Conference hydra::amiga_v1

    I just received my offical upgraded ProWrite v2.0
    
    On the mail disk, there is a document in the 'DOCUMENTS' directory
    called 'Preferences Info' that explains the new graphics selection
    screen.  I haven't studied it with a microscope yet, but it seems
    to explain the new functions fully.  I'll upload the description
    file here.
    
    I'd love to upload the new Preferences/Drivers, but I guess its
    illegl or something.  Anyone know for sure?  In this company, if
    something feels even remotely wrong, it probably is.
          
    By the way, my humble Okimate_20 printer does amazing printouts
    using the new driver.  Not laser quality, of course, but orders
    of magnitude better than the old simple bitmaps.
    

    Re: .1
    
    Thanks Ed, I'll search around for that Preferences Info doc.  I
    never thought of looking there.
    
    Did you ever have problems such as this printing headers?

    This is a question about printer output on ProWrite (and VizaWrite).
    I know these WP programs will do graphics with the text. My question
    is: If you only want to print text (i.e., a text-only document),
    do they print that in the (slow) graphics mode or can you select the
    normal (fast) printer text mode?
    

    No sweat.  The print menu in ProWrite offers the choice of draft,
    NLQ, and Normal.  Normal will print fancy fonts and graphics using
    Floyd-Steinberg smoothing algorithms or anti-aliasing, depending
    on which choice you made from Preferences.
    
    The draft and NLQ modes will use the ROM based fonts in your printer.
    Even in these modes, the 1.3 drivers are a bit faster.  The printhead
    no longer wastes time going over short or blank lines.
    
    All in all, they've done a fairly fantastic job here.
    
    Ed.
    

    Vizawrite will print plain text unless you select "screen pitch"
    on the printer setup menu, in which case you get graphics output.

    Use PROWRITE.MR. For some reason PROWRITE produces strange results
    when printing, particularly on imported ASCII files.

    
    What is the current version of Vizawrite...I have 1.03 and I am
    extremely unsatisfied with it. I am thinking of upgrading to Prowrite
    or Excellence! How is Prowrite for reliability and speed? Does it
    support multiple columns and math?
    
    
    Thanks,
    -ph
    

    Sorry, no math or columns... but PW 2.0 has a 95K word spell checker,
    and mail merge.  It's strong point is the ability to merge color
    IFFs (including HAM) into a document.  It remaps them into gray
    scale, B & W, or 8 colors.  Also allows resizing, and typing next
    to a graphic.  New Horizons is currenlty working on Postscript
    capability.
    
    It seems pretty robust, so far.  I've had the upgrade for a few
    weeks, and I pitched Textcraft Plus into the 'bulk' pile in favor
    of PW.
    
    I'd really like to see Excellence! since it seems to have every
    conceivable feature.
               
    Ed.
    

< Note 1311.4 by LEDS::ACCIARDI >

< Normal will print fancy fonts and graphics using Floyd-Steinberg smoothing 
< algorithms or anti-aliasing, depending on which choice you made from 
< Preferences.
    
First of all, what does this smoothing algorithm actually do?

I just bought an A-500 along with D-Paint II and ProWrite (I think V 2.0). 
However, I'm having troubles printing anything (except for draft mode) on my 
Gemini 10-X. The line spacing in the graphics mode is wrong, and not adjustable.
I called the manufacturer and they told me that the pre-release version of 
WB 1.3 with all of it's improved printer drivers didn't include a driver for the
old style Epson and Gemini printers, but that when the REAL 1.3 comes out, there
would be a usable driver on it. 

