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PC-SIG Diskette Library (Disk #3496)
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FILES.DOC
**************************************************************************
PC PLUS CONSULTING # 328 Utilities and Fonts for HP Laserjet
**************************************************************************
This disk contains a set of Helvetica portrait and landscape fonts
normal,, bold and italic in 8,10,12,and 18 point sizes. The fonts are archived
to fit on the disk and the program to extract them is provided.
The following utilities are on this volume:
Pmode is a very simple utility to set a serial port to 19200 baud. I
use it with an HP LaserJet (connected to several PC's) to reset the
serial port on the PC, to allow faster transmission of graphics data.
Pmode works on any comm port recoginzed by the BIOS data area. It
does not include or interfere with the features of the DOS Mode command,
such as timeout support. For printer applications, we set the port
FIRST with Mode (with the 'p' option), then reset the baud rate with
Pmode.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
PAMPHLET Ver 1.1, is a user supported printing utility for the HP LaserJet
by Martin Beattie, 9190 Rolling Tree Lane, Fair Oaks, CA 95628
PAMPHLET is a printing utility to help keep your hardcopy printouts,
listings, etc neatly and in a more managable size. It lists a text file
to the HP Laser Jet in the landscape mode and places 2 pages side by
side. These pages are not printed sequentially, but in the order
required to create a small manuscript or pamphlet. It requires two
passes of the paper through the printer and thereby prints 4 pages per
sheet. The page placement is calculated by the program making a dummy
run through the file to be printed to determine page breaks. The
pages are counted, the number of sheets are calculated and then the
individual pages are assigned to a specific sheet location. The printing
process then begins and all of the "front sides" of the sheets are
printed. The operator is prompted to turn the paper over and, when ready,
touch the <ENTER> key to start the "back page" printing. If you have a
LaserJet Series II, all you need to do is to use PAMPHLET.COM. After the
first half of the pages are printed, then take the entire stack EXACTLY as
it lies in the out tray and place it in the paper tray. DO NOT turn it
over or around -- the alignment and sequencing should be correct.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
HPL2VEN
A Font Conversion Utility
If you use Ventura Publisher you probably love everything about it. But,
almost everyone I know wishes that they could add a few fonts to the list.
If your in that group you'll be happy to know that most (but not all) fonts
that are available for the HP Laserjet can be converted for use with Ventura.
All the tools needed for the conversion are found on the utilities disk. The
only problem is that the process of conversion is tedious and not very well
documented. I played around with the conversion programs until I got reason-
ably adept at getting what I wanted. But converting more then a couple of
fonts at a time was just not something to look forward to. Their had to be a
better way. HPL2VEN is, at least for me, less frustrating and a lot faster.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
GEMCAP is a shareware program by Natural Software, 19 South 5th. Street
St. Charles, Illinois 60174 (312) 377-7320
This share-ware utility program: GEMCAP.COM, allows you to capture
screen images from other programs, save them in separate GEM .IMG
files, and later load them into other programs that can read this
format such as Ventura Publisher.
GEMCAP is a Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) program. When you run
it from the DOS command line, it will announce its presence and
quietly sink into the background and wait to be called into action
(when its "hot key" is pressed). When you run GEMCAP, you must
provide it with the location and starting file name to use to store
the screen images it captures. For example, you might start GEMCAP
with this command:
GEMCAP.DOC
Natural Software
19 South 5th. Street
St. Charles, Illinois 60174
(312) 377-7320
This share-ware utility program: GEMCAP.COM, allows you to capture
screen images from other programs, save them in separate GEM .IMG
files, and later load them into other programs that can read this
format such as Ventura Publisher.
GEMCAP is a Terminate and Stay Resident (TSR) program. When you run
it from the DOS command line, it will announce its presence and
quietly sink into the background and wait to be called into action
(when its "hot key" is pressed). When you run GEMCAP, you must
provide it with the location and starting file name to use to store
the screen images it captures. For example, you might start GEMCAP
with this command:
GEMCAP C:\SCREENS\SCREENA.IMG
Now GEMCAP will store its screens in the SCREENS sub-directory. The
first screen it saves will be called SCREENA.IMG, the second will be
called SCREENB.IMG. Each subsequent .IMG file will increment the
character in the filename just before the extension. These files are
graphic bit image files compatible with any program that reads GEM
.IMG files, regardless of whether the original screen was in text
mode or graphics mode.
