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Text File | 1990-08-08 | 33.3 KB | 731 lines

Laser Printer Version 2.1 August 8, 1990 (c) 1990 Al Albanese All Rights Reserved This program and associated documentation are the property of the author and may not be sold without permission. They may be freely distributed, unaltered and as a unit, via electronic bulletin board systems. Permission to distribute on diskette or in any other manner must be obtained in writing. The author does not guarantee the program to be free from defects and may not be held responsible for loss caused by such. Your use of this program constitutes your acceptance of these terms. Licensing Information LsrPrint 2.1 is not a public domain program and is not free. It is classified as "SHAREWARE." What this means is that you may use the program for 30 days to determine its suitability to your application. If after that time you decide to continue using LsrPrint 2.1 you must pay the registration fee. LsrPrint is an extremely useful program and represents a great deal of work. If you find LsrPrint 2.1 useful and enjoyable, you can help support future improvements by registering your copy. A single-user license is $15.00. A diskette (5.25" or 3.5") will be provided for a $5.00 handling fee. Send a check or money order (US funds) to the address below. Al Albanese Albanese Software 60 Tarn Drive Morris Plains, NJ 07950 Details and multi-user (site) license information are provided in the file LsrPrint.reg This software has been thoroughly tested on an HP LaserJet II and an IBM Proprinter clone using PC compatible boxes. Your machine and printer may work differently. Your machine no longer need be PC compatible at the BIOS level for this program to fully function properly. As long as your machine can run a version of DOS 2.0 or greater, this program will work. Parallel printers are preferred to serial printers as serial ports may not report printer conditions (paper out, jam) through the bios. In order to use this program on a printer connected to a serial port, the port must have been redirected via the DOS mode command. Example (include in autoexec.bat) mode com2:9600,n,8,1,p mode lpt1:=com2: You must be using DOS 2.0 or greater. If you are using 3.0 and less and are also using a serial printer, some machine/printer combinations may act strange. I've only read about this, I have never witnessed it. You really should be using DOS 3.2 or DOS 3.3. I don't know about 4.01. Diskette File Contents This Disk (or zip file) should contain the following files File Name Size Date Time Read.me 4,072 08-08-90 02:10 LsrPrint.doc 34,066 08-08-90 02:10 LsrPrint.exe 33,360 08-08-90 02:10 LsrPrint.reg 2,490 08-08-90 02:10 Redirect.exe 10,906 08-08-90 02:10 Chuck.exe 534 08-08-90 02:10 LsReset.exe 534 08-08-90 02:10 Please read the documentation carefully. This release boasts many enhancements and changes since the 1.7 release. LsrPrint will run in about 110K of memory (C4 option is the worst case). There are no known TSR conflicts. What is LsrPrint? LsrPrint is an extremely flexible utility which allows printing of ASCII text files on virtually any DOS computer. LsrPrint has specifically been developed for the HP Laser family (and compatible) printers as well as IBM Graphics, IBM Proprinter or Epson (and compatible) DOT Matrix printers. The default startup conditions are (equivalent to startup parameter /NP): LaserJet II Printer Expand Tabs by 8 Left Margin is 5 Characters Wide Uses the Printers Default Font Line Width is 80 Page Length is 60 (Excludes .5 inch Top and Bottom Margin) These parameters can be modified via the customization option (/S) or by parameter line commands. The command syntax of LsrPrint is: LsrPrint <filename.ext or ? or /S> <Options> Filename.ext represents a valid DOS file name and extension. If the filename is either left blank, invalid, or is the '?' character, the program will end after displaying a brief help message. If the filename string is replaced with "/S", LsrPrint will begin customization of it's default startup parameters. The DOS '*' wildcard is supported by this version of LsrPrint. All files meeting the wildcard condition will be printed or scanned. Press the Escape key to cancel (terminate) LsrPrint. LsrPrint will always display the options in effect. The options displayed match the parameters, except when customized init/reset strings are being used. The 'CU' symbol will appear as the first option in effect if custom init/reset strings are being used. LsrPrint makes repeated attempts to "talk" to your printer. It will try for approx 40 seconds before giving up and asking you if you would like to continue. The long delay is necessary, especially on a 25 or 33 MHz 386 using a laser printer waiting for a page eject after a reset (/027E). If your printer