Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

Collapse
X
Collapse
 
  • Page of 2
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts
Previous 1 2 template Next
    #1

    Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

    Hello everyone.

    I'm looking for old DOS, maybe Windows 3.11 book printing software. Does anyone remember anything that could print books? I have a manual printed on heavyweight paper. It has a copyright of 1993. It looks like the pages were printed in landscape. The first sheet of paper contains the first page and the last page. The second sheet of paper contains page 2 and the second to last page, etc. Page 32 and page 33 are the middle and are one sheet.

    I believe I've identified the font used. It seems to be something called Century Schoolbook. The text doesn't seem to be monospaced. The table of contents looks like this picture that's attached. The ...'s that are after the title and before the numbers (like Introduction............3) seem to line up with each other. For example, the first line's ....'s line up vertically with the second line's ...'s.

    The front cover uses the same font but the letters are much bigger, maybe 72 point or something along those lines and the program seems to support the extended ASCII table because they use ASCII art on the front cover there.

    Does anyone know of any programs from back in the 90's that could print books like this? I was thinking maybe that old WordPerfect or something like that. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks!
    Attached Files
    -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full
    Tags: None
    #2
    Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

    I think I figured it out. I really do think it was created using WordPerfect. Maybe 5.1. I dunno. I've never used the program before. I noticed it does include the right font though. I'm hoping there was a Windows version back in the 90's version that I can run in Windows XP. Not really looking forward to using a DOS version.
    -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

    Comment

      #3
      Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

      there was a windows version - i used it for a while.
      and the fucking file format was not compatable with the dos version that can be imported into everything modern!

      Comment

        #4
        Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

        There was also Lotus Manuscript out at that time. It could do wonderful things with formatting, contents and indexing.

        George

        Comment

          #5
          Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

          Originally posted by stj View Post
          there was a windows version - i used it for a while.
          and the fucking file format was not compatable with the dos version that can be imported into everything modern!
          A Windows version of WordPerfect? The DOS version is freaking insane! No mouse support, all keyboard shortcuts, no menus to see. I have no idea how people used this program back in the day! At least DOS's edit had a menu you could visibly see!!!
          -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

          Comment

            #6
            Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

            Originally posted by Silveruser View Post
            There was also Lotus Manuscript out at that time. It could do wonderful things with formatting, contents and indexing.

            George
            Do you know if it could do booklet printing? For this WordPerfect thing, I found some macro (?) that provides Booklet printing functionality. It just doesn't work. When I try to load it, it errors out saying it needs a wordperfect newer than 6/24/90 or something like that. It says to hit F3 in WP to see what version I'm running. I do that and see the version is from 3/21/94 or somewheres along those lines. It's definitely newer than 1990 so I don't see why it doesn't work.

            If there's any other programs out there that has that font, I'd be more than willing to try them to see if I found the write program or not. Thanks!
            -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

            Comment

              #7
              Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

              Originally posted by Spork Schivago View Post
              A Windows version of WordPerfect? The DOS version is freaking insane! No mouse support, all keyboard shortcuts, no menus to see. I have no idea how people used this program back in the day! At least DOS's edit had a menu you could visibly see!!!
              Function keys.

              the win version was for win3.11 btw.

              Comment

                #8
                Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                IIRC Wordperfect for DOS eventually did support a mouse, I don't recall using it much. Mostly used function keys.

                In those days I recall Framemaker or something was used for laying out pages as they were leaps and bounds beyond what other page layout programs could do, and TeX/LaTeX was used by people who couldn't afford GUIs.

                Comment

                  #9
                  Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                  Originally posted by eccerr0r View Post
                  IIRC Wordperfect for DOS eventually did support a mouse, I don't recall using it much. Mostly used function keys.

                  In those days I recall Framemaker or something was used for laying out pages as they were leaps and bounds beyond what other page layout programs could do, and TeX/LaTeX was used by people who couldn't afford GUIs.
                  Is Framemaker an Adobe product? I'll check into that as well. I don't think anything too fancy was used to make this manual. The creator was creative but besides the custom font, increased font size, italics, and bold here and there, the manuals pretty simple. No graphics besides text graphics. Even though it's all ASCII text for the graphics, on the front, it has some ASCII artwork that makes some boxes and the words JetBBS are overlaid on top of them. Almost like he was able to create a text box or something and position it over the original artwork. It gives it a bit of a 3d effect. I wonder if that's possible with WP.

                  I appreciate all the help guys! I was in high school back then and didn't really use any programs like WordPerfect or Lotus Manuscript or Framemaker. Not really sure what was available back in the day. Thanks!
                  Last edited by Spork Schivago; 04-14-2016, 09:51 AM.
                  -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

                  Comment

                    #10
                    Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                    Originally posted by stj View Post
                    Function keys.

                    the win version was for win3.11 btw.
                    Was the Windows version an actual GUI with menus and stuff or just a DOS program that could run in Windows? Probably the first one, right? Because for Windows 3.11, Windows was just a DOS program. I would think all DOS programs would of ran just fine in Windows 3.11. It was such a long time ago I'm having trouble remembering.

                    Do you know what version number the WordPerfect was? I found a download link for WordPerfect 5.1 for Windows but it's just the DOS program.
                    -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

                    Comment

                      #11
                      Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                      Originally posted by Spork Schivago View Post
                      The DOS version is freaking insane! No mouse support, all keyboard shortcuts, no menus to see. I have no idea how people used this program back in the day! At least DOS's edit had a menu you could visibly see!!!
                      errr i have to defend wp5.1 there. at least the screen was minimalistic and uncluttered unlike gui word processing programs nowadays. i really miss the full screen view of wp5.1 being able to be used to view the document. and ppl were smart and knew ways how to make it work. since its a word processing program itself, u can type out the function keys and what they do and print it out and stick it on your keyboard! the full screen view is useful for reading, writing and typing out long stories.

