solution
- available: use the CMD program (see your Workbench disk) to
- redirect the parallel/serial output to a file on disk. After
- this, use the Copy command or a printer spooler to copy the file
- to par: . This technique may also result in a better output
- quality, especially with inkjet printers.
-
- Note: If there is a real timeout error you will have to wait the
- number of seconds specified by Timeout until an error requester
- appears, thus allowing you to cancel the print job. So choose
- your Timeout value wisely.
-
- Job End
-
- If the printer device gets closed after a dump, you can tell the
- driver to signal the end of the print job. This is especially
- useful on huge graphic dumps which might require some time. There
- are two kinds of signals. You can cause a beep (Ctrl-G) on the
- printer, a DisplayBeep on the Amiga, or both.
-
- arXon Port
-
- The PanaPlus driver support the arXon parallel switch-box, an
- external 1 to 3 Centronics switch controllable by software. You
- can ask the printer driver to automatically switch to the required
- port for printing, and switch back to the previously used port
- after printing. This enables you to use a scanner, a digitizer
- and a printer from your Amiga's parallel port without having to
- switch between the devices manually. If you specify Default as
- the port, no switching will take place.
-
- Information about the arXon switch-box may be obtained from:
-
-
- arXon GmbH
- Assenheimer Str. 17
- D-W-6000 Frankfurt
- Germany
- Tel: 010-49-69-7896891
- Fax: 010-49-69-7896878
-
-
- The environment variable sbox_active must be specified before
- using the driver in order to enable the switch-box feature of the
- driver. This is because sbox active is used to determine whether
- a switch-box is installed or not. sbox_active is defined by the
- arXon software.
-
- Save
-
- You may leave the PanaPref preferences program by clicking on
- the Save gadget. Changes made to the settings will be saved for
- permanent use.
-
- Use
-
- You may leave the PanaPref preferences program by clicking on
- the Use gadget. Changes made to the settings will be saved
- temporarily and will stay active until you reboot the computer or
- change the settings using PanaPref again.
-
- Cancel
-
- You may leave the PanaPref preferences program by clicking on
- the Cancel gadget. Changes made to the settings will not be
- recognised or saved.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- More control windows
- --------------------
-
- There are four gadgets in the bottom half of the main
- PanaPref window. The ellipsis (three dots) in these gadgets
- means that another window will be opened when you select the
- gadget. Here is detailed description of each of the four windows.
-
-
-
-
- Customize Tabulators... Tabulators
-
- The gadgets in this window let you customize the horizontal tab
- stops settings of your printer, useful for printing program
- listings and tables. Up to 32 tab stops may be defined. All tab
- stops above the limit of 32 are ignored, and a requester will tell
- you so. Horizontal tabs are usually selected and stored by the
- printer in characters, not inches. Thus, any change in the
- character spacing can change the physical locations of horizontal
- tabs, but the logical positions remain unchanged.
-
- You can set or unset a tab stop by clicking in the gadget at the
- required position. A T is used for a tab stop. The - and +
- characters are used to help you find the correct position. Using
- the slider below the gadget you can scroll the `tab stops' gadgets
- to the required position.
-
- Clear Tabs
-
- With Clear Tabs you can clear all tab stops.
-
- Set every n chars
-
- With the n: and Set every n chars gadgets you can easily set tab
- stops with the same distance. Simply enter the distance into the
- n: gadget and select Set every n chars .
-
- Note: the printer driver uses a default distance of eight
- characters. If you want to reset your customized tabs stops
- settings to the printer default values, simply call up Customize
- Tabs... and the window will open with a default n: value of 8.
- Press "Set every n chars" to select the default value.
-
- Use - Cancel
-
- You can leave the window with the Use or Cancel gadget. Changes
- made to the tab stops settings are accepted with Use. Cancel
- leaves the tab stops unchanged, and any changes made will be lost.
-
- Note: Use does not save the changes made to your environment.
- This is done by using the Use or Save gadget in the main window.
-
-
-
- Page Size and Margins...
-
- The gadgets in this window let you customize the paper size and
- margins. This window contains many additional settings that are
- unknown to most normal printer drivers.
-
- Enable Form
-
- If Enable Form is checkmarked, page length (as set in Workbench
- preferences), and Perforation Skip will be enabled by the driver.
- In order to stay compatible with normal Workbench printer drivers,
- by default the settings are not used. Some applications require
- well-defined paper sizes and margins for printing forms. The
- PanaPlus driver provides you with these facilities by
- checkmarking Enable Form. It may require some experimentation
- (and paper) until you have found the correct values for a specific
- application.
-
- Perforation Skip
-
- Perforation Skip specifies the number of lines that the printer
- skips over at the end of each page. This causes the printer to
- skip the perforation between pages of continuous forms. If zero
- lines is specified, perforation skip will be disabled. If the
- specified value is greater than or equal to the form length (as
- defined in the Workbench preferences program), the skip
- perforation is cancelled and the top and bottom margins become
- inactive. The Perforation Skip is only enabled if Enable Form is
- checkmarked.
-
- Page Length
-
- Paper Length is a read-only gadget showing the paper length as
- defined in Workbench preferences. You can use the value as a
- guide to setting your perforation skip and top margin values.
- Changes made to the paper length preferences are automatically
- detected by the PanaPref program, and the gadget is updated
- immediately without the need for exiting PanaPref. The Paper
- Length is only enabled if Enable Form is checkmarked.
-
- Custom ResX
- Custom ResY
-
- If the selected paper format in preferences (Workbench 2.0:
- "Printer") is CUSTOM, this option allows you to specify the width
- of the printable area of paper in inch wide dots. The size is
- used only for graphics dumps and does not affect text printouts.
- For example, if you are using Workbench 1.3 (which doesn't have a
- DIN A4 option) you can specify an X resolution of 2804 dots
- (19.78cm, 7.8in), which is equal to the DIN A4 size used by most
- Commodore printer drivers. If you specify zero (the default) as
- the X resolution, the US-LETTER resolution of 2880 dots (20.3cm,
- 8in) will be used. The allowed range is 0 to 65535 dots.