To activate GEMCAP and save the current screen to a .IMG file, you
press the [Alt + left Shift] keys together. You will hear a beep when
GEMCAP is called. Three beeps means it successfully wrote an .IMG
file to the specified directory. Only one beep means it was unable to
create the file (could not find the directory?). Only two beeps means
it created the file, but could not write the full 16k screen buffer,
(disk full?).
GEMCAP will detect the current video mode and adjust. It converts
text mode screens into bit mapped graphics.
Like any other TSR, GEMCAP may have compatibility problems with other
software, especially other TSR's. If you have trouble, try installing
GEMCAP by itself and adding your other TSR utilities one at a time
after you get GEMCAP to work.
Removing GEMCAP:
You can remove GEMCAP from memory (well, almost) by pressing the [Alt
+ Right Shift] key combination. This disengages GEMCAP so that it
will not interfere with other software. This will also release (most
of) the memory used by GEMCAP. When loaded and active, GEMCAP uses
3856 bytes of memory. After removal with [Alt + Right Shift], only
288 bytes remain allocated.
Different sized images:
The size of the captured image is controlled by two words in the .IMG
file. These are constants in the GEMCAP program. The first word
specifies the pixel size in width, the second word specifies the
pixel size in height (unit of measure is in microns). The default
values are: (in hexidecimal):
Address Value
0108 00D5 (width),
010A 01AA (heigth).
To make the displayed image one half the size of the default, change
these values to
Address Value
0108 006A (width),
010A 00D5 (heigth).
The steps using Debug to do this are: (you enter the stuff marked ^^)
DEBUG XYZ.IMG (Load the image file)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
E 0108 (enter data at address 0108)
^^^^^^
XXXX:0108 00.00 D5.6A (change 00D5 to 006A, press
^^ ^^ space bar between entries)
E 010A (do the same for address 010a)
^^^^^^
XXXX:010A 01.00 AA.D5 (change 01AA to 00D5)
^^ ^^
W (write the changes to the file)
^
Writing 4020 bytes
Q (return to DOS)
^
You can experiment with other values. However, some combinations will
cause truncations of pixels when the image is displayed.
If you find a set of values that work for your application and wish
to make them the default values for all captured images, change the
corresponding values in the program (GEMCAP.COM) itself. These are at
address locations 0951 and 0953 (hex) when GEMCAP is loaded into
DEBUG.
ShareWare:
GEMCAP is being distributed as shareware. This means that it is not
free. This means that you must pay to use it. However, you do not
have to pay to try it, test it, and to determine if it is going to be
useful to you. You are probably familiar with the concept by now.
ShareWare programs give you the advantage of "test driving" them. The
advantage to the developer is a relatively inexpensive distribution
method. For this concept to work and keep working for our mutual
advantage, you really must register and pay for the software you
actually find useful.
To register your use of GEMCAP, send $20.00 to Natural Software at
the address above. We will send you a description of our other
software offerings and provide telephone support.
If you have suggestions for improvement, or problems please write or
call.
HPL2VEN.TXT
HPL2VEN
A Font Conversion Utility
If you use Ventura Publisher you probably love everything about
it. But, almost everyone I know wishes that they could add a few
fonts to the list. If your in that group you'll be happy to know
that most (but not all) fonts that are available for the HP
Laserjet can be converted for use with Ventura. All the tools
needed for the conversion are found on the utilities disk. The
only problem is that the process of conversion is tedious and not
very well documented. I played around with the conversion
programs until I got reasonably adept at getting what I wanted.
But converting more then a couple of fonts at a time was just not
something to look forward to. Their had to be a better way.
HPL2VEN is, at least for me, less frustrating and a lot faster.
A few words of caution before you begin. I wrote this little
program for myself and can not guarantee that you will get
acceptable results. I will accept no responsibility for any
problems that you encounter. All I can say is that it works very
well for me and I use it all the time.
Because I wrote the program initially only for myself I decided
to include very little error checking. If I were to get some
favorable response I might be persuaded to polish things up a
bit. but for now you will have to be very careful that what you
type in at the prompts is what you meant. You will just have to
break out of the program, delete the files that the program
created and start over. If you make a mistake but don't notice it
the bat files that are created will run but may produce files
that don't do what you had hoped for.
The program makes use of color to keep the different prompts
separated so that you can keep track of where you are in the
program. If you don't have color this program may not work.
The program works by taking your input and creating a .BAT file
and a .LST file that utilize the programs from the utilities disk
to convert the HP font files, create the font metric files for
use in creating the width table and finally to create the width
table.