                      Comment

                        #12
                        Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                        Originally posted by ChaosLegionnaire View Post
                        errr i have to defend wp5.1 there. at least the screen was minimalistic and uncluttered unlike gui word processing programs nowadays. i really miss the full screen view of wp5.1 being able to be used to view the document. and ppl were smart and knew ways how to make it work. since its a word processing program itself, u can type out the function keys and what they do and print it out and stick it on your keyboard! the full screen view is useful for reading, writing and typing out long stories.
                        Yeah, it just takes a bit getting used too. I discovered that if I double click on the PIF in Windows, I have mouse support. If I right click, it brings up a menu. That makes it a heck of alot easier!!!

                        So, you've used WordPerfect 5.1 before, right? I have a question. I think I made a mistake identifying the font. I used an on-line font identification program where I uploaded a pic and it identified it as Century SchoolBook. However, I now believe it might actually just be Times New Roman.

                        When I use Notepad in Windows XP, I select Times New Roman and I select Bold Italics. I set the font size to 122 and print it. The letters I print are still too small, but I'm real close to getting the right height. The problem though are the letters are actually too wide. I almost remember some option in some Microsoft Word program to smush the letters closer together. Do you know if this WordPerfect program has a similar option?

                        Essentially, I'm thinking the font size needs to be larger than 122, because the letters aren't physically tall enough. However, even at 122, they're just too wide. Do you think that WP5.1 might have implemented Times New Roman differently so the spacing isn't the same as it is in Notepad? I'd think a font was a font and regardless of what program you used, if you used the same font it'd be the same. Thanks!
                        -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

                        Comment

                          #13
                          Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                          it's irrelevent, in those days the Font was usually integral to the printer and not like the one on screen.

                          Comment

                            #14
                            Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                            Originally posted by stj View Post
                            it's irrelevent, in those days the Font was usually integral to the printer and not like the one on screen.
                            Okay, thank you.

                            So, in WordPerfect, what I print could look totally different depending on what printer I'm using. I believe my printer supports "soft" fonts, where it'll download the font from the PC to the printer. That's my understanding at least. The default option is to use the built-in fonts. I bet being a DOS program, WordPerfect is probably using the fonts in the printer like what you're saying. Thanks!
                            -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

                            Comment

                              #15
                              Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                              in dos, if you print "helvetica", the printer is told "helvetica" and gets it from it's internal rom - or in the case of laser printers, some had extra font cartridges you could buy.

                              Comment

                                #16
                                Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                                http://www.printerworks.com/Catalogs...artridges.html

                                Comment

                                  #17
                                  Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                                  Originally posted by Spork Schivago View Post
                                  Do you know if it could do booklet printing? For this WordPerfect thing, I found some macro (?) that provides Booklet printing functionality. It just doesn't work. When I try to load it, it errors out saying it needs a wordperfect newer than 6/24/90 or something like that. It says to hit F3 in WP to see what version I'm running. I do that and see the version is from 3/21/94 or somewheres along those lines. It's definitely newer than 1990 so I don't see why it doesn't work.

                                  If there's any other programs out there that has that font, I'd be more than willing to try them to see if I found the write program or not. Thanks!
                                  That's way too long ago for me to remember. Lotus Manuscript was a DOS program - very rich in formatting and formulas. Lotus AMI Pro was what came after for windows. Looking at you picture again - from the days of BBS. I can recall dedicated programs to print in booklet formats, almost anything to save a bit of paper way back then. Best of luck with your search. I should have the Lotus manuals here somewhere, I'll look around in the morning.

                                  Comment

                                    #18
                                    Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                                    i HAD the wordperfect for windows manual until a recent clearout, A5 format and thick as a phonebook!

                                    Comment

                                      #19
                                      Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                                      Originally posted by stj View Post
                                      in dos, if you print "helvetica", the printer is told "helvetica" and gets it from it's internal rom - or in the case of laser printers, some had extra font cartridges you could buy.
                                      This is always true in DOS? With my LED printer, under advanced options, I have an option called TrueType Font. The available options for TrueType Font are Substitute with Device Font and the other option is Download as Softfont.

                                      From the net, the definitions are:
                                      Substitute with Device Font uses the fonts residing in the printer rather than downloading TrueType fonts with the print job. Although this setting permits faster printing, special characters not supported by the printer font do not print.

                                      Download as SoftFont downloads all TrueType fonts to the printer with each print job, even if the fonts reside on the printer already. Jobs typically print slower using this setting. However, the downloaded fonts look the same as fonts printed on another printer with this setting.


                                      So this is only true in Windows, right? No matter what DOS program I'm using, if I'm printing from DOS, it's definitely using the font on the ROM in the printer? If this is the case, maybe I should start looking at some older Windows programs instead of DOS programs. Thanks for explaining this to me.
                                      -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

                                      Comment

                                        #20
                                        Re: Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

                                        Originally posted by stj View Post
                                        http://www.printerworks.com/Catalogs...artridges.html
                                        These are cool. With printers that can download the font from the PC, are these needed now-a-days if you're printing from Windows? Thanks Stj.
                                        -- Law of Expanding Memory: Applications Will Also Expand Until RAM Is Full

                                        Comment

                                        Previous 1 2 template Next
                                        Working...
                                        X