-
- Similar to Custom ResX, Custom ResY defines the height of the
- printable paper size.
-
- Use - Cancel
-
- You can leave the window with the Use or Cancel gadget. Changes
- made to the settings are accepted with Use. Cancel leaves the
- settings unchanged and any changes made will be lost.
-
- Note: Use does not save the changes made to your environment.
- This is done by using the Use or Save gadget in the main window.
-
-
-
- The Color Adjustments... window.
-
- The gadgets in this window ebable you to make colour adjustments
- and compensate for ink impurities. But why are colour adjustments
- and ink compensation needed?
-
-
- o Most colour printer users must have come across the problem of
- graphics dumps being too dark, or the output containing too much
- red. Using the colour adjustment you can easily correct this. As
- default, the PanaPlus driver uses a gamma function to bright
- up printings.
-
- o The output quality of printers depends ultimately on the ribbon
- and type of paper being used. Using the colour adjustment you can
- easily alter the driver to various ribbon and paper types.
-
- o The colour adjustment allows you to do image processing by
- controlling the contrast, gamma correction and brightness of each
- primary print colour. You can even filter out unwanted colours.
-
- o Printer inks (or inks used in ribbons) are not completely pure
- materials. For example there is some yellow mixed into the
- magenta ink, and there is some magenta in the cyan ink. The ink
- compensation values will correct for these impurities allowing
- blues, for example, to be printed as blues rather than purples.
-
-
- Colour adjustment is only one of several processes needed for
- printing graphics. You can control the graphics output of the
- PanaPlus drivers for each of these processes.
-
- Before the printer driver can process a picture for printing it
- must get separated into its primary printing colours. Each
- primary printing colour can be adjusted by the PanaPlus
- printer driver using 16 sliders which describe a conversion
- function. Colour adjustment is needed because the colour values
- displayed on computer monitor and the colours printed by printers
- are different. A bright red on the monitor, for example, usually
- gets printed as dark red; blue is often printed as violet; and the
- printer output is often too dark.
-
- Most printers cannot print two adjacent dots without overlapping
- them slightly. This problem is known as `dot gain' Dot gain ,
- causing muddy and dark output. You can avoid dot gain problems by
- printing with a lower resolution (for instance 180 dpi on a 360
- dpi printer) or by using a special dither matrix and colour
- adjustment which is not affected by dot gain problems (for
- instance Halftone-A dither, wich is the default PanaPlus
- dither).
-
- You can control the colour adjustment sliders in several ways.
- There are three sliders in the upper right half of the Color
- Adjustments... window. These provide global control over all 16
- sliders that describe the conversion function.
-
- Brightness
-
- The brightness adjustment globally modifies the general brightness
- of a colour component. It does this by uniformly shifting the
- colour map upwards or downwards. All input intensities of one
- primary printing colour will be shifted upwards (made brighter) by
- the colour map. If you brighten all the primary printing colours,
- the whole picture gets brighter.
-
- The brightness adjustment is not without its drawbacks. Notice
- that the darkest input value is brightened, leaving no darker
- colours for printing. This means that the darkest intensity in
- the image will also be brightened, which may not be acceptable.
- Also note that most of the brighter levels now have exactly the
- same intensity levels, meaning that all details which had
- intensity levels in that range are lost.
-
- The brightness control in PanaPref ranges from to 50, with
- zero being the neutral value. Setting the brightness control to a
- positive value uniformly shifts the colour map upwards, towards a
- brighter colour component. Similarly, a negative value causes the
- colour to be shifted towards darkness.
-
- Contrast
-
- The contrast adjustment globally modifies the general contrast of
- a colour component. Contrast adjustments can be visualized by
- thinking of the neutral colour map being pivoted around its centre
- point. At one extreme the colour map becomes flat, which means
- that all input intensities map to the same output intensity (no
- contrast). The other extreme is a vertical line for a colour map,
- which produces a primary colour with exactly two intensities
- (maximum contrast).
-
- Notice again that contrast loses some amount of visual detail,
- just as the brightness adjustment does. This may or may not be
- acceptable for any given image.
-
- The contrast control in PanaPref ranges from to 50, with zero
- being the neutral value. Setting the contrast control to a
- positive value uniformly pivots the colour map around its centre
- in an anti-clockwise direction (towards the vertical), which
- increases visible contrast.
-
- Gamma
-
- The gamma adjustment provides a way to significantly brighten a
- colour component without losing that much detail. It does this by
- introducing a curve into the colour map, whereby the colour map is
- shifted upwards or downwards (made brighter or darker
- respectively) but no portion of the colour map gets clipped to the
- maximum or minimum values.
-
- The gamma adjustment also affects the contrast of the colour
- component. In the darker part of the spectrum contrast is
- increased; in the lighter part of the spectrum contrast is
- decreased.
-
- The gamma control in PanaPref ranges from -50 to +50, where
- zero represents no gamma adjustment.
-
- The overall effect of gamma adjustment is usually quite
- satisfactory and we recommend its liberal use. There are several
- reasons for this. The gamma function provides an easy way to
- brighten a picture without losing detail. Also, monitor tubes
- show a computer picture using a non-linear conversion function,
- and this function is very similar to the gamma function. Using
- the gamma function allows you to more easily adapt the printer
- output to the monitor picture.
-
- Set
-
- "Set" globally sets all 16 adjustment sliders of the active colour
- component to the values defined by the Gamma, Brightness and
- Contrast sliders.
-
- Invert Bright+/- Default
-
- Beside "Set" there are more gadgets providing global control over
- the 16 adjustment sliders. Invert inverts all 16 sliders. The
- two "Bright" gadgets allow you to increase or decrease the
- brightness of all 16 sliders. "Default" resets all 16 sliders to
- the default values wich is equal to a gamma correction of +32.
