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Text File | 1987-10-20 | 15.3 KB | 401 lines

20th October, 1987 Additional Documentation for LPR27.EXE -------------------------------------- -----> New options: <----- -m - Convert Unix Newline characters to a standard DOS CR/LF sequence. LPR will alert you if this option is required. -b - Trap BACKSPACE characters, LPR will normally allow these to be passed to the printer. HP Laser printers handle backspace characters correctly, while some dot matrix printers will ignore these characters. Backspace characters are used in some files to simulate BOLD TEXT and to provide character by character underlining. -2 - New HP laserjet mode, prints 130 col by 85 lines in portrait mode using 16.66 cpi portrait font. -3 - New HP laserjet mode, print in IBM PC Courier font (with IBM graphics symbols), in portrait mode, 85 col x 60 lines, use the '-8' option to get full IBM character set. -v - Strip UNDER LINE/BACK SPACE sequences from files, these are often found in .DOC files produced by UNIX NROFF etc, used to produce underlines. Most dot matix printers respond badly if this sequence is left in the file. LPR will search for these sequences on it's analysis pass. A report on the number of such sequences will be made. -o - Don't allow over printing, i.e lines which have 2 CR's with no LF will be printed as 2 lines. A typical example might be a file with "[more - Press CR]" in it, this would normally print over the top of your text for the next line. -fnn - Strip vast quantities of blank lines from a file, these are usually put in .DOC files to make title pages or to simulate page formatting without using formfeeds. LPR will search for and report when more than 5 blank lines occur in a row. The '-onn' option is used to limit the number of blank lines allowed to be printed in a row. ZMODEM.DOC is a good example, there are several places with 30 blank lines in a row. -----> Bug fixes: <------ Line WRAPS and TRUNCATES are now handled correctly. Reporting is more accurate than in previous versions. TABS are now handled correctly, maximum line length is also reported correctly. The area fill and box drawing routines have been fixed to suit the limits of the HP LaserJet II. Previuosly, the bottom border of the title page didn't print at all (sorry). >--------------------------------------------------------------< 17th September, 1987 Documention for LPR.EXE V2.0 ---------------------------- Please print this file on your printer by typing: C>LPR LPR.DOC or C>LPR -l LPR.DOC if you have an HP Laserjet II LPR is an 'intelligent' two pass file printing program, designed to print any sort of text file on either your dot-matrix printer or you HP Laser printer with as few problems and as little paper wastage as possible. This program has been designed for printing program source file, .DOC files downloaded from bulletin boards, word processor files, captured ANSI and non-ANSI bulletin board sessions,in short, any text file with CR's and LF's in it (or just LF's see -m option). The main design aim has been to use the LEAST AMOUNT OF PAPER POSSIBLE and to adapt printing condidtions to suit the file. The user is NOT REQUIRED to understand or remember all the available command line parameters, LPR will advise on the settings of these toggles after pass 1, if any seem to be required. The user will be given the opportunity to restart the program with the recommended options. Features include: Full support for HP Laser jet and Laser Jet+ printers operating in two column landscape mode. Full support for ANSI-BBS escape sequences on an IBM/Epson printer. Ability to strip ANSI sequences and Form Feeds if required. Ability to strip over-printed lines, more than a specified number of blank lines, BS-Underline sequences and any other control sequences. Support for IBM line and block characters on an ASCII only printer. Print multiple files and groups of files with a single command. ----> Introduction <---- Why do two passes? On the first pass, no printing occurs. LPR accumlates information about the following parameters: Number of pages Number of printable characters Existence of FORM FEEDS in the file Number of lines between form feeds The longest line in the file How many lines are longer than your printer can handle Whether leading spaces are found on every line, and how many Checks for existence of ANSI sequences Number of useless control characters (not LF,ESC,CR,FF etc) Existence of IBM line drawing and block graphic characters Over printed lines (two CR's with no LF) Backspace-Underline sequences Large quantitys of blank lines. LF's with no CR's in file. LPR then presents the above information on the screen and makes suggestions about the