is not available at startup time, LsrPrint patiently waits, your machine is not hung. If you are using LsrPrint in a ".bat" file, or are executing LsrPrint from within a parent program (for you programers out there), LsrPrint sets the Dos Errorlevel to either a 0 for successfull completion, or a 9 for unsuccessful. An example of a ".bat" file utilizing the return codes is: line 1 » LsrPrint *.txt /# > linecnts.dat line 2 » if not errorlevel 9 redirect linecnts.dat Redirection of LsrPrint Control Data You may redirect the screen output of LsrPrint via the normal DOS redirection symbol (>). This is especially handy when using the /# option. Example: Lsrprint *.dat /# > output.lst would cause LsrPrint to create a dataset output.lst which contains the file, line and page counts for all files with the "dat" extension in the current default drive and directory. An unfortunate side effect of the data I've chosen to send to the screen (and DOS's extremely primative terminal output functions) is that the redirected data set will be filled with BackSpaces (Ascii 8) and overwritten data. Most viewer programs, such as V.Buerg's List.com and my own View.exe, will eliminate the "junk". The program redirect.exe will remove the miscellaneous junk from the file. You must use this program prior to printing the data set. This program will now strip backspaces from any Ascii text file, not only files created by LsrPrint. With release 2.0 of LsrPrint.exe, Redirect.exe has been enhanced to TabExpand datasets. In order to set a Tab Expansion width a new "Tx" subparameter has been added. Redirect will default to /T4 if no parameter is given at startup. Syntax is : redirect output.lst /T8 This will "clean" the file output.lst as well and expand any tabs found in the file by 8 spaces. Bonus Features As an extra bonus feature I've included two additional programs, LsReset.exe and Chuck.exe. Chuck.exe is for the extremely lazy person in that it will force the printer (PRN: device only) to issue a form feed. This will work on just about any printer in the universe as all it does is send an ASCII 10 (Carriage Return) and an ASCII 12 (Form Feed) to the printer. LsReset.exe will issue a reset for an HP LJ and compatibles (/027E). This will reset the printer and clear out any unprinted data. This program also also works with the printer connected to PRN: (usually LPT1:). Command Line Parameters Each command line option may start with any one of the following characters: '\' or '/' or '-'. Each option must be separated by a blank. Format and System parameters /Txx - Expand Tabs by xx columns. Will replace each occurrence of the ASCII Tab character by XX spaces. /Wxx - Set Line Width to xx. Be careful when setting this value to a value greater than the default value. Ignored by C#. /Lxx - Set Page Length to xx. Be careful when setting this value to a value greater than the default value. Unpredictable results may occur. Setting this parameter to a value less than the default value is safe. Include two for the header. Ignored by C#. /Mxx - Set the Left Margin to xx characters. Ignored by C# option /E[S,T,W] - End of line treatment. This parameter determines what to do with physical text line lengths greater than the available (printable) line length. In versions prior to 1.8, the line was automatically split and wrapped around if it was longer that the printable line length. Now you have a choice. The sub-parameters are 'S' for split, 'T' for truncate and 'W' for Word Wrap. Yes this version (>1.7) will perform basic word wrapping. It will continually wrap text until an input file physical carriage return will fit on the logical output line. The best method of seeing how I've implemented word wrap is to try the following LsrPrint LsrPrint.doc /EW /W60 /otest.dat /H /IN This will produce a file named test.dat which contains the output of Lsrprint. Compare test.dat to LsrPrint.doc and you will see the effect of word wrap. It does have it's uses. The default used by the current LsrPrint is /ES except in the /CN mode (/EW is the default in that mode). /FB[A,P,S] - For all you poor mainframe users, this will strip and properly print downloaded ASCII MainFrame FBA (or VBA) datasets. The dataset must be a "real" print file (Carriage control in Col 1) for this parameter to function properly. The "A" option (/FBA) allows LsrPrint to automatically translate carriage control information and set the /CL setting (with M10) as the default. The "P" option will only translate Top of Page (1 in column 1), all other characters in column 1 will be stripped. The "S" method does no conversion; it simply strips out column 1. Now you don't have to wait most of a lifetime for a print out, just download it and go from there. Please note that any downloaded files must have been translated from EBCDIC to