-
- Adjustment sliders
-
- The 16 colour adjustment sliders in the middle of the window give
- you precise control over the colour adjustment function of the
- driver. Each slider can be set to one of 256 shades. A higher
- level means less of the currently selected primary colour. A
- lower level means more colour, causing a darker picture. All 16
- sliders describe a conversion function Conversion function . Dark
- input values are adjusted by the sliders to the left, bright
- colours are adjusted by the sliders to the right. As soon as you
- click on one of the sliders, the value represented by the slider
- is shown in the Level gadget on the left-hand side of the window.
-
- Colour pictures are printed by most printers using three or four
- primary colours. Usually these colours are cyan, magenta, yellow
- and black. (Black is not used by DeskDriver). All 16 colour
- adjustment sliders are applied to one primary colour. You can
- choose which primary colour to adjust using the Color cycle gadget
- in the upper left-hand corner of the window.
-
- But what if you want to use the gamma function to brighten a
- greyscale picture? For this purpose select B/W-Grey as the colour
- and use the gamma slider to select the required gamma setting.
- Apply the gamma setting to the 16 adjustment sliders by clicking
- on the "Set" gadget. After leaving the PanaPref program using
- "Use" or "Save", the gamma function is active.
-
-
- While each of the 16 colour sliders provides 256 levels, this does
- not necessarily mean you can print 256 shades of each colour. The
- number of colours or shades printed depends upon the number of
- colours or shades supported by the dither matrix being used. The
- PanaPlus installation program installs an Halftone-A dither
- method with 64 shades as the default dither routine. More
- information about setting up a dither matrix can be found on in a
- chapter below.
-
- Push Pop
-
- Now, say you want to apply a specific gamma function to each
- primary colour. Sure, you could use the same technique for
- installing the gamma function as described in the example above
- for every primary colour. But this technique can be a real pain
- if you have adjusted some sliders by hand. This is why the Push
- and Pop gadgets got introduced. Push saves all your current
- slider settings on to the stack. After changing the colour
- component you can easily Pop the settings from the stack. Using
- Pop for every colour component is fast and easy.
-
- Load Save
-
- You can save the your colour adjustment function to a file for
- later use. You could save your adjustment settings for various
- kind of paper types, for example, and reload them when needed.
- Save will cause the system file requester to appear and you can
- choose a path and filename for saving. Load will cause the file
- requester to appear and you can choose the file for loading. Note
- that Save and Load only affect the currently selected colour
- component.
-
- Comp M Comp Y
-
- The integer gadgets Comp. M and Comp. Y can be used to adjust
- the ink compensation of the printer driver. Printer inks used in
- ribbons are not completely pure materials. For example there is
- some yellow mixed into the magenta ink, and there is some magenta
- found in the cyan ink. The ink compensation values will correct
- for these impurities allowing blues, for example, to be printed as
- blues rather than purples.
-
- Comp. M defines the percentage of magenta ink in the cyan ink.
- Comp. Y defines the percentage of yellow ink in the magenta ink.
-
- PanaPlus's custom dither and colour correction routines can be
- turned off by printing with a Workbench dither method other than
- "ordered", or a density below 3. Because of this, colour
- adjustment and ink compensation work only with the ordered dither
- routine set in Workbench preferences and densities above 2.
-
- Colour adjustment works with nearly every Amiga application.
- Application programs with their own colour adjustment routines
- should not be used with PanaPlus's routines enabled. Programs
- with their own colour adjustment routines include Art Department
- Professional's PrefPrinter saver, TruePrint24 and PageStream. Use
- density 1 or 2 when printing with these programs. The Studio
- picture-printing program also belongs to this category of
- programs, but it automatically disables the PanaPlus driver's
- colour adjustment routines.
-
- Use Cancel
-
- You can leave the window with the Use or Cancel gadget. Changes
- made to the settings are accepted with "Use". Cancel leaves the
- settings unchanged and any changes made will be lost.
-
- Note: Use does not save the changes made to your environment.
- This is achieved by using the Use or Save gadget in the main
- window.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Customize Dither... Dither Routines
-
- Most printers print pictures using a `binary coding', or to put it
- more simply: a dot can either be printed, or not. There is no
- way to control the brightness of a single dot. A monochrome
- printer can only print one colour: black. Colour printers
- support the printing of three or four primary colours: cyan,
- magenta, yellow and black.
-
- A special technique is needed for printing more shades. Dither
- routines provide such a technique. Dither routines print dots of
- a primary colour in various patterns, creating the impression of
- different shades, thanks to the fact that the human eye can't
- distinguish adjacent dots from a distance.
-
- Each pixel of a picture produces a pattern of printed dots. The
- pattern is described by a dither matrix. There are almost no
- limits to the size of the dither matrix. Workbench dither
- matrices (ordered and halftone) are of the size , which is equal
- to printing shades A normal matrix produces 17 shades. This is
- not true in case of the Workbench dither matrix. . A matrix
- consists of threshold values. Each matrix value is compared with
- the picture's pixel value. If the value of the pixel is higher
- than the matrix value, a dot gets printed.
-
- Dither patterns allow you to print a huge number of shades. The
- number of printable shades mainly depends on the size of the
- dither matrix used and the quality of the printer.
-
- Many printers have problems with overlapping dots. These problems
- have a huge influence on the decision as to which dither matrix to
- use. There is also a strong relationship between a dither matrix
- and the colour adjustment required. A change of print density
- often requires a change of the dither matrix and/or colour
- adjustment, and changing the dither matrix usually requires the
- colour adjustment also to be changed.
-
- PanaPlus gives you the facilities to define the dither matrix
- used for printing. Many dither matrices are included with
- PanaPlus. These are handled in an extra below chapter; this
- chapter covers only the use of the Customize Dither... window.
- This window allows you to edit the current dither pattern.
