** 1 page tutorial / 466 words **

Papyrus postscript

Michael High distills some reader feedback on the Papyrus Tutorials...

Two types of Atari users write to me via Atari Computing. There are the "enthusiasts" who spend long, unpaid hours preparing articles, screen dumps and files for the Reader Disk. Their labours inspire the "experts" who then write in to point out errors, suggest better practice and so on. Together they improve the quality of understanding for us all. So my thanks to those who wrote, emailed and even sent me tutorials on disk.

Banners on Pin Printers

Steve Hill took great pleasure in telling me how his trusty Star LC-10 can achieve that which is impossible on my HP LaserJet. He produces notices for his local Church, and from time to time has to produce long banners. Because his printer can handle tractor feed paper, he simply uses the "Document... Paper Format" command to set up a very tall piece of paper which is then used in landscape mode.

** PAP_BANN.IMG here **
** Caption **
Not only the quality, see the length!
** /caption **

Which printer driver to use?

In AC#11 I said "I have found no significant speed or quality difference between the external and internal drivers...". Well, that set the experts going. I have to admit that after much experimentation, particularly with printing graphics, I now find that NVDI driver delivers better print quality. It does so at the penalty of a 240% increase in printing times. My initial preference for using Papyrus's internal printer driver stemmed from the fact that I did not understand how to get multiple copies from NVDI. The control panel is used for choosing the printer resolution. However, the control panel setting for number of copies is overridden by that in the Papyrus Print Document dialog.

** PAP_NVDI.IMG here **
** Caption **
Use this for quality, not quantity.
** /caption **

** PAP_INT.IMG here **
** Caption **
Save time with multi-copies on laser printers
** /caption **

The quest for speed

When I progressed from a 180dpi pin printer to a 600dpi laser, I found that printing times became very lengthy. My little Atari STe was having to calculate over eleven times as many dots! My first attempt at improving speed was to register a copy of iPRN II. This does clever things to the software controlling the parallel port that feeds the printer. It cut printing times from typically 100 seconds per page to 32 seconds.

The next change came with the fitting of the excellent TUS Veloce+ board. Now this turned the Atari into an absolute flying machine as far as display, running speed and general responsiveness is concerned. However it totally neutered the iPRN II software. So if there are any experts who know how to combine the TUS Veloce+ board with a software parallel port speeder, my email address is:

high@nortelnetworks.com