ASCII and have had carriage return and line feed's inserted at the end of each logical record. Most 3270 emulation programs, and their download facilities, will do this for you. /FI[A,P,S] - For all you poor mainframe users that don't have access to a Laser Printer, this option will set up LsrPrint in IC mode. All other sub-parameters are identical to the FBx series. You may also force the use of Init/Reset strings via the /Z option (see below). /Px - Send to Port x. If you need to access printers on ports other than the standard LPT1, this is how you do it. To access a printer on LPT2, use /P2. If you have a serial printer the D option may be a better choice. /# - Count the number of lines and pages without sending any text to the printer. If you want to know how many pages and lines a document contains, this is how you do it. /D - Use DOS services to output to (PRN:) device. This allows the use of all serial output devices (as well as any parallel devices). Output print text is sent to the PRN: device using DOS services (int 21, func 40, Fhandle 4). Error Detection is not as good as the normal method, but this facility has been added to increase flexibility. This method will be slightly slower on slower machines ( <20Mgz 386 ) than the default (int 17 func 0) method. The P option is ignored when this option is set. For machines which are not PC compatible at the BIOS level you must use this option. /O - Will send print output to a file. Format is /Oprint.out where print.out is the file you wish to send the printer output. Lsrprint will either create the file if it doesn't exist or write over an existing file. It does not care if the output file exists, it will wipe it out. It will not erase read only, system or hidden files (as well as any subdirectory names). /H - Do not include the top filename and page header in printed output. This will increase the number of printable text lines by 2. Ignored by modes /CN and /C#. /S - Customize LsrPrint. Will install desired default options into the LsrPrint program. Allows the installation of customized initialization and reset strings for any printer. With this option LsrPrint will effectively work with any printer. The use of the DOS environment variable is no longer necessary. A detailed discussion of this option appears later in the documentation. This is not really an option, use "/S" instead of a file name to begin customization (i.e. LsrPrint /S) /X - Create test output based on either current default or any overridden parameters. LsrPrint will produce an output print which is based on the chosen system parameters at execution time. The output print data will allow you to tune the /W and /L parameters especially for the /IN, /IC and /I2 modes. The Laser Jet II modes (N[l,p],C[l, p,n,2,3,4]) should not need to be tuned. /Z - This parameter will force the use of any installed custom initilization and reset string. Every mode, except /IN, has a default initalization string associated to it (either HP or IBM/Epson specific). This will allow you to override any the default startup and restart strings, even for multi-column jobs. It is now possible to use the /I2 parameter on any printer for which you know the following parameters: 1. Total Line Width (the /W parameter) 2. Total Page Length (the /L parameter, must be less than 91) 3. A printer initilization and reset string (set by LsrPrint Customization: /S). When using this parameter, it should be the last parameter given. For example, to use this parameter to print file test.dat in 2 column mode on a printer which has a maximum line width of 145 and a page length of 64 the following string could be given: LsrPrint text.dat /i2 /w145 /l64 /z LsrPrint will calculate the size of each text page based on the printer characteristics given. If no customized init/reset string has been installed, LsrPrint will terminated unsuccessfully. HP LaserJet II (and compatibles) parameters /NP - Set LaserJet II to Portrait Mode and use the default printer font. LsrPrint parameters are automatically set to /T8 /W80 /M5 and /L60. This is the default startup parameter (which may of course be changed via /S). /NL - Set LaserJet II to Landscape Mode and use the default printer font. LsrPrint parameters are automatically set to /T8 /W110 /M0 and /L45. /CP - Set LaserJet II to Portrait Mode and use the LinePrinter font. LsrPrint parameters are automatically set to /T8 /W133 /M8 and /L80. /CL - Set LaserJet II to Landscape mode and use the LinePrinter font. LsrPrint parameters are automatically set to /T8 /W186 /M0 and /L60. /CN - Set LaserJet II to Portrait mode, use the LinePrinter font and print text in 2 columns of 60 width by 88 lines with WordWrap (/EW). The M, W, L and H options are ignored in by this setting. /C2 - Set LaserJet II to Landscape mode and print text data in 