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The Business Master (3rd Edition)
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QUICKIE.DOC
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1992-01-25
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BEFORE YOU DO ANYTHING: make sure that your printer is set to receive
a downloaded soft font. Most Epson and compatible 24 pin printers
have a 'buffer' memory that can be set to do one of two jobs (but not
both). 1. To accept a text for printing so that you can do something
else with your computer while the printing is going on 'in the back
ground.' 2. Accept, store and use a downloaded font. You determine
which of the two jobs the buffer is to do by setting a printer dip
switch (or make changes from the Setup in the control panel). Usually
the switch must be set to the off position for downloading. CONSULT
YOUR PRINTER MANUAL. (On the Epson 550 the switch is 2-5 and on the
old Epson LQ 1500 it is 1-8.)
The Panasonic printers require that you purchase, as an extra, the
memory buffer. Cf. PNSONIC.DOC on this disk for more information.
You can see what each of the fonts looks like within the current
directory by running the PRN_FONT.EXE utility. It will print out each
font. To work, LQ.EXE must be present.
A First TRY with LQ.EXE and LQMATRIX
DOWNLOADING.
Now, with the dip switch set correctly the very first thing you will
want to do is to see how your printer prints out the fonts on these
disks. Nothing could be easier.
After you unpack the fonts (GO) you proceed as follows: At the prompt
(A>) simply enter LQ <font file> and hit the CR. Font file will be
the name of any of the fonts present. You need not type in the
extension. For a start why not try Mr. Philipps' GOTHIC.LQP. Turn on
the printer then enter:
LQ GOTHIC
after downloading, send a text file to the printer. You should be
able to do that via your usual word processor (assuming it does not
reset the printer before printing).
Or if you are in a big hurry use the DOS copy routine:
At the prompt enter:
copy con prn
and hit the CR. Now type in something, as many lines as you want.
When done enter ^Z (control Z) and then CR. The message will be sent
to the printer.
All of the fonts have an LQ? extension, thus GOTHIC.LQP, PRES.LQN &
CAPS.LQD. A final P means it is a proportional font, N a NLQ (near
letter quality) font, and D a draft font. The proportional fonts are
the really attractive ones and show off the 24 pin printer at its
best.
There are various switches that go with the LQ program and the full
documentation describes each of them. If you enter LQ without a font
page 2.
name you will get a short explanation of each of the switches.
If you want to see what the font looks like use the /P switch. Enter
LQ GOTHIC /P and hit CR. As the font is downloading it will be
printed out at the printer.
Most of the time you will want to use the fonts from within a word
processor. In the simpler word processors (WP) and some of the
earlier versions of the major WPs all you need to do is download the
font before you boot up or download from the DOS shell.
However, many WPs nowdays reset the printer before they print. In
doing that it eliminates the downloaded font. There are ways to
circumvent the resetting. What you have to do is to customize the
print driver used by the WP by removing the offending code sequence
which is <esc>@, i.e. ASCII 27, 67 (Hex 1B,40).
Your first job is to find the print driver that you created when you
installed your program. It is a file that is read by the WP each time
you boot up. If it is a text file, bring it into your editor and
remove the code (<esc>@), then save it as an simple ASCII text. If it
is like the WordPerfect .PRS file you will need to use whatever print
definition utility comes with your package (WordPerfect's PTR.EXE)
This utility will guide you to the code which you will then remove.
The current documentation gives information on Word Perfect 5.0 &
5.1, XYwrite3, PCwrite, and Word 5.0.
I will gladly help any registered user customize his/her print
driver. Inquire.
If your WP can download a font directly you will have to create a
download file with LQ. This is easy to do. Enter LQ [filename] /F.
Where filename is the name of the font and the /F switch tells LQ to
create a download file which will keep the name of the original file
but will change its extension to DW? - thus from GOTHIC.LQP LQ
creates GOTHIC.DWP.
This can be downloaded from DOS with COPY/B GOTHIC.DWP PRN. Be sure
to include the binary switch /B after the COPY otherwise DOS will
stop downloading the first time it reaches the text end of file
marker: Ctl Z.
EDITING.
Let's say that you would like to make some characters of your own,
not a full font, but some special characters to take the place of the
ones you never use like @ or ^ or \.
For this you will use LQMATRIX, the main program. What you do is very
simple. Enter LQMATRIX and hit the CR. First you will be asked what
size font you want. Chose one of the three. Now give your file a
name...say, TRYME.
page 3.
You will go to the main menu where you will go directly to the editor
by hitting E.
You will see on the left a box with the cursor on the left on the
lower cross line. Move the cursor around with the cursor keys and
anytime you wish to make a mark hit CR or the space bar (SP). To
remove a mark put the cursor on the mark and hit either SP or CR.
Many things can be done in the matrix and the Help screen tells you
about them (also the main documentation). Just hit F1 and scroll
through help.
If you want to test a character hit P and it will print out. When you
are satisfied with you design save the character with S and give it a
position - replace the unwanted @, for example.
After making your extra characters exit the Matrix with Q or ESC and
then exit the program with Q or ESC again. Your new font will be
saved.
Download the new font with LQ (or with P then D from the main menu of
LQMATRIX).
In downloading not only will your new characters be sent to the
printer's RAM (temporary) memory, but the other built in (Rom)
characters as well.
Now try writing a document with your new characters and print it out.
Once you have mastered making a few extra characters you are ready to
make an enterly new font of your own!
Have fun.
J. David Sapir
[Jimmy Paris Software]
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LQMATRIX is copyrighted by J.David Sapir 1985,9l,92