Looking for old DOS / Windows book printing software.

[Spork Schivago]

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

print a test page - with the printer disconnected from the pc

Okay.

[stj]

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

print a test page - with the printer disconnected from the pc

[Spork Schivago]

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

you have to remember that in DOS days, printers didn't have much ram - even the computers didn't have much ram.
so font download would have been very rare.

you could do a raster print, where the computer calculated the page and then printed it line by line.
but that's incredibly slow.
non-postscript laser printers like HP4/5 work that way.

Thank you Stj. That makes sense, the memory part. I wonder when they started implementing downloadable fonts. Probably not in the Windows 3.11 drivers. Maybe 98 or XP? Kind of sucks knowing I won't be able to duplicate the manual exactly without the same printer.

I was looking at my printer and I see in Windows I have two installed. The regular brother and then a BR-Script version of the printer. I believe it's some postscript compatible language. Is there a way to tell on the printer if it actually has Adobe PostScript and what level?

[stj]

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

you have to remember that in DOS days, printers didnt have much ram - even the computers didnt have much ram.
so font download would have been very rare.

you could do a raster print, where the computer calculated the page and then printed it line by line.
but that's incredibly slow.
non-postscript laser printers like HP4/5 work that way.

[Spork Schivago]

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

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.

I tried finding a copy of Manuscript to try out. I did find a copy, but one of the images was corrupt I guess and there was a missing disk. I think Lotus AMI Pro will be easier to find. Thanks for the suggestions!

[Spork Schivago]

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

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.

[Spork Schivago]

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.

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.

[stj]

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!

[Silveruser]

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

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.

[stj]

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

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

[stj]

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.

[Spork Schivago]

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.

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!

[stj]

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.

[Spork Schivago]

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

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!

[ChaosLegionnaire]

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

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.

[Spork Schivago]

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

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.

[Spork Schivago]

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.

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!

[eccerr0r]

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.

[stj]

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

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.

[Spork Schivago]

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

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!