2 columns of 81 width by 66 lines. The M, W, L and H options are ignored by this setting. /C3 - Set LaserJet II to Landscape mode and print text data in 3 columns of 52 width by 66 lines. The M, W, L and H options are ignored by this setting. /C4 - Set LaserJet II to Landscape mode and print text data in 4 columns of 38 width by 66 lines with WordWrap. The M, W, L and H options are ignored by this setting. Other Printers /IC - Set IBM/Epson printer to Compressed Mode. LsrPrint parameters are automatically set to /T8 /W136 /M0 and /L60. The init string used here is compatible on most Dot Matrix Printers (/015 init, /018 reset). /I2 - Set IBM/Epson printer to Compressed Mode mode, print data in 2 column format. This mode is similar to the /CN mode, except that it is meant for a IBM or Epson Dot Matrix printer. The default init/reset strings used here are the same as in the /IC mode, but can be overridden via the /Z parameter to use any custom init/reset strings. Effectively this allows two column support on any printer that supports init/reset strings (just about every printer made). The /L and /W parameters default to /L60 and /W60 but can be easily overridden. The proper method of overriding these parameters for this setting is to: 1. Determine the maximum /L and /W parameters for your printer. (Use the /X option to test your settings) 2. Enter these parameters after the /I2 parameter on the control line. LsrPrint will calculate the correct frame size to support multi columns for the /L and /W settings. LsrPrint will display (@ run time) the logical /L and /W settings for each column (or page) of output. To print a dataset named mydata.prn using /i2 mode on a printer that has a maximum line width of 188 and a maximum page length of 66 lines using the IBM/Epson default init/reset strings of /015 and /018 in multi column /I2 mode enter the following at the command line: LsrPrint mydata.prn /i2 /w145 /l68 LsrPrint will display the following lines: Laser Print V2.1 - (c) 1990 Al Albanese Options In Effect: I2,T8,P1,M0,W66,L66,EW Printing File: MYDATA.PRN Page 1 Notice that LsrPrint displays that it will be printing two columns of 66X66 text. /IN - LsrPrint just sends the print file to the printer using no init/reset strings. The parameters are automatically set to /T8 /W80 /M0 and /L60. The default startup LsrPrint option is /NP. This may be changed via the /S customization facility. Use the W,L and P options with great care. LsrPrint calculates the W and L options accurately for the LaserJet options. Overriding them with greater than default widths may produce curious and unexpected results. The P parameter is for those situations where either more that 1 printer is available or the printer is connected and redirected to a different port. If the port is not valid or accessible by LsrPrint, the program will reset the port to 1. If port number 1 is not accessible, LsrPrint will abend. Points to remember 1. Always place the Ix, Nx or Cx options prior to any specific format line overrides. Always place the /Z option last. 2. The # option will produce no paper, it simply tallies and displays the line and page counts of the text file(s). 3. All invalid line commands are ignored. 4. The printer is reset to native default state at program end except when using the /IN parameter. This parameter does not change the native printer state. Obviously if you have installed custom initialization and reset strings, you get whatever you type in. 5. To Cancel print for a file, press the escape key while LsrPrint is still counting pages. Jobs LsrPrint says are complete can not be canceled by LsrPrint, you'll have to shut off the printer. 6. The header displays the File Name, File Last Updated Date and Time and Page Number. When using the /H option (to eliminate the header) please note that two(2) more printable lines are available. The default "L" options include two lines for the header (i.e. /L60 parameter means 2 lines of header plus 58 lines of text). The /H option is ignored by modes CN, C2, C3 and C4. 7. If you are using a serial printer (or some older print spooler programs) the /D option may prove to be the most satisfactory. 8. If you are using the FBA option, please remember that the most the /CL option will allow is 60 lines per page. If your mainframe print out contains more that 60 lines per page, the page breaks may not seem proper. EBCDIC files must have been preconverted to ASCII, logical records must be carriage return and line feed delimited. 