I'm very much interested in being able to use (and design my own) fonts but I'm 
afraid that the only way I will be able to print them will be in a "straight"
dot-for-dot screen image. Since the Gemini has a 60 x 72 dot/inch aspect ratio,
I don't think things will work out for me. Also, I have used FontMaster II on my
C-64 and designed fonts for it (one of which the manufacturer has included in
the product). It has the ability to vary the spacing between letters, words and
lines one dot at a time, and in the NLQ fonts, it does a double-density print in
the horizontal direction and a two-pass print for each line, with the second
pass spaced on-half of a dot down the page. The net result is a font with each
character designed in an (up to) 16 x 18 dot grid. Does ProWrite support
anything like this? So far, I haven't seen any output from the Amiga to match
the output from FontMaster running on the C-64. 

It occurred to me to write a printer driver which would do the double-density
with vertical interlace when copying from the screen. This would cut the page
size in half in both directions but could (?) be made up for by specifying wider
and taller pages in the set-up. Trouble is, I'm not yet up to writing for the 
68000, and I don't have an assembler yet.

Dave Busch

1. How do I create a document/file with ProWrite which can then be downloaded to
   a VAX to be printed on an LN03? 

2. In preferences, when setting up the number of lines per page, what I'd like
   to do is specify both the number of lines to be printed on a page and the 
   length of the form using non-standard cut-sheet stationery. How do I do this?

3. Is there a way of specifying the spacing between letters in the Amiga fonts? 

Dave

    	I'm using ProWrite V2.0 with an A500 (1 meg) and a Star Rainbow
    1000 color printer.  I've been very impressed with the ability to
    change fonts and colors on the fly and getting the same result on
    the printer.  However at one time I was able to print in various
    shades by simply doing an adjust color and selecting whatever portion
    of the document I needed altered.  Select print and the different
    shade of color would appear.  Now though this doesn't seem to work
    anymore, all I get is the original eight colors printed no matter
    what shade I select.  
    
    	I am using the new 1.3 printer drivers (EpsonX), or at least
    the one that came with ProWrite version 2.  I've gone back to Workbench
    1.2 with the same result.  Adjusting Prefernces (smoothing and density)
    also didn't get me anywhere.  Tonight I will try a graphic dump
    of an IFF file to see if that still works.  
    
    	Any other idea's?
    
    					Thanks,
    
    					Marty 

I've got the same configuration as you and I've found that there is definitely a
difference between the 1.3 supplied with Pro-Write and what you get with the new
WB 1.3. For one thing the new preferences allow a density of at least 4 (perhaps
6) on the graphics 2 screen. There are differences in the preferences screens 
and also in the EpsonX drivers. 

Dave

Re. Note 1311.8 by LEDS::ACCIARDI

<    It's strong point is the ability to merge color IFFs (including HAM) 
<    into a document.  It remaps them into gray scale, B & W, or 8 colors.  
<    Also allows resizing, and typing next to a graphic.      

Last night I spent a couple of hours trying to incorporate a picture into a Pro-
Write document but kept running into a stone wall. In no case was I able to 
position the cursor over the white areas of the picture and print around it. I 
tried with both HAM and "Kosher" (non-HAM, :^) modes but no luck. The manual 
mentions that you can only type over the "background" color of the picture, and
that the margins must be defined within the "transparent" space but nothing I
tried worked. The pictures I tried with were: a) captured with Digi-View and
then modified with D-Paint II, and b) captured with Digi-View in HAM mode. 

While I'm at it, what is the latest rev of Pro-Write?

Dave

My Amiga is in transit at the moment (we just moved house) but as far as I
remember, you position and size your picture as you wish, then using <RETURN>
and <SPACE> you move the cursor to the place that you want to enter your text
and start typing. This has the alarming effect of blanking out a portion of
your picture but never-fear, when you press <RETURN> the blanked-out portion
reappears.

I've managed to do this on several occasions. I believe there is a 'follow-me'
type instruction course in the manual.

I'm not sure if there's a later revision then 2.0

Keith

I just got a copy of Prowrite 2.5.  I am trying to use it with
an HP LaserJet IIP.  Unfortunately I am having two serious problems:

1) Whenever Prowrite starts up it prints about 10 blank sheets of paper.
2) THe Prowrite output looks like fecal waste matter.