Step by step:
1. Create a directory to work from.
2. Copy three files from the Ventura utilities disk.
a) HPLTOFNT.EXE
b) HPLTOVFM.EXE
c) VFMTOWID.EXE
3. Copy the fonts that you wish to convert to the new directory.
4. Copy HPL2VEN.COM to the new directory.
5. Type HPL2VEN <CR> and follow the prompts.
6. Run the batch file that HPL2VEN created.
Depending on how many and how large the files are that you are
converting, the batch file may take quite a while to complete. If
all goes well you should end up with one new width file and new
font and font metric files for each of the fonts that you
converted.
You then copy the width table and the font files to the VENTURA
directory. The font metric files (VFM) are not needed but you may
wish to keep them with your back-ups.
The next step is to test the font by outputing something to see
if the new fonts work. Be sure to change the width table in the
SET PRINTER INFO dialogue box. If everything looks right on the
screen and prints out right, then you can merge the new width
table with the default table.
Sometimes, and I don't know why, a new font will look very
strange on the screen but print out fine. If this happens make a
back-up of your default OUTPUT.WID table and try merging the new
one anyway. Sometimes this solves the screen problem. When the
program asks for font type you may have to go to the Ventura
manual (k. 15) to look up the code. This seems to have something
to do with which screen face is used.
Expect to do some experimentation before you get things right.
Try converting just one font first. When you are sure that one
works the rest will probably go much easier.
My personal set up includes the Tall Tree Jlaser Plus board and a
Canon LBP-2A laser printer. I don't have access to other printers
so I can only assume that this procedure will work with other
printers.
Remember, always work with back-ups. Keep all your conversion
files in a directory to themselves and proceed with caution.
Since this is the very first version of this program, I am not
going to beg for the usual donations but I would appreciate any
comments. If I can be of assistance please call at the number
below.
Vince Campbell
P.O.Box 8313
Atlanta, Georgia 30306
(404) 872-0334
PAMPHLET.DOC
PAMPHLET Ver 1.1
A printing utility for the HP LaserJet
Copyright (C) 1987
Martin Beattie
9190 Rolling Tree Lane
Fair Oaks, CA 95628
CompuServe [76555,454]
GEnie [M.BEATTIE]
PAMPHLET is a printing utility to help keep your hardcopy
printouts, listings, etc neatly and in a more managable size. It
lists a text file to the HP Laser Jet in the landscape mode and
places 2 pages side by side. These pages are not printed
sequentially, but in the order required to create a small
manuscript or pamphlet. It requires two passes of the paper
through the printer and thereby prints 4 pages per sheet. The
page placement is calculated by the program making a dummy run
through the file to be printed to determine page breaks. The
pages are counted, the number of sheets are calculated and then
the individual pages are assigned to a specific sheet location.
The printing process then begins and all of the "front sides" of
the sheets are printed. The operator is prompted to turn the
paper over and, when ready, touch the <ENTER> key to start the
"back page" printing. If you have a LaserJet Series II, all you
need to do is to use PAMPHLET.COM. After the first half of the
pages are printed, then take the entire stack EXACTLY as it lies
in the out tray and place it in the paper tray. DO NOT turn it
over or around -- the alignment and sequencing should be correct.
If you have a LaserJet which does not have internal landscape
compressed print, you need a Y cartridge for this program to
work. I do not know if the orientation of the paper as it comes
from the printer is appropriate with other LaserJet series. You
may have to experiment. The program PAMPH.COM will print the
pages in sequential order with the right hand page front first as
1, 3, 5 then left page back 2, 4, 6 if you have trouble with the
ordering of pages with PAMPHLET.COM. After the first pass, you
must then re arrange the paper so the the back of 1 (3, 5, etc)
will print in order for the second pass. Place the numbered page
(1,3,5) face down with the top of the minipage (and the page
number) to the left of the paper tray. Arrange it so that the
sheet with page 1 will feed first, 3 second, etc. Lastly, a
title page will be printed if one has been requested.
Pagination is determined by linecount of 66 or the presence of a
form feed character. Line length is limited to 80 characters.
Longer lines will wrap around--such lines will begin with "---->"
The program is run from the DOS prompt as follows:
C>PAMPHLET d:path\filename[.ext] [/fdpm] [Title string]
The "/" options will ELIMINATE the presence of the filename,
date, and page numbers on the top line of each page. The default
state prints a header line with all of this information. If you
elect to use this option all desired options should be adjacent
to the "/" (ie. "/fd") if they are separated by spaces they will
inadvertantly appear in the title page. The "m" option reduces
line length to 70 to allow holes to be punched along the center
margins. The default line length is 80.