use of command line options to correct or make use of the information. LPR pauses and allows you to abort or continue if any settings need to be altered. If the file was a plain ASCII text with no form feeds and no lines longer than the default right hand margin, printing will begin immediatley after the first pass. ----> The first pass report <---- The following information will be printed on the screen if LPR thinks any parameters could be altered. Form feeds found ======> Form feeds were found up to 65 (60) lines apart, use 'pnn' option and use longer paper, or use the '-s' option to ignore FF's. (Your default line length is in brackets) If you don't have any longer paper, use the '-s' option and ignore the form feeds in the document. Form feeds found at less than your page length====> Form feeds were found 55 lines apart, pages will be 5 lines short. Use the '-s' option if you want each page filled with text. Otherwise, use the '-w' option to suppress LPR's page headings if the file has it's own headings after the form feeds. The situation here is that the form feeds occur at LESS than you page length. If you allow them to be printed, each page will have 5 blank lines at the bottom. The file may have it's own headings at the top of each page, you should disable LPR's headings with the '-w' option if you are not going to strip the file's form feeds. Line length much shorter than your margins=================> The longest line in the file was 60 (90) columns. Use the '-inn' command to print the text more centrally on the page. Here, the text has quite short lines. LPR is offering to print it more centrally on the page for you. Line length longer than your margins================> The longest line in the file was 97 (90) columns. 34 lines were wrapped or truncated, use wider paper and the '-cnn' option or use the '-t' option to truncate the long lines. If you are using an IBM/Epson compatible printer, use the '-1' option to engage compressed mode printing. Note: lines may no longer be as long if LPR found ANSI sequences. Re-run LPR with '-y' or '-a' if this was the case. Here, several lines were longer than your printer allows. If you own an Epson/IBM compataible, you can use the '-1' option to print in condensed mode to obtain 130 columns a line. Other wise you can elect to let the lines be wrapped by LPR or use the '-t' option to simply truncate the line at the right margin and ignore the extra characters. If you have the option of fitting wider paper, do so and then use LPR with the '-cnn' option to increase the default number of columns. Leading Spaces==============> Each line has at least 9 leading spaces, use '-knn' option to strip some or all of these spaces. Many files you will encounter on bulletin boards and from word processors will have a consistent number of spaces at the beginning of each line. LPR is advising you of this fact and suggesting that you strip some or all of them. ANSI sequences============> File probably has ANSI Escape sequences, Use the '-a' or the '-y' option. Only use the '-y' option with an IBM/Epson compatabile printer. LPR has found a significant number of ANSI escape sequences in your file. These occur in a captured 'OPUS' bulletin board session or VT100 session. If you own an Epson/IBM printer you have two choices. The '- y' option will interpret and print ANSI ATTRIBUTE sequences as best it can, using italics, emphasised and bold printing. The effect is actually quite impressive. If you don't own such a printer, use the '- a' option to simply strip the ANSI sequences and print plain text. Extraneous control characters==========> A substantial number of extraneous control chars found. Use the '-g' option to not print control expansions. Otherwise, control characters will print as '^H' etc. LPR has found a significant number of useless control characters in your file. These may be word processor directives or just garbage from a modem session. These will NEVER be sent to the printer, the default action is to expand these as in '^H' or '^D' for control-H and control-D. The '-g' option disables this expansion and ignores the control characters. IBM line draw and block characters=====> This file probably contains IBM line drawing characters, use the '-j' option to print these as ASCII characters, or use the '-8' option if your printer has an extended IBM character set. LPR has found a significant number of IBM line drawing and/or block graphic characters. The '-j' option interprets these characters and prints rough equivalents on a normal ASCII only printer. The '-8' option allows the characters through to the printer 'as is'. This option should be used with care as many word processor's use bit 7 as an indication of end of