- Instead of editing a pattern, you may quickly load a pattern using
- the window shown after selecting "Customize Dither...".
-
- The theoretical aspects of digital halftoning are complex, and are
- way beyond the scope of this manual. If you are interested in
- more detailed information, a very good book can be recommended:
-
- Robert Ulichney
- Digital Halftoning
- MIT Press
- ISBN 0-262-21009-6
-
- The book is easy to understand and comes with lots of examples.
- Most of the dither routines used by PanaPlus are described in
- detail in this book.
-
-
- Load Save
-
- Using the Customize Dither... window is very similar to using the
- Color Adjustments... window. The Load and Save gadgets allow you
- to load and save the required dither matrix for a particular
- colour component. Only the currently selected Color component is
- saved or loaded.
-
- Push Pop
-
- Let's assume you want to print a colour picture using the halftone
- dither. There are two ways you can enable the halftone dither in
- PanaPref. You can either load the dither matrix from disk for
- each primary colour, or you can use the stack. The stack can be
- controlled using the Push and Pop gadgets on the left-hand side of
- the window.
-
- All you have to do to install the required dither matrix is to
- load the dither. Afterwards click on the Push gadget and the
- dither is saved on to the stack. Now switch the primary colour
- and Pop the matrix from the stack. Enable the matrix for all
- primary colours by using the stack. You can switch between the
- primary colours by using the Color cycle gadget Color .
-
- A PanaPlus dither matrix may be any rectangular shape and can
- consist of up to 512 values. Up to 64 values can be included on
- each row (X) or column (Y). You can use the X and Y sliders to
- define the size of the matrix. The current size of the matrix is
- shown on the left-hand side of the window.
-
- PanaPlus's custom dither routines can be turned off by
- printing with a Workbench dither method other than ordered , or a
- density below 3.
-
- The custom dither routines works with nearly every Amiga
- application. Application programs that provide their own dither
- routines should not be used with PanaPlus's routines enabled.
- Programs that do not work include Art Department Professional's
- PrefPrinter saver, TruePrint24 and PageStream. Use density 1 or 2
- when printing with these programs. The Studio picture-printing
- program also belongs to this category of programs, but it
- automatically disables the PanaPlus driver's dither routines.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Dither Routines
-
- Many dithering methods are supplied with PanaPlus, and these
- are described below. In each case a larger dither mask size
- produces a printout which can represent a wider range of colours,
- but will produce less spatial information per unit area of paper.
- Conversely, a smaller dither mask size can reproduce fewer colours
- (or shades) but more closely approximates the true resolution of
- your printer.
-
- Another way of expressing this is simply that there is a tradeoff
- between printing ``lots'' of colours and printing in high
- resolution. Given a specific printer with a specific DPI
- capability, asking for ``lots'' of colours means using a larger
- dither mask size. A larger dither mask size cuts down on your
- effective resolution. For instance, using a dither mask of 16*16
- on your 360 dpi printer will result in 360 / 16 = 22,5 dpi This
- values is often described as l/inch (lines per inch) or `screen
- frequency'. with full colour information.
-
- Note that this can work to your advantage when enlarging a
- picture. Enlarging means that there are more dots to work with,
- which offsets the loss in resolution caused by a larger dither
- mask size. This, added to the benefits to be had by being able to
- reproduce more colours (or shades).
-
- Also note that many printers, including most laser printers and
- dot-matrix printers, have considerable dot gain problems. For
- example, a 360 dpi printer does not actually print dots which are
- of an inch in size. Rather, its dots will be much larger. This
- causes some dithers, such as the Ordered dithers, to produce
- intensely over-saturated or `muddy' prints. Other dithers, such
- as the two halftone dithers, overcome this problem with low-end
- printers.
-
- If you want to learn more about dither routines and digital
- halftoning, here is a very good book to go for:
-
- Robert Ulichney
- Digital Halftoning
- MIT Press
- ISBN 0-262-21009-6
-
- The book is easy to understand and comes with lots of examples.
- Most of the dither routines used by PanaPlus are described in
- detail in this book.
-
- See the description of the "Customize Dither..." window for
- information on how to enable a required dither routine for a
- PanaPlus printer driver.
-
- OK, now let's discuss the dither routines in detail:
-
- While using the PanaPref program, click on the button marked
- "Customize Dither..." for using one of the dithers described below.
-
- Several popular ordered dither methods are provided with
- PanaPlus and saved in files. These files can be loaded and
- enabled with the Load gadget or by using a listview shown after
- clicking on Customize Dither... .
-
- The number of printable colours is usually directly related to the
- size of the dither matrix. Most of the ordered dither routines
- described below exist in several sizes. You can distinguish
- between them by their filenames. For instance a filename of
- "Halftone-A-4" means the Halftone A dither routine for 4 shades;
- while "Halftone-A-256" means the Halftone A dither routine for 256
- shades.
-
- Halftone-A - number of colors
- Halftone-B - number of colors
-
- 10 Percent 20 Percent 50 Percent 80 Percent 90 Percent
-
- **** ******** ********
- * *** **** ***** ** *****
- ** *** **** ***** * *****
- **** ******** ********
- **** ******** ********
- ** *** **** **** * ****** *
- ** *** **** **** * ***** *
- * **** ******** ********
-
-
- The halftone dithers (Halftone-A and Halftone-B) differ in how
- they place a halftone matrix.
-
- This is the classic clustered halftone method used by most book
- publishers, and PostScript. To improve the dither output the
- halftone matrix is rotated by 45 degrees. Halftone-A causes the
- halftone matrix for each of the primary colours to be centred
- about the same point. This means that the primary colours will
- overlap completely, leaving a lot of white paper showing through.
- This may be appropriate for some better dye-sublimation type
- printers, or other colour printers with good registration where
- the inks mix well.
-
- Halftone-B, on the other hand, staggers the halftone matrix of
- each primary colour so that they do not overlap. This is similar
- in concept to traditional colour offset printing. Halftone-B may
- produce better results on printers whose inks do not mix well, and
- on printers with less than perfect registration.
