The stated purpose of this text is to provide helpful information in the form of explanations, suggestions, programming hints, and special programs for users of Hewlett-Packard laser printers. It is not intended to be a programming manual for experienced programmers looking for sophisticated printer drivers. It is meant for people with laser printers, especially HP laser printers, who want to get the most out of their current software.
The text is divided into three distinct parts. Part 1 concerns how laser printers operate and how to perform preventive maintenance on a laser printer. Part 2 provides information on various laser printer applications and software. Part 3 provides a comprehensive introduction to Printer Control Language (PCL).
Chapter 1 provides a description of microcomputer attached printers and how dot matrix printer resolution has evolved over the years. Richter also discusses thermal, color, ink jet, daisywheel, and laser printers and presents the advantages and disadvantages of each. A detailed discussion of laser scanning and printing techniques including photocopier (Canon engine), liquid crystal shutter (LCS), and light emitting diode (LED) methods leads to an explanation of developing techniques including both black-white and white-white imaging, which are graphically presented. An entire page is reserved for the disadvantages of using a laser printer, and several pages are devoted to the history of the HP laser printer. Both the Bitmap Image and the Outline Image descriptive languages are introduced. The author also introduces various vector-oriented languages such as PostScript, PreScript, and HP-GL/2, and presents coding examples for each language. PCL, the HP printer language, is also introduced.
Chapter 2 is a short chapter touching on such items as parallel, serial, and AppleTalk port interfaces, selection of paper, feed mechanisms, paper trays, and printer preventive maintenance. Chapter 3 is another short chapter devoted to discussions of fonts. A mini-glossary of font terms is followed by a discussion of various font packages and cartridges. Complete vendor contact information is provided for each font to assist the reader in obtaining additional information.
Chapters 4, 5, and 6 discuss vendor-specific items. Chapter 4 presents instructions for installing PageMaker, Ventura Publisher, PFS First Publisher, Windows 3.0, and Express Publisher fonts. Chapter 5 is devoted to font generators and font editors. Fonteffect, Superfonts 25/1, SuperPrint, Publisher’s PowerPak, Fontrix 3.0 and Fontpak, SLEd 2.1, FontGen V, SoftType 1.01, and Adobe Type Manager are discussed. Norbert gives details about font generation and/or editing for each. Again, vendor contact information is provided. Chapter 6 concludes this discussion by addressing some painting and drawing software packages--SLEd 2.1, Corel Draw, PC Paintbrush, Arts & Letters, and GeoDraw. These are followed by three screen capture packages--HOTSHOT from Symsoft, Hijack from Inset Systems, and DoDot from Halcyon Software. PageMaker, Ventura Publisher, PFS First Publisher, and Express Publisher are revisited along with Publish It! in a discussion of desktop publishing software. Richter discusses the word processors Microsoft Word, Word for Windows, WordPerfect, Lotus Manuscript, and GeoWrite in terms of their laser printer capabilities and screen appearance. Business graphics and utilities close the chapter.
Chapter 7, “Laser Printer PowerTools,” contains detailed instructions for installing the software included on the companion disk. I found the installation of this material to be easy. The disk is in 5.25-inch format. This could cause a problem for someone with only a 3.5-inch drive (I had to find a PC with both formats to get a copy for my computer.) The programs and files are in compressed format and must be installed using the Install program provided with the disk. Once decompressed, they require approximately 1 MByte. The disk contains 40 files, 19 of which are font files. The rest are controlling programs, printer drivers, or samples. DL.EXE permits easy downloading of a font file to the laser. Fonts can be loaded as either temporary or permanent files. SAMPLE.EXE allows you to print an entire font set on one page. Examples of all the fonts on the disk have been printed using this program and are published in the text. FONT.BAT will download all the soft fonts to the laser. Two programs, INIT_IN.EXE and INIT_CM.EXE, can be used to change the margins in inches and centimeters respectively as well as the selection and orientation of a font. LAS2COLS.EXE will print a pure ASCII file in two-column landscape orientation. This ability is useful when a file contains records (lines) longer than 80 characters. PRINTHP.EXE prints ASCII files at 16 cpi including all umlauts and &bgr; characters. LOGO.EXE creates a laser printer macro that can be inserted in a program to graphically print an ASCII file containing the logo drawn as a series of X’s. A sample of a pointing finger logo is included as a demo. The chapter concludes with procedures for adding soft fonts to Word 5.0 print drivers.
Chapter 8, “Managing Fonts,” gives a byte-by-byte description of the requirements for the Font Descriptor command. A similar discussion of the Character Description command follows. The chapter closes with various methods for selecting the font to be used.
Chapter 9 is devoted exclusively to various control commands, control sequences, and PCL macros. Graphics on the laser jet is the topic of chapter 10. The text concludes with a detailed discussion of the HP-GL/2 command set.
Appendices A, B, and D list the various PCL commands in different orders. Common laser printer errors and other problems can be found in Appendix C, along with suggested solutions. Appendix E contains various symbol sets including the standard ASCII set. The text references an Appendix F, but none exists in the edition reviewed.
The index is quite good. Numerous typos make the text awkward to read in some places. The quality of the paper is similar to that found in popular paperback novels rather than a standard text or reference book. Every illustration presented is of excellent quality.
If you want to know more about HP laser and Laserjet printers and fonts and where to find software, this book could be a good source. Only popular name brand software is discussed. The material included on the disk may well be worth the cost of the text.
