Re: Testing printing with vDosXy 500

[Kari Eveli lexitec@xxxxxxxx]

Hello Jordan,

Nice to hear that you got it working. These Xy3 print files are totally
new made from scratch by me for use with the vDosPlus solution. They
should work in a normal physical DOS machine/LPT1 printer setup, too.
Why go to such lengths? The old XyQuest print files had several flaws:
they used Roman-8 encoding for compatibility with pre-LJII printers and
not Xy standard IBM ASCII which meant complicated substitution tables
had to be present. They did not have all the different font modes
expected in a modern printer driver. I chose to do LJIII-type printer
files because they provide font scaling that it is upward compatible
with modern PCL printers and work well with the GhostPCL solution.


Please read the header section carefully for conventions used in the
file. I think it is logical and easy to use once you get the basic idea.
In the print type definitions (of Times and Helv), the second number is
the one to use for XyWrite (the first one is just for compatibility with
NB3 as it comes from the box). E.g. PT=101,110 (110 = 1 is Times; 10 is
10 point) and PT=242,224 (224 = 2 is Helv; 24 is 24 point). So, from
command line "PT 224" gives you 24 point Helv.


Look for conflicting commands affecting paper size in your document
files and check your startup.int and other default files for page size
commands. Test first with non-formatted ASCII text. The output pages
should be the same size. Then apply some print type definitions. All the
font variations should work. Amazing, isn't it?


Best regards,

Kari Eveli
LEXITEC Book Publishing (Finland)
lexitec@xxxxxxxx

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> Hi Kari,
>
> I have just set up and tested vDosXy-500 at the office, for use with
> Xy-3.  The good news is that it works.  I'm wondering who did all of
> that work on the Xy-3 printer files -- was it you ?  If so, major
> kudos.  I think there remain a few fine points to tune here, and some
> things remain less than clear to me.  For example, I see in PCL-LGL.PR3
> printer tables like the one for (I guess it must be ?) Times Roman 12,
> which shows as
>
>
>     PT=101,110
>
> I'm sure I've forgotten plenty of Xy-3 stuff, but I thought each table
> had just one number designation to identify it ?  What's with the dual
> #s for each printer table ?
>
>
> I'm not really sure if all or most font choices / point sizes will
> convert over correctly, by the time they appear in the default PDF
> program. Also, the first couple test pages seem to have come out as
> letter size on legal paper, leaving the bottom 1/4 or 1/3 blank.  As I
> said -- fine tuning.  But the important part is that printing proceeded,
> with either a USB-attached laser, or the networked DeskJet across the
> room.  This is impressive, and great progress !
>
>
>
>     Jordan