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- What is Startup Downloader?
-
-
- Startup Downloader (STD) is a control panel that lets you create ‘download sets’ of
- PostScript fonts and programs (.ps files). These files, when double–clicked, download the
- fonts/.ps files to a selected PostScript printer.
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- How do I install it?
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- To install STD, just drag it into your System Folder. If you’re using System 7, you can
- place STD anywhere on your disk.
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- What does it need to work?
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- STD needs System 6 or above, HFS, and a PostScript laser printer that can be used via
- AppleTalk. STD is System 7 kosher, but only uses System 7 features when things go
- wrong. Balloon Help is available.
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- Just a warning
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- STD has only been tested on my machine, which happens to be an SE/30 running under
- System 7 in 32–bit mode. It also works with my printer. Since this is the only system I’ve
- got access to, it’s the only one that I’m sure STD works under. If you have any problems,
- contact me and I’ll try & fix it.
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- Also, STD modifies the data and resource forks of the sets it creates, so you have to
- configure anti–virus utilities to ignore this or the sets won’t work.
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- How do I use it?
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- Using STD is pathetically easy. Open STD from the control panel, and you should see
- something like this (System 6 users won’t see the title bar):
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- On the right side are the ‘menu buttons’, with titles (and functions) that should be familiar.
- The big box on the left shows the files currently in the set. Above the box is the name of
- the current set file (since there isn’t an active set, it’s set to ‘Untitled’). On the bottom are
- two options that I’ll explain later.
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- To create a set, click on the “New Set” button. STD will prompt you for a LaserWriter file,
- and will refuse to continue unless you select one [the explination is long and involved, so
- I’ll put it off…for now, just select any old LaserWriter file]. After you select a LaserWriter
- file buttons start turning on, letting you do more.
-
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- Click on “Add File”. STD will prompt you to select any PostScript font or text file. Go
- ahead, add a couple of fonts. When you’re finished, click on the “Done” button.
-
- (See what happens when you click on a file in the list…the “Remove” button turns on. If
- you click on “Remove”, the file will be removed from the list.)
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- Now that you’ve added all those fonts, click on the “Save” button. STD will ask you to
- name the file and where to put the file. There you go; when you double–click on that file,
- the fonts and text files you chose will be downloaded to the printer. Boy, wasn’t that fun?
-
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- Hey, what about those two options?
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- The two options at the bottom of the window control the behavior of the extractor. The first
- one, “Minutes to wait before starting”, controls the length of time STD will wait for a
- printer before it complains to you. If STD can’t find the printer in the specified time, it
- figures that the printer is turned off and will alert you to this fact.
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- The second option, “Ignore file–not–found errors”, controls STD’s behavior when a file in
- the set can’t be found. Usually, STD will prompt you for the file if it can’t find it. If this is
- irritating to you, or don’t want to be bothered, or whatever, turn this option on and STD
- will just skip over the file and go on to the next one. This won’t stop STD from reporting
- other errors, however.
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- On to the Extractor
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- There are only a few things that are relevant to the extractor, because it’s basically a small,
- dumb thing that doesn’t have many brains. The extractor will look for a printer for however
- long you specify. It will download everything you tell it to, and under System 7 will even
- jump into the background to keep out of your way. It will even let you quit while it’s
- downloading.
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- But when an error occurs, the extractor will be sure to let you know (unless the error is a
- file–not–found error and you tell it to ignore them). If it’s a PostScript error, or if the
- printer wasn’t found, or if it was cut off from the printer, the extractor will notify you of
- that fact and ask you to choose from three options: “Quit”, which is self–explanitory, “Try
- Again”, and “Another Printer”.
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- If you choose “Another Printer”, the extractor will prompt you for another LaserWriter file
- and will use that file to determine the printer. Then it will start over.
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- If you choose “Try Again”, the extractor will try the printer again.
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- Things you should know
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- Before you go off and download the whole Adobe Type Library, there are some things that
- you should know about STD’s behavior.
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- • The LaserWriter file is the extractor’s link to your laser printer. From the LaserWriter file
- comes the name of the printer to download to, so it is very important that a laser printer be
- selected before the extractor starts. This doesn’t mean that you have to select a printer from
- the Chooser every time you use STD; it means that, at some point in the past a printer was
- selected using that LaserWriter file. If you choose another printer in the Chooser, the
- extractor will use that printer.
-
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- • STD does an exitserver when it connects to the printer, so any PostScript text files that
- you download shouldn’t.
-
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- •STD will allow you to download any text file, so be sure that you know what’s in a
- PostScript text files before you add it to a set.
-
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- • While you can quit while a job is in progress, I don’t recommend it. It could, for
- example, leave a font half–defined and cause ugly things to happen to your printer. In any
- case, it probably won’t be very good for your printer’s VM.
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- • STD assumes your printer’s password is ‘0’. If it isn’t, well, the set will be temporarily
- downloaded. You can change the password the exitserver uses, but you’ll have to do it for
- every set you make, because the extractor is stored in STD’s data fork (neat, huh?).
-
-
- • STD doesn’t do TrueType, because I don’t have the TT book (donations accepted).
- Considering that TT Chicago expands to about 300K (no joke!) when you save it as a
- PostScript file, I don’t really see it as a problem.
-
-
- • Holding down the option key while a set is launching causes the set to quit.
-
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- The Fee
-
- If you like STD and it makes your life easier, send me $20 and help me support my habit.
- I’ll be happy just to hear that someone has thrown away their copy of LaserStatus and is
- using this instead. Send all donations to:
-
-
- Manuel Veloso
-
- 9 High Rock Way #3
-
- Allston, MA 02134–2414
-
- CIS: 70365,1426
-
- AOL: FISH26
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- If you have improvements, suggestions, problems, comments, hate mail, post a message
- on AOL or CIS. This program is far from finished, since it only does what I want it to do.
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- Legal Stuff
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- This product should work in the manner described above. If it doesn’t, throw it away.
- While I’ve tried to make it bulletproof, you the public must realize that I can’t cover every
- conceivable thing that you might do. Thus, if your printer explodes, your machine bombs,
- you lose that Ph.D. thesis you’ve been working on for the last fifteen years, if Elvis comes
- and visits, if you get promoted, or if any bad, nasty, or evil thing happens because of this
- program or because of the behavior of this program you agree you will not sue me, my
- relatives, or my cat. This product cannot be distributed by disk or CD-ROM on any
- organized scale without permission, unless you’re a user group. Violators will be
- persecuted.
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- The products mentioned here are the copyrights/trademarks of their respective owners,
- whatever that means.
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