word or paragraph, LPR has no way of telling which is which. WARNING: LPR sometimes mistakes WordStar files for files normal WordStar document files. Use the '-j' with care!!!! ----> Report summary <---- If in doubt, use the options suggested by the report and see what happens. Most of the time you will be pleased with results. ----> Options summary <---- LPR is always invoked from the DOS command line using the following format: C>lpr -opt -opt -opt files files files where 'opt' is from the list below. Files may contain wild cards, like *.c, *.doc etc. -l HP laser 2 column landscape print mode, assumes 16.66cpi font LPR prints two pages side by side on an HP Laser. The catch is than you must have the LANDSCAPE version of the compressed line printer font, either dowmloaded or on a cartridge. (unless it comes as standard with the new LJ II, I don't know). The ANSI '-y' option will not work on the HP, also remeber to use the '-j' option to print IBM lines, as the line printer font doesn't have any IBM characters. -q Don't stop after first pass if there are problems Normally, LPR will pause after the first pass if there are problems, this option tells it to proceed regardless. -g Don't expand control chars, just ignore As detailed above, just ignore (dont print) control characters. -knn Don't print first 'nn' cols of each line As detailed above, ignore the first 'nn' columns of each line. -s Strip Form Feeds from file Strip (ignore) form feeds in the file. -unn Start printing at page 'nn' Start printing as page 'nn'. LPR will still do a full pass one, regardless of this setting. -pnn Page length in lines (60) The page length is set to 60 lines by default, this will change the page length before LPR issues a form feed to 'nn' lines. -cnn Maximum columns allowed (90) LPR will wrap or truncate the line if it exceeds this value, this command chnages the value to 'nn' columns. -t Truncate long lines rather than wrap LPR will truncate (ignore) characters after the maximum number of columns rather than wrap to the next line. -8 Print all 8 bits (usually off) LPR usually only prints the bottom 7 bits of each byte in the file to avoid problems with word processor files, etc. This option makes LPR send all 8 bits to the printer. Use this with care. -j Map IBM line draw characters to ASCII As detailed above, this option maps IBM line and block graphics characters to comprable ASCII characters for printing on a non-IBM printer. -1 Set IBM/Epson type printer to compressed print mode This option sets an IBM/Epson printer into 130 column mode and sets the maximum number of columns to 130. -n Print line numbers LPR prints a four digit line number at the start of each line. -x No banner page No initial banner page is printed. -z Do page count and analysis, no printing will occur Use this option if you just want to know about a file. LPR will run it's normal pass one and then terminate. -a ANSI strip mode As detailed above, this option will strip all ANSI sequences to leave plain text. Use this option unless you have an IBM/Epson type printer. -y ANSI mode with printer attributes (FX-80) This option uses Epson ESC sequences to simulate ANSI attribute sequences. Cursor movement sequnces are ignored. -inn Indent each line 'nn' spaces Each line is indented by 'nn' spaces -e Pause at the end of each page LPR will pause at the end of each page. You have the option to continue, abort or run continous (page pause will be turned off). This is good for checking that all is well with your printer. -w Don't print page headings Tells LPR not to print page headings Example: 'lpr -l -e -t file.doc' would print in laser mode, stopping every physical page. Long lines would be truncated rather than wrapped. Example: 'lpr file.doc' would print to your XX-80 dot matrix printer, assuming 60 lines per page and 95 columns a line. Example: 'lpr -q *.c *.h file.doc' would print all the .C files in your current directory, all the .H files and <file.doc>. If there were problems with formatting, you would NOT be offered the opportunity to fix them. LPR is a SHAREWARE program, that is to say, if you find this program of use, please make a contribution to it's upkeep by sending me a registration fee of $20. You will be registered as an LPR user and I will send you the full C source code on disk. Please send your $20 to: BARRIE HALL 561 BLAXLAND RD EASTWOOD, NSW 2122 AUSTRALIA Enjoy using LPR, if you find problems or would like to make a comment please leave me a message either on SOFTWARE TOOLS - OPUS board which can be contacted on +61 2 4492618, or in the International Tech conference. The lastest version of LPR can always be obtained from SOFTWARE TOOLS OPUS SYSTEM. (End of LPR documentation, October, 1987)