The [Title String] can be more than one word an up to about 40
characters in length. It will be placed on a separate title
page.
This program may be freely copied and distributed freely provided
1) that no fee is charged for such copying and distribution and
2) that it is distributed ONLY in its original, unmodified state.
If you like this program, and find it of use, a contribution
and registration would be appreciated. If you are using this
program in a commercial environment, registration is mandatory.
Registered users will receive a diskette containing the latest
version of PAMPHLET (C) and the Turbo Pascal source code. I have
recently obtained a copy of Turbo C. If source in C is
available, it will be provided as well. A contribution of $15 is
suggested.
If you correspond with comments and/or questions please note
which version you are using.
Have fun,
Martin
R E G I S T R A T I O N F O R M
Please enter me as a registered user of PAMPHLET (C).
[Disk copy provided by Tom Jernigan - Try-It Software.]
N A M E ______________________________________________
S T R E E T / B O X _________________________________
______________________________________________
C I T Y ___________________________ S T A T E ____ Z I P _______
C O M M E N T S / S U G G E S T I O N S about PAMPHLET:
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
______________________________________________
PCHELP.DOC
HELP FOR NEW USERS & PROBLEMS YOU MIGHT HAVE
FROM PC PLUS CONSULTING
Public domain software is actually very easy to use if you are familiar
with a few basic "DOS" commands. These commands are "COPY", "DISKCOPY", "DIR",
"TYPE", "FORMAT", & a few others. None of the disks are "bootable", which
means that you cannot place the disk in your computer and turn it on.
The first thing is to make a backup copy of your disk with the following
command:
A>DISKCOPY A: B: <enter> - (will copy all files from 'A' to 'B')
In the event that you get some sort of error message when using "DISKCOPY",
you will then have to use the "COPY" command to make a backup of your original
disk. Place a blank FORMATTED disk in the "B" drive and enter the following
command at the "A>" prompt:
A>COPY *.* B: <enter> - (will copy all files from 'A' to 'B')
Now put the original disk away and use the working copy. The next thing
to do is see what files are on the disk. Place the working copy in the "A"
drive and enter the following command:
A>DIR <enter> - will display the filenames
Now you will see many different filenames. A filename consists of two
parts; the filename & the extension. The filename will be on the left (up to
8 characters long) & the extension will be just to the right (up to 3
characters long). You will be looking for certain extension names; which
will tell you something about that type of file.
******************************************************************************
* IMPORTANT.....IMPORTANT.....IMPORTANT.....IMPORTANT.....IMPORTANT *
*----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
* EXE - a program file - type in the name & press the enter key. *
* COM - a command file - type in the name & press the enter key. *
* BAT - a batch file - many uses, type in the name & press enter key. *
* BAS - a "BASIC" program. Needs GWBASIC or BASICA to run the program. *
* ARC - a archived file - needs to be unarchived, contains many files. *
* DQC - a compressed file - needs to be uncompressed to be readable. *
* DOC - A DOCUMENTATION FILE - instructions about the program - READ THIS *
* TXT - A DOCUMENTATION FILE - instructions about the program - READ THIS *
******************************************************************************
You may also see files like READ.ME or README.1ST or just README. These
are all documentation files that will tell you about the program or how to
work the program properly.
VERY IMPORTANT: READ DOCUMENTATION FILES FIRST BEFORE RUNNING THE PROGRAM!!!
===============================================================================
To view a documentation file on your screen, use the "TYPE" command.
With your program disk in the "A" drive enter the following command:
A>TYPE filename.ext (enter) - where filename would be README.DOC
or whatever the filename is that you wish to view.
This will display the documentation to the screen. To stop the text
from scrolling by, press "CTRL S" (the CTRL key and "S" key at the same
time), any other key to resume scrolling. To obtain a printout of the
documentation simply replace the "TYPE" command with the "DOS" command
"COPY". Turn your printer on and enter the following command:
A>COPY filename.ext PRN <enter> - where filename would be README.DOC or
whatever file you wish to print.
===============================================================================
An "EXE", "COM", or "BAT" file extension means that when you
enter the filename, the computer will do something. For instance,
if the filename were "POKER.EXE", or "POKER.COM, or "POKER.BAT" you would
enter the following at the "A" prompt:
A>POKER <enter> - the poker program would now come up on the screen.