-
- The halftone dithers can produce some extremely good results and
- compensate for the dot gain problems outlined above. Try both
- halftone dithers to see which one is better for your particular
- intention. If you are going to photocopy your printouts, using
- Halftone results in a much better copy.
-
- Halftone-B is somewhat different to the other dither matrices.
- You have a special dither matrix for each colour. Because of
- this, each dither filename includes the abbreviation of the color
- (C = cyan, Y = yellow, M = magenta, K = black or greyscale).
-
- If you are using Halftone-B with one of the PanaPlus printer
- driver, you must increase the brightness of the black colour
- component by 50%. Use the bright+ gadget in the PanaPref
- preferences programs for increasing brightness.
-
- Halftone-B is a good example of the relationship between colour
- adjustment and dither routines. You have to consider both
- settings.
-
-
- PrtDevice-Halftone-16
-
- 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
-
- * * * * * * * * * * * ** * ****
- * * ** ** ** *** **** **** ****
- * ** ** ** ** ** ** ****
- * * * * * * * ** **** **** ****
-
-
-
- PrtDevice-Ordered-16
-
- 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%
-
- * * * * * * * * * *** **** **** ****
- * * * * * * * * * ** * ****
- * * * * * * * * * * ** **** **** ****
- * * * * * * * * * ****
-
- This dither matrix is the one used by the Workbench printer
- devices Halftone or Ordered dither.
-
- The dispersed ordered dither produces a regular repeating pattern
- which is often used for printing computer graphics. The ordered
- dither is particularly vulnerable to over-saturation due to dot
- gain in high resolutions. But you will get good output if you
- don't use the maximum print density of your printer (for instance,
- by using 180 dpi on a 360 dpi printer).
-
-
- Ordered-A-Dither
-
- 10 Percent 20 Percent 50 Percent 80 Percent 90 Percent
- * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ******
- * * * * ******** ********
- * * * * * * * * * * *** *** *** ***
- * * * * ******** ********
- * * * * * * * * * * * * ***** **
- * * * * ******** ********
- * * * * * * * * * *** *** *** ***
- * * * * ******** ********
-
- The dispersed ordered dither produces a regular repeating pattern
- which is often used for printing computer graphics. The ordered
- dither is particularly vulnerable to over-saturation due to dot
- gain in high resolutions. But you will get good output if you
- don't use the maximum print density of your printer (for instance,
- by using 180 dpi on a 360 dpi printer).
-
- Ordered-B-Dither
-
- 10 Percent 20 Percent 50 Percent 80 Percent 90 Percent
- * ** ** ** ** ******** ********
- ** ** ** ** ** ******** ********
- ** ** ** ** ***** **
- ** ** ** ** **** ***
- ** * ** ** ** ******** ********
- ** ** ** ** ******** ********
- ** ** ****** ******
- ** ** ****** ******
-
- This dither is a mixture of a dispersed dither like Ordered and a
- clustered dither like Halftone. The dither is meant specially for
- high resolution printers with dot gain problems. For instance, if
- you print a picture with 360*360 dpi using Ordered-B-64, you get a
- picture that appears to be printed at 180*180 dpi. But while
- colours are printed emulating 180*180 dpi, all the black parts of
- the picture are printed using 360*360 dpi. Don't get confused,
- the printed picture is still better than a picture in real 180*180
- dpi resolution. The Ordered-B dither is especially useful for
- colour DTP because you can combine good colour pictures with fine
- high quality text.
-
- Spiral-Dot-Screen - number of colors
-
- 10 Percent 20 Percent 50 Percent 80 Percent 90 Percent
- ******** ********
- ****** ******** ********
- * **** ****** ******** ********
- *** **** ****** ******* ********
- *** **** ****** ******* ********
- * ****** ******* ********
- ** ******* ********
- **
- A wide range of special effects clustered-dither matrices are
- available in the graphic arts industry, and all are easily
- simulated digitally. Spiral-Dot is such a dither.
-
- The spiral-dot dither is essentially half of the classical
- `screen', with dark squares growing to fill the plane without the
- alternating light squares. Spiral-Dot looks quiet similar to the
- Halftone-A matrix, zero degree rotated.
-
-
- Horizontal - number of colors
- Vertical - number of colors
-
- 10 Percent 20 Percent 50 Percent 80 Percent 90 Percent
- ******* *********
- ***** ********* *********
- **** ********* ********* *********
- ******* ********* ********* ********* *********
- ********* ********* *********
- ********* *********
- ****
-
- A wide range of special effects clustered-dither matrices are
- available in the graphic arts industry, and all are easily
- simulated digitally. The Line dithers are such dithers.
-
- The horizontal (as well as the vertical) dither overcomes many of
- the dot gain problems that the Ordered dithers have with low-end
- printers. These dithers (particularly the diagonal dithers) are
- especially good for large pictures.
-
- Fwd-Brick- number of colors
- Bck-Brick- number of colors
-
- 10 Percent 20 Percent 50 Percent 80 Percent 90 Percent
- ** *** ***** ******* ********
- * ** **** ****** * ****** *
- * *** * **** ** ***** **
- ** ** *** *** **** ***
- * ** ** **** *** ****
- * *** * ***** ** *****
- * ** **** ****** * ******
- ** *** ***** ******* *******
-
- A wide range of special effects clustered dither matrices are
- available in the graphic arts industry and all are easily
- simulated digitally. The Brick dithers are such dithers.
-
- The Forward-Brick (as well as the Backward-Brick) dither overcomes
- many of the dot gain problems that the error diffusion, Blue Noise
- and Ordered dithers have with inexpensive printers. These dithers
- are especially good for enlarged pictures.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Tips & Tricks
- =============
-
- Colour printing with b/w printers
-
- You are able to print colour graphics on monochrome printers by
- manually switching colour ink cartridges or ribbons. Colour
- printing can be achieved by using the separation function of the
- PanaPlus driver:
-
- o Use the Separation gadgets of the PanaPref preferences
- program to turn off all primary print colours except yellow. Put
- a yellow ribbon/ink cartridge into your printer.
-
- o Print a colour picture from your application using the Workbench
- colour mode.
-
- o Repeat the steps above for each primary colour, using the same
- sheet of paper.
-
- Note that reinserting the sheet of paper usually causes mechanical
- problems that result in a loss of print quality.
-
- Most likely, the colour and brightness of the output will be
- wrong. Changing the dither method may improve the output quality
- dramatically. Try both a dispersed Ordered and a clustered
- Halftone dither, and use the one that fits your printer best.
-
- Also, start printing with the brightest primary colour. This
- avoids the possible pollution of brighter colour ribbons.
-
-
-
-
-
- Errors & Fixes
- ==============
-
- For those who deal with computers and printers, it's a known fact:
- Everything possible that can go wrong, will go wrong. Especially
- when it comes to printing, there are many places were you can make
- mistakes.
-
- If you find a problem with a PanaPlus printer driver, please
- send a description which makes it possible to reproduce the
- problem. For this purpose, you should provide following
- information:
-
-
- o Which application program are you using, and which version of it?
- o Which Workbench revision are you using?
- o Include a dump of the program, as a file (use the CMD program
- from the Workbench disk for this) and in printed form.
- o If possible, provide a copy your Workbench disk or application,
- already set up for printing.
-
-
- Par: or Prt:?
-
- Data should be sent to the printer only via parallel.device (par:)
- or printer.device (prt:), and not both at the same time as this
- may confuse the printer.
-
- No dump?
-
- If the printer device immediately reports an error while trying to
- print a graphic, check that you have selected the PanaPlus
- printer driver in Workbench preferences.
-
- No way for Kickstart 2&3?
-
- Your printer doesn't work under Kickstart 2 or 3, while with
- Kickstart 1.3 it works fine? Check the "on-line" and "out of
- paper" lines in the printer cable. Make sure they are connected
- correctly. If your cable is wired right, check the two Amiga port
- chips named 8520. There have been major changes in Kickstart 2
- regarding the use of the port chips. Ask your dealer for help if
- these tips are too technical for you!
-
- Empty pages?
-
- Empty pages is a known problem of Amiga printer drivers. After
- graphics dumps an empty page is printed. So far there is no 100%
- cure for this problem. Some application programs don't cause an
- empty page if you enable the Continuous paper type in preferences.
-
- Printer trouble... ?
-
- Printer trouble... requester? Have a look at the TimeOut setting
- of the PanaPref program. Setting a longer Timeout can avoid
- such requesters. Anyway, clicking on the Resume button continues
- printing without loss of data.
-
- No Formfeed?
-
- If a page is not ejected, check your paper type preferences. Make
- sure Single is selected as the paper type. Deluxe Paint users may
- run into the problem of an endless graphic dump -- the Deluxe
- Paint print requester won't disappear, and the printer doesn't
- eject the page. This is a known bug in Deluxe Paint and can be
- easily cured by a mouse click in the Deluxe Paint print requester.
-
- Differences between KS 2 and KS 1.3?
-
- After switching from Workbench 1.3 to 2/3 your graphic dumps are
- of different size? This most likely will happen to users using
- the DIN A4 paper size. For instance, under Workbench 1.3 you used
- the Letter size, and after switching to Workbench 2/3 you used the
- DIN A4 size. Because PanaPlus supports the new paper sizes
- (DIN A4, A5 ...), you get a different printout under Workbench
- 2.0/2.1. Simply switch back to the Letter size to get the same
- result as under Workbench 1.3.
-
- Patching drivers
-
- There are several programs that allow you to `patch' printer
- drivers in order to alter specific commands or parameters like the
- Timeout value. Do not use these programs!
-
- To dark pictures?
-
- If your graphic dumps are too dark or wrongly coloured, it is most
- likely caused by the disabled colour adjustment routines of the
- PanaPlus driver.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Environment Vars
-
- If you have never heard of `environment variables', this chapter
- is not for you. But don't panic, you won't be missing anything
- unless you are still using Workbench 1.3.
-
- So this chapter is mainly of interest to experienced users. It
- covers controlling the PanaPlus driver from ARexx, Shell or
- batch files.
-
- You may set options for the PanaPlus driver by using the
- setenv and getenv Shell commands instead of the PanaPref
- preferences program. Setenv saves your option in a file in the
- ENV: directory. See your system manual for a complete
- description of the setenv and getenv commands. The driver will
- read in the arguments upon opening the printer device. If you
- don't have enough memory, the driver refuses to open.
-
-
- Note: setting options does not always mean they take effect
- immediately. So if you make changes by using setenv , flush the
- driver out of memory (AVAIL FLUSH) or run InitPrinter in order to
- let the driver know about your changes. The PanaPref
- preferences programs will do this for you automatically.
-
- Remember that environment variables (which are stored in the ENV:
- directory) are normally erased by re-booting. If you don't want
- to set the environment variables every time you boot, you can
- place them in ENVARC: (Workbench 2/3) or assign ENV: to a non
- volatile disk (Workbench 1.3). Make sure you use the Commodore
- setenv command to set environment variables. Environment variable
- names are not case sensitive.
-
- OK, now a description of every environment variable in detail:
-
-
- sbox_printer 0|1|2|3 (default: 0)
-
- PanaPlus support the arXon parallel switch-box, an external 1
- to 3 Centronics switch controllable by software. You can ask the
- printer driver to automatically switch to the required port for
- printing, and switch back to the previously used port after
- printing. This enables you to use a scanner, a digitizer and a
- printer from your Amiga's parallel port without having to switch
- between the devices manually. If you specify Default as the port,
- no switching will take place.
-
- Information about the arXon switch-box may be obtained from:
-
-
- arXon GmbH
- Assenheimer Str. 17
- D-W-6000 Frankfurt
- Germany
- Tel: 010-49-69-7896891
- Fax: 010-49-69-7896878
-
- The environment variable sbox active must be specified before
- using the driver in order to enable the switch-box feature of the
- driver. This is because sbox active is used to determine whether
- a switch-box is installed or not. sbox_active is defined by the
- arXon software.
-
-
- PanaGAdj: <Num1-16>
- PanaCAdj: <Num1-16>
- PanaMAdj: <Num1-16>
- PanaYAdj: <Num1-16>
- PanaKAdj: <Num1-16>
-
- (default: 0 90 117 137 153 167 179 190 200 210 218 226 234 241 248 255)
-
- You may define a colour adjustment function using 16 values for
- each primary print colour (G=grey, C=cyan, M=magenta, Y=yellow and
- K=black). Each of the 16 values must be in the range 0 (black) to
- 255 (white). The brightness of the input values increases from
- left to right (0 to 255).
-
- PanaBeep: 0|1|2|3 (default: 0)
-
- If the printer device gets closed after a dump, you can tell the
- driver to signal the end of the print job. This is especially
- useful with huge graphic dumps which might require some time.
- There are two kinds of signals. You can cause a beep (Ctrl-G) on
- the printer, a DisplayBeep on the Amiga, or both:
-
- 0 = No signal (default)
- 1 = Beep
- 2 = Flash
- 3 = Beep Flash
-
-
- PanaColor <Num> (default: 0)
-
- PanaColor defines the default text printing colour:
-
- 0 = Black (default)
- 1 = Magenta
- 2 = Cyan
- 3 = Blue
- 4 = Yellow
- 5 = Red
- 6 = Green
-
- PanaGDit: <X> <Y> <a11, a12,... etc.> (default: Halftone A 64)
- PanaCDit: <X> <Y> <a11, a12,... etc.> (default: Halftone A 64)
- PanaMDit: <X> <Y> <a11, a12,... etc.> (default: Halftone A 64)
- PanaYDit: <X> <Y> <a11, a12,... etc.> (default: Halftone A 64)
- PanaKDit: <X> <Y> <a11, a12,... etc.> (default: Halftone A 64)
-
- These variables allow you to define the required dither matrix for
- each primary print colour (G=grey, C=cyan, M=magenta, Y=yellow and
- K=black). Several dither matrices are included with PanaPlus
- (Ordered, Halftone, Spiral, Line, etc.). These matrices are
- stored in a directory named ` dither-settings ' which can be found
- in your ` Dither-Settings ' drawer. You may copy these matrices
- directly to env: , or define a matrix of your own.
-
- PanaFast 0|1 (default: 0)
-
- If set to 1, the driver sends out graphics faster to the printer.
- While the printing speed can be improved significantly, printing
- quality may be loosed and vertical lines may be printed
- misaligned.
-
-
- PanaForm ON|OFF (default: OFF)
-
- If PanaForm is ON , page length (as set in Workbench
- preferences) and Perforation Skip will be enabled by the driver.
- In order to stay compatible with normal Workbench printer drivers,
- by default the settings are not used. Some applications require a
- well-defined paper size and margins for printing forms. The
- Panasonic driver provides you with these facilities by setting
- PanaForm to ON . It may require some experimentation (and
- paper) until you find the correct values for a specific
- application.
-
- PanaGFeed <Num> (default: 0)
-
- Most printers have problems with their internal mechanics causing
- unwanted horizontal stripes in the graphic output. Often the
- linefeed is a bit too much or too little, causing dark or white
- horizontal lines. This problem is called `banding'.
- PanaGFeed allows you to adjust the driver to the mechanical
- inaccuracy of the printer. Set PanaGFeed to 1 if you have
- white lines in the output, or 2 if you have dark lines:
-
- 0 = Normal linefeed
- 1 = Decrease linefeed
- 2 = Increase linefeed
-
-
- PanaMagenta: <Num> (default: 0%)
-
- Printer ribbon inks are not completely pure materials. For
- example there is some yellow mixed into the magenta ink, and some
- magenta in the cyan ink. The ink compensation values will correct
- for these impurities. With magenta compensation you specify the
- percentage of magenta in the cyan ink.
-
- The ink compensation function can be completely disabled by
- specifying 0 . You will notice that without the ink compensation
- function a blue sky will print as purple. With the ink
- compensation function set to 10--30 , blue skies are usually blue
- again.
-
- PanaMagenta defines the percentage of magenta in the cyan ink,
- and may range from 0 to 100%.
-
-
- PanaMirror: ON|OFF (default: OFF)
-
- If set to ON , graphics will be mirrored. Especially useful if
- you want to print pictures intended for T-shirt art.
-
-
- PanaPerf: <Num> (default: 0 lines)
-
- If PanaForm is set to ON, PanaPerf specifies the number
- of lines that the printer skips at the end of each page. This
- causes the printer to skip the perforation between pages of
- continuous forms. If zero lines are specified, perforation skip
- will be disabled. If the specified PanaPerf value is greater
- than or equal to the form length (as defined in the Workbench
- preferences program), the skip perforation is cancelled and the
- top and bottom margins become inactive.
-
- PanaResX: <Num> (default: 0 dots)
-
- If the preferences paper size is CUSTOM , this option allows you
- to specify the horizontal resolution (width) for graphic dumps.
- The size is specified in 360 dpi dots. If you specify zero (the
- default) as the resolution, the US LETTER resolution of 2880 dots
- will be used. The allowed range for <Num> is 0 to 65535 dots.
- The PanaResX setting is used by the driver for graphics
- printing only.
-
- PanaResY: <Num> (default: 0 dots)
-
- If the preferences paper size is CUSTOM, this option allows you to
- specify the vertical resolution (height) for graphic dumps. The
- size is defined as 360 dpi dots. If you specify zero (the
- default) as the resolution, the US LETTER resolution will be used.
- The allowed range for <Num> is 0 to 65535 dots. The PanaResY
- setting is used by the driver for graphics printing only.
-
- PanaSep: C M Y K (default: CMYK)
-
- With this option you can print a CYMK colour component of a
- picture. For example, if you want to print the cyan component of
- a picture set PanaSep to C . The combination of following
- characters, in any order, is allowed:
-
- C = Cyan
- M = Magenta
- Y = Yellow
- K = Black
-
-
- PanaSuper: ON|OFF (default: OFF)
-
- Normal Workbench printer drivers are limited to 16 shades of grey.
- After brightening the graphic output, even fewer shades are
- available. PanaPlus does not have this limitation and can
- print colour pictures in up to 256 shades of grey.
-
- With PanaSuper enabled, every colour picture will be printed
- as a greyscale picture if you select colour instead of greyscale
- as the graphics output mode. With Supergrey it is the printer
- driver's task to convert the colour data into greyscale data.
- While this can be done by the printer device instead of the
- printer driver (as normal Workbench drivers do), the PanaPlus
- printer driver colour-to-greyscale conversion routines are more
- precise. Because of this you can print a 4096 colour HAM picture
- in up to 256 shades of grey instead of the normal 16. Supergrey
- will replace the normal colour dump of the driver.
-
- The Table below shows all parameters that must be enabled for
- printing with Supergrey.
-
- Function Density Workbench dither
-
- Supergrey >2 ordered
- Colour Adjustment >2 ordered
- Ink compensation >2 ordered
- Driver dithers >2 ordered
-
- Note: the number of printable shades of greys in Supergrey
- depends on the number of shades supported by the dither method set
- in PanaPref. Up to 256 shades are possible, and supported by
- the PanaPlus dither routines. Often a dither method that
- produces 64 shades (default) gives best results.
-
-
-
- PanaTab: <Num> (default: 9, 17, 25,...)
-
- This environment variable allows you to customize the horizontal
- tab stops settings of your printer. This may be useful for
- printing program listings and tables. Up to 32 tab stops may be
- defined.
-
- PanaTime: <Num> (default: 60 seconds)
-
- If huge amounts of data are being transferred to the printer, the
- actual printing of the image happens much faster than the transfer
- of the data. A requester may appear on the screen saying `
- Printer trouble... '. This appears because the printer device
- thinks no data has been transferred due to a hardware or software
- failure. With PanaTime you can specify the time that should
- pass before the printer device puts up the error requester.
-
- With Timeout you can specify a higher timeout value, resulting in
- fewer timeout requesters. A value from 1 to 999 seconds is
- allowed (default 60 seconds).
-
- Instead of defining a huge timeout value there is another solution
- available: use the CMD program (see your Workbench disk) to
- redirect the parallel/serial output to a file on disk. After
- this, use the Copy command or a printer spooler to copy the file
- to par: .
-
- Note: if a real error occurs, you will have to wait the number of
- seconds specified by PanaTime until an error requester
- appears, thus allowing you to cancel the print job. So choose
- your PanaTime value wisely.
-
- PanaType: <Num> (default: 0)
-
- Specifies the typeface to be selected on aRIS, aRIN and aFNT0. If
- you select zero (the default), the typeface selected on the
- printer control panel will be used. PanaType may range from 0
- to 255. See your printer manual for the values used for selecting
- a required typeface on your printer, and add 1 to the value.
-
- PanaYellow: <Num> (default: 0%)
-
- Printer ribbon inks are not completely pure materials. For
- example there is some yellow mixed into the magenta ink, and some
- magenta in the cyan ink. The ink compensation values will correct
- for these impurities. With magenta compensation you specify the
- percentage of magenta in the cyan ink.
-
- The ink compensation function can be completely disabled by
- specifying 0%. You will notice that without the ink compensation
- function a blue sky will print as purple. With the ink
- compensation function set to 10-30%, blue skies are usually blue
- again.
-
- PanaYellow defines the percentage of yellow in the magenta ink
- and may range from 0 to 100%.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
- Glossary
- ========
-
-
-
-
- Default
-
- A value used in place of a user-selected value. A factory default
- is a value programmed into the device at the factory; this value
- is stored in read-only memory (ROM) and cannot be changed by a
- user or operator. A user default is a default that is selectable
- via the control panel.
-
- Dot
-
- A dot is the smallest thing a printer can print. The number of
- dots printed per inch is referred to as the printer's resolution
- (dpi).
-
- Download
-
- The process of transferring soft fonts, macros or raster data from
- a host computer to the printer's user memory is called
- downloading.
-
- DPI
- See Dot.
-
- ENV: ENVARC:
-
- The Amiga operating system and the PanaPlus driver stores
- their environment settings in two special directories named ENV:
- and ENVARC:. Settings saved in ENV: are only for temporary usage
- and get lost when turning the computer off.
-
- Parallel I/O
-
- An input/output interface that transmits more than one bit of
- information simultaneously. Centronics is an industry-wide
- standard form of a parallel interface.
-
- Pitch
-
- Pitch describes the number of characters printed in a horizontal
- inch. Pitch only applies to fixed-spaced fonts since the number
- of characters per inch varies for proportionally-spaced fonts.
- See Spacing.
-
- Printable Area
-
- The printable area is the area of the physical page on which the
- printer is able to place a dot, wheras the physical page refers to
- the actual size of the paper installed in the printer.
-
- Raster Graphics
-
- Images composed of groups of dots are called raster images.
-
- Spacing
-
- Fonts have either fixed or proportional spacing. Fixed-spaced
- fonts are those for which the inter-character spacing is constant.
- Proportionally-spaced fonts are those for which the
- inter-character spacing varies with the natural shape of a
- character.
-
- Typeface
-
- Typeface is a generic name for graphics symbols having common
- design features. Each typeface has unique and distinguishing
- characteristics.
-