9. ATTENTION - C4 mode may not work properly on some HP LJ emulations (like the AT&T 593 LJ Emulation). Some printers have great trouble with the high density print this option can produce. It you get "weird" printer errors, but LsrPrint indicates successfull completion, it is YOUR printer NOT LsrPrint that is having a problem. Real HP's do not have this problem, just some emulations. All other modes function perfectly on the printers I have been able to test. 10. LsrPrint limits the physical line length to 254 bytes. Lines longer than 254 will be truncated. Customization of LsrPrint LsrPrint (via the /S startup Option) allows the customization of key parameters (akin to the Environment variable usage in releases prior to 1.4). Additionally custom printer initialization and reset strings may also be included. To modify LsrPrint enter "LsrPrint /S" from the LsrPrint.exe directory. The install program will physically modify LsrPrint.exe to install new parameters (a process sometimes called "cloning"). LsrPrint will display the following current options 1. Current startup parameters (i.e. /C2 /T4) 2. If customized Init/Reset strings are in use [Y/N] 3. The customized Init String (if any) 4. The customized Reset String (if any) You will be prompted as follows: 1. "Start Parms :". Enter the default start parameters you would like for LsrPrint. For example, if you have a HP LJ II, you may prefer as a default 2 column mode with tabs set to 4. To make this your default enter "/c2 /t4". LsrPrint will use these as your default parameters. You may override any of these parameters by using command line options at execution time. 2. "Use Custom Init/Reset Strings? [Y/N]:" . Enter a 'Y' if you would like to use a special printer startup string. This will cause LsrPrint to use this string at printer startup. This is intended primarily for users of printers other than those directly supported. (LaserJets, Proprinters) 3. If you answered yes to question 2, then the next prompt will be "Init String :". Enter your custom printer initialization string. Please read and understand your printer documentation before using this powerful feature. Data is entered using the following convention. All ASCII codes (such as escape) must be prefaced with a '/' and be of the format '/nnn' where 'nnn' equals the ASCII code. For example to program the escape sequence use the ASCII sequence '/027'. The ASCII code must be exactly three (3) digits long. To program many dot matrix printers to go into compressed mode enter '/015' (this is the \IC option). Normal string parameters are simply appended together with the Ascii codes. You may mix many parameters in this fashion. Your printer manual should have examples of the codes required for it's special features. Examples: a. LJ II /NP equivalent : "/027E/027&l0o6d66P/027(10U/027(s10H" b. Select Elite size (12 CPI) on an IBM Proprinter : "/027:" Please set the /W and /L options for the init string you are using. You are in control of what prints and how it looks. 4. "Reset String: ". If you've set it (via #3), you probably should set it back when your done. HP example is "/027E". Proprinter example is "/018". 5. "Install Parameters? [Y/N] : " . If you want to modify LsrPrint to use whatever parameters you have entered, type a 'Y' here. If you mess up, just rerun "LsrPrint /S". Each time you run LsrPrint the options you have entered and saved will be installed. Any options you wish to override during execution time can be entered via the command line switches. Assume you have entered a custom init/reset string and have special startup /L and /W parameters (hopefully to match your init/reset strings). You may want for this run only to use the /C2 option. Just enter /C2 at the command line (following the file name) and the C2 defaults will override the installed options. Technical Details The program was written mostly in Turbo Pascal 5.5. The following printer initialization and reset strings are used: IBM/Epson IC Set: /015 IC Reset: /018 HP LaserJet (Where /027 equals the Ascii Escape Character) Reset: /027E NP: /027&l0o6d66P/027(10U/027(s10H NL: /027&l1o6d51P/027(10U/027(s10H CP: /027(10U/027(s16.6H/027&l0o8d88P CL: /027(10U/027(s16.6H/027&l1o8d68P CN: /027(10U/027&l0O/027s17H/027&l5.14C/027&l6E/027&l92F/027(s-3B/027&a0R C#: /027(10U/027&l1O/027s17H/027&l5.14C/027&l6E/027&l71F/027(s-3B/027&a0R A Reset (/027E) is always sent prior to the Init string for the HP options. (An extremely good practice). Enhancement requests are always entertained. Special customization of LsrPrint is possible. Please contact Al Albanese if you wish to discuss this option. Release History 1.0 04/13/90 Original Release 1.1 04/17/90 Properly supports the Form Feed (Ascii 12) character when printing forms. Page counts via /# parameter include Ascii 12 counts. 1.2 04/23/90 Bugfix. It's amazing what test data doesn't catch. The 1.1 Ascii 12 fix had some side effects, including not properly counting lines. The header will now appear on the top of the printed form. Page ejects will occur at the proper place. 