The documentation is, how should we say it, quite terse, on the
subject of printers.

Does anyone know how to set the system up to get decent output?

John

    I've got a printer that emulates an HP LaserJet, but I've never tried
    to print ProWrite output on it using that emulator.  You've provided
    so little information that only general advice can be given, so perhaps
    that doesn't matter.  The only thing I can think of that might cause
    the problem you describe is having your preferences set for the wrong
    kind of printer.
        John Sauter

    
    
    Sounds like you have a few problems... first, lets talk about your
    cheesy output.  I'll assume that you have the printer set up correctly
    via Perferences.
    
    The crummy output is not the fault of ProWrite OR the HP LaserJet. 
    It's the nature of scaling up a relatively low resolution bitmapped
    font to a much higher resolution output device (300 DPI laser printer).
    
    A standard (non-proportional) 8 point Amiga font is rendered into a
    character cell of 10 x 8 pixels when it's displayed to the screen. 
    When I scale this bitmapped character up to the density of a laser
    printer, the same character is now printed to a cell about 4X as dense
    (about 40 x 32 pixels).  The printer will perform the scaling as best
    as it can, and the Amiga 1.3 printer drivers will even make a valiant
    attempt to perform some intelligent smoothing, but the output will
    always appear jagged.  In fact, my own tests reveal that there's really
    no difference if I int a bitmapped font at 100, 150, or 300 DPI.  It
    all looks about the same.
    
    What can you do?  Well, if you can afford a PostScript cartridge and
    more memory, you can get professional quality printout of graphics.  (I
    believe that PostScript was invented to solve the very problem that you
    have.)  Or, you can buy ProScript (New Horizons) and PixelScript (a
    software PS emulator).  You can also try a DP package like PageStream
    that uses it's own fonts that are designed to be rendered at 180 or 300
    DPI.
    
    (By the way, the standard 512K RAM in the LaserJet IIP is insufficient
    to print a full page bitmap.  You need a little over 1 meg to dump a
    screen at 300 DPI.  You need still more to download any 'soft fonts'.)
    
    When you use the NLQ print mode from ProWrite (or any other
    application), the printer uses it's own internal fonts that are
    rendered at much higher resolution TO BEGIN WITH.  Since there's no
    scaling, there's no 'guessing' where the missing pixels are.
    
    So, if you can get by, try using NLQ mode whenever possible.  If you do
    this, make sure to use an 11 point non-proportional font in ProWrite.
    This will ensure that the computer display and the printed output look
    exactly alike in terms of line spacing, word placement, etc.
    
    Re:  Lots of formfeeds etc...
    
    My wife has been using ProWrite 2.5 and the LaserJet IIP for about 6
    weeks without any problems.  The IIP will spit out one blank sheet when
    it's first fired up, but from then on it runs like a champ.
    
    I suggest that you check for the latest 1.3.2 printer.device and
    printer driver.  For reference, the file sizes on my system are
    
       Printer.Device    26964 bytes
       HP_LaserJet        5668 bytes
    
    My Preference settings are:
    
    Smoothing - On
    Density   - 3 (1500 DPI)
    Dithering - Ordered
    Scaling   - Fractional
    
    Of course, ProWrite and Preferences DO update each other, so you can
    adjust all of this directly from PW.
    
    Also, make sure that the Page Setup from PW is set to 'Tall Adjusted'
    
    These files, settings, and PW 2.5 work flawlessly for me.
    
    Regards, Ed.
    
    
    
    
    
    

    
    
    
    
    
         *
        * *
       *****             Standard Amiga screen font
      *     *
     *       *
    
    
    
            **
            **
          **  **
          **  **         Scaled to 300 x 300 DPI (approximate)
        **********
        **********
      **          **
      **          **
    **              **
    **              **
    
    
            **
           ****
          **  **
         ***  ***        What a PostScript rendition (or other scalable
        **********       or outline font) would look like
       ************
      ***        ***
     ***          ***
    ***            ***
   ***              ***