===============================================================================
Another type of file (a little tricky to run) is a "BASIC" file. These
types have the "BAS" extension. Any file with this extension must be run with
the "BASIC" interpreter. That simply means that you must have a copy of
"GWBASIC.EXE" if you have a clone, or "BASICA.COM" if you have an "IBM". These
2 files (GWBASIC & the "BAS" file) must reside together or be able to find
each other. An easy way to do this is to simply copy "GWBASIC.EXE" to the
disk that contains the "BAS" files. When both files are together &
this disk was in the "A" drive you would enter the following command:
A>GWBASIC POKER <enter> - the poker program would now be "running"
& you would be playing the game.
===============================================================================
Another important file is one with an "ARC" extension. This means it is
an archived file & contains many smaller files within it. This is done so
all the files will fit on to the disk(s) you received. You must extract the
files with a special program. The program most commonly used is called
"PKXARC.EXE". To extract files from a file called "TEST.ARC", enter the
following command:
A>PKXARC TEST B: <enter> - this would extract all the files and place
them on a disk that was in the "B" drive. You must have a FORMATTED blank disk
in the "B" drive when issuing this command. You could copy the "ARC" files &
the program "PKXARC.EXE" to your hard drive & enter the following command:
C>PKXARC TEST <enter> - this will extract all the files from an
archived state. Then you will see some of
the different filenames mentioned above when
you use the "DIR" command.
===============================================================================
Hopefully this help sheet will enable you to understand & use your disks.
If all this still sounds like "GREEK", then we strongly suggest that you
purchase the following disks:
#257 - BEGINNERS - a tutorial on using public domain software
#256 - DOS TUTORIAL - an excellent program teaching about your
computer & how to use "DOS" commands
#255 - DOS HELP - on-line help screens for "DOS" commands
If you would like individual training on your computer, our services
can be obtained for the following rates by appointment only:
In our office - $35.00 / hour
Happy computing,
PC PLUS CONSULTING
14536 ROSCOE BL. # 201
PANORAMA CITY, CA. 91402
(818) 891-7930
PMODE.DOC
Pmode is a very simple utility to set a serial port to 19200 baud. I
use it with an HP LaserJet (connected to several PC's) to reset the
serial port on the PC, to allow faster transmission of graphics data.
Pmode works on any comm port recoginzed by the BIOS data area. It
does not include or interfere with the features of the DOS Mode command,
such as timeout support. For printer applications, we set the port
FIRST with Mode (with the 'p' option), then reset the baud rate with
Pmode.
For an explanation of usage, type PMODE at the prompt.
Source is included for your use or amusement.
Pmode is placed into the public domain. Support your PD and Shareware
programmers!
Jim Beebe
CIS 74746,2444
README.DOC
To display a directory of the files within an archive type:
ARCDIR (name of archive)
example:
ARCDIR 123A (return)
To extract the files to a working disk- first backup this disk and
and format one disk for each of archives on the disk.
Place the backup disk in drive A: and a blank formatted disk in another
drive (X)
type: EXTRACT (name of archive) (X) letter of target drive
example:
EXTRACT WKS1 B (return)
It will take a few minutes to create a new disk in drive B: with
all the expanded files from the archive.
If you create a subdirectory on your hard drive and change to it, then
you can extract the programs to your hard by using your HD letter in
place of "X" in the EXTRACT command.
-------- Use a new formatted disk for each of the archives. -------
Directory of PC-SIG Library Disk #3496
Volume in drive A has no label
Directory of A:\
ARCDIR BAT 100 1-02-80 7:41a
EXTRACT BAT 197 1-01-80 8:57a
FILES DOC 4298 1-11-88 1:35a
GEMCAP COM 3426 8-24-87 1:38p
GEMCAP DOC 6016 8-25-87 2:49p
HELSOFT ARC 122880 10-09-87 12:41a
HPL2VEN COM 35219 9-30-87 10:59p
HPL2VEN TXT 4480 10-01-87 5:26p
PAMPH COM 19859 6-05-87 2:47p
PAMPHLET COM 20268 6-05-87 2:45p
PAMPHLET DOC 5006 8-08-87 8:56a
PCHELP DOC 7062 3-08-88 2:29p
PMODE COM 323 8-25-87 12:28p
PMODE DOC 741 10-15-87 11:22p
README DOC 867 1-01-80 8:55a
XARC COM 11482 6-17-87 3:07p
GO BAT 233 4-05-93 4:43p
SHOW EXE 2040 9-12-88 10:48a
18 file(s) 244497 bytes
69632 bytes free