1.3 05/02/90 C2 parameter added. Changed defaults to NP from CP and Tab Expansion to 8. This seems to be the preferred default. (I prefer /C2 /T4 as my defaults). Corrected some default /W parameters. Changed Header. 1.4 05/10/90 C2 display changed to "Page" type display (looks great). C2 defaults for W and L changed to W80 and L66. M option disabled for C2 mode. Changed fundamental method in which data was transmitted to printer (Rom Bios Int 17). Error detection is improved when writing to a parallel port. As long as your PC is sort of IBM-PC compatible everything should be fine. This program was tested on older clone machines not known for their compatibility as well as using a serial port via a print director. Added /S customization options (See Text for More). 1.5 05/15/90 C2 option did not work properly on HP P and D models due to incorrect init string. Modified init string (see above) to set top margin prior to setting page length. C2 now works properly across HP laser line (and compatibles). Improved code around the job cancellation function (Escape Key). 1.6 05/21/90 Added D (Dos Services) option. Improved code around error detection. LsrPrint waited a little too patiently for your printer (sometimes forever). Corrected C2 init string (IBM US was not being set as default font). This release was sent only as a Beta to a few people. 1.7 05/29/90 General release. Time String on header now is zero filled (i.e. 12:01:30 instead of 12:1:30). Writing to screen is now done through DOS and not directly to video memory. LsrPrint now will run on virtually all weird iron, in multitasker windows, and allows redirection of the normal screen output to a file (via DOS > redirector). Added O option (send print output to a file) and redirect.exe. 1.8c 06/21/90 This is a test version distributed to friends and "family" only. It contains the following enhancements: EOL Treatment : the /E parameter Mainframe Print file conversion : the /FBA parameter. See the main documentation for more information. 2.0 07/02/90 Introduced modes: /CN, C3, C4. Strengthened word wrap. LsrPrint now displays the options in effect during each run (or during help message). Added LsReset and Chuck. Altered Redirect to Strip backspaces from any file as well as tab expand. 2.1 08/08/90 Substantially increased Dot matrix and custom init/ reset string support. Added modes /FB[P,S], /FI[A,P,S] /I2 and /X. Added /Z parameter. Converted all code to object oriented methodology[finally!!]. If you have any questions or comments about the LsrPrint program, including any bug reports (not possible I say) please feel free to contact: Al Albanese Albanese Software 60 Tarn Drive Morris Plains New Jersey 07950 Telephone (201)-457-2859 (9-5 EST) This is just one of many quality products that Albanese Software provides to it's clients. Albanese Software is an extremely small company which specializes in general small business customer software development for Clipper Database, Turbo Pascal and C applications. In addition, we have written some excellent packages which are available as either shareware or through a dealer. Specifically the following two products are available through Albanese Software: 1. TheMenu - A shareware DOS Menuing Shell system. This easy to use program allows simple and quick access to all the applications on your machine without having to constantly remember what drive, directory and executable command invokes the application. Included in the menuing package is ASCII text file viewer and editor. Version 2.4 available now. Customized Network version available by special arrangement. Version 3.0 will be available in September 1990. Available direct for $35. 2. The Wine Master - Do you enjoy wines? Do you have a cellar with a substantial inventory of wines. This system allows a wine expert to maintain an integrated set of files about wines. Keep detailed notes on your cellar, wine tastings and wines you wish to purchase. Build totally dynamic reports from any wine file. Manage and automate group tastings. Let your guests bring home computer generated notes from your wine tasting. The absolute ultimate in Wine Management Systems. This product is not shareware. It can be purchased either through selected dealers or directly from: Computer Technologies, Inc 9 Sylvan Way, Suite 275 Parsippany, N.J. 07054 (201) 605-5229 3. View - A file viewer program which functions with LsrPrint. Multi optioned ASCII file viewer includes built in mouse support, virtually unlimited ASCII text file size, file selection shell, text searching and it is fast. Available direct for $15 ($25 with the latest release of LsrPrint). View and LsrPrint the viewed file. Please include a $5 shipping and handling fee for any direct software orders. Custom developed software orders in Clipper (Dbase), Pascal or C are gladly welcomed. Please contact Al Albanese to discuss any custom work.