keld@diku.UUCP (Keld J|rn Simonsen) (10/24/86)
This is posted for a friend of mine, Ole Holm Nielsen, who has not got
access to news. Respond to either him at ohnielse@nbivax.uucp or me.
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Dear AGFA P-400 printer user,
I have been fighting our AGFA P-400 LED printer for almost half a year now,
trying to typeset documents with Device-Independent TROFF.
I have found apparently fundamental problems in setting mathematical
equations, whereas simple text works fine.
If you have experience in setting math I would be very happy to hear from you !
I have DI-TROFF running (well, only 95