The PAINT DRIVERS that are included with GEOS 2.0 are very useful for mixing text and graphics, adding versatility and some new capabilities. The feature I found most useful was the ability to combine graphics larger than the geoPaint drawing window with a page of text created with geoWrite. This article deals with techniques to do this, as well as the identification of a bug in geoWrite, and ways to work around it.
The geoWrite drawing window is exactly 3.3 inches wide by 2 inches high on paper. The page width for geoPaint and geoWrite is 8 inches; from 0.2 to 8.2. The secret of combining images larger than 3.3 by 2 is knowing how to break the image into manageable pieces, and placement of these on two or three (or more) pages in geoWrite. The easiest method is to copy one drawing window sized sections to the photo album, taking advantage of the double-click feature of the edit window tool in the toolbox. After selecting and copying one drawing window to the photo album, use the scroll arrows tool to scroll one drawing window to the right (or down, as the case may be) and copy this to the photo album. This is continued until all sections are copied to the album. Since two drawing windows from the left leave only 1.4 inches to be copied on the extreme right of the page, a slightly different technique can be used to save disk space.
In the following example, use geoPaint to create an image located at the top of the page that is the full width of the page and one drawing window high, at least at some places, to serve as reference points. This image will be 8 inches wide by 2 inches high. Horizontal lengh is calculated by PIXELS divided by 80, and vertical height (usually) by PIXELS divided by 72 (the height of 8 pins in the printhead).
As an exercise in positioning, this image will appear 110 pixels down the page in the output "OVERLAY" file. Unfortunately, the GEOS applications do not provide a "ruler" or some similar device to easily determine vertical positioning of text and graphics within the page. But this can be done with some quick calculations. Since our example only uses 9 point BSW, we will paste to the geoWrite file 10 lines down from the top. Vertical positioning can be calculated by adding 2 to the font point size to get the pixel height of each line. Ten lines of 9 point text is 10 times (9+2) = 11 times 10 = 110 pixels. Add one to get the starting position for the image. The first position of the image will appear on the 111th pixel row from top of the page.
If you use the ruler tool in geoPaint and start at the top pixel line and measure down to the top pixel line of the image, it will show 110 for Y. But the first pixel measured is "number 0", so add one to get the actual, 111. Note that this rule only applies to unembellished fonts, any style selections other than PLAIN TEXT may increase the pixel height of the font, and thus the line. Also, this applies to single spacing in geoWrite. Text created in geoPaint with the text window tool will be point size+1 per line.
Refer to the sample illustration included on the UpTime disk for an example of a suitable image as it appears in the final output "OVERLAY" file. [Editor's Note: The sample file can be found on side two of your UpTime disk and is entitled "OVERLAY". Copy it to a work disk using the GEOS Desktop. geoPaint is required to view it.]
After your drawing has been completed, move to the upper left corner of the drawing page. Open an edit window to copy the entire drawing window to the photo album via the photo scrap. This is easily done by selecting the edit window tool from the tool box and then double-clicking on it. After that, use the EDIT-COPY menus to make the photo scrap. Now, place the scrap into an album with GEOS-PHOTO MANAGER. From the photo manager, CREATE an album named "Image-OVL", and PASTE the scrap in. Name this picture "Left-OVL" with EDIT-RENAME. Then, return to geoPaint (FILE-QUIT) and select the scroll arrows from the tool box, and scroll one complete window to the right. Now repeat the procedure to copy this section to the photo album, naming it "Middle-OVL".
Use the scroll arrows again to move to the far right edge of the drawing page. Select the color tool from the tool box and choose a canvas color that is distinguishable from the one already used. Now go to the far right of the drawing window and click. Move the color cursor left to make 17 "cards" turn color. This is a measuring stick for copying the last piece of your graphic to the photo album. Next, activate the edit window tool and move to the top pixel line just inside the measuring stick and click. Move diagonally down and right to cover the entire area of the drawing window that is to the right of where you started. Click. The edit window will adjust to border on card boundaries. If the left edge of the edit window went left of the end of the measuring stick, you will have to adjust it, so that it will be right on the end of the measuring stick. Otherwise, continue to the next paragraph. To resize the edit window, move the mouse pointer to the lower right corner of the edit window and click on the "resizing box". Use the cursor keys to cursor left 8 times and click. Now go to the repositioning box at the upper left corner of the edit window, and click. Cursor right until flush against the right edge of the drawing window, and click. It should now cover the entire area measured by the "measuring stick"; 136 pixels wide and the height of the drawing window.
Copy this to the photo album, naming it "Right-OVL". At this point the three sections of the image are in the photo album, so it is time to go to geoWrite to create the text portion.
Select geoWrite from the DESKTOP and CREATE a file with the name "Text-OVL". Select OPTIONS-MAKE FULL PAGE WIDE and set the left margin to 0.2 and the right at 8.2. This is easily done by clicking on the margin M and lift it up as far as it will go and click. From the home position, type "Line 1" and return, "Line 2" and return, etc., until you get to "Line 10" and return.
Select GEOS-PHOTO MANAGER. The photo manager will appear with the album containing your images, "Image-OVL". Use EDIT-SEARCH to select the picture named "Left-OVL". COPY this to the scrap and FILE-QUIT. Back in geoWrite, select EDIT-PASTE-PICTURE.
The image is centered on the page, but should be against the left edge, at 0.2 on the ruler, because it is the leftmost section of the 8 inch image. Since the image is 3.3 inches wide, and the ruler starts at 0.2, the right margin goes at 0.2 + 3.3 = 3.5. So reset the right margin to 3.5. The section is now correctly positioned. Move to the end of page and select PAGE-PAGE BREAK. You are now on page two.
Press return ten times and set the right margin to 3.5 + 3.3 = 6.8 and the left margin to 3.5. Paste the image named "Middle-OVL" here. The middle is now correctly positioned. Move the mouse pointer to end of page and select PAGE-PAGE BREAK. You are now on page three.
Press return ten times and set the right margin to 8.2 and the left margin to 6.5. Paste the image named "Right-OVL" from the photo album to the page here. You may have noticed that since the middle image extended to 6.8, and we placed the right image at 6.5, they overlap! Why not make the right image just the 1.4 inches needed and place it at 6.8? Although this would make perfect sense, it will not work! For some reason, geoWrite will not correctly output ANY image when the left margin is set beyond 6.5, and will reposition it down and near the center of the page. This is apparent during print preview as well as print to paper and an "OVERLAY" file. For this reason we made "Right-OVL" 1.7 inches instead of 1.4 inches, in order to position the left margin at 6.5 and have it tightly confined with the right margin at 8.2.
Now we are ready to create our output file. Select FILE-QUIT to return to the DESKTOP. Refer, if neccessary, to the GEOS 2.0 Manual for instructions on creating a copy of "Paint OVERLAY". Place a copy of "Paint OVERLAY" on the same disk as geoWrite, and select GEOS-SELECT PRINTER and make "Paint OVERLAY" the current printer driver. Now select the file "Text-OVL" and select FILE-PRINT. The print dialog box appears as normal, and should indicate that three pages are to be printed. Select OK or return to continue. The output will go to a geoPaint file named "OVERLAY", newly created by "Paint OVERLAY", instead of the actual printer. When the desktop returns, open the file "OVERLAY". You should see everything that is on all three pages of "Text-OVL" combined on this one geoPaint page! If the sections of the image are broken, or otherwise not the same as in geoPaint when we created it, go back to "Text-OVL" and check your margins and line spacing.
Tip: to ensure that all lines are the same pixel height, select OPTIONS-SELECT PAGE and the select FONT-BSW-9 POINT. This may correct a problem after experimenting with different font sizes. But it is possible to use different sizes, it just becomes a little more tricky.
A couple of points of interest: In this example, we made "Right-OVL" 1.7 inches wide, which is the minimum width required to have a pasted image which is to be positioned (precisely) up to and including 8.2 inches to correctly print from geoWrite. Since for the purpose of overlaying part of this overlapped with "Middle-OVL" without harm, it would have been possible and less tedious to have pasted the entire far right drawing window to geoWrite, and positioned the left margin at 8.2 - 3.3 = 4.9, and the right margin at 8.2. Although this saves some work, it uses more disk space, and takes longer to overlay.
If there is a geoPaint file named "OVERLAY" on the same disk as the geoWrite file you are printing with the Paint OVERLAY printer driver, the contents of the geoWrite file will be combined with "OVERLAY". This represents an error, and more work, if you intended to completely replace the "OVERLAY" file after making modifications to the last run. But this makes for some interesting possibilities for combining very large images with geoWrite text, and/or other things from a scrap or album, like superimposing images for comparason, etc. Just leave the large image in geoPaint, rename the file to "OVERLAY", and overlay. The only trick here is to plan out the text carefully in the geoWrite file so it will be correctly positioned relative to the graphics.
One little quirk with this procedure is that if you leave geoPaint with COLOR OFF, the file "OVERLAY" will appear to be blank, until you turn color off again, or use the color tool to establish different colors for foreground and background. An alternative quick method that I use is to create a drawing window sized photo album picture with foreground and background colors set. This is easily done with a blank drawing window and the color tool. When you are ready to use this color combination, copy it to the photo scrap and paste it to the drawing window. If you already have drawn something, just select transparent mode and your drawing will take on the new colors! Since there are 16 colors on the 64, there are a possible 240 color combinations for foreground and background. Create an album with all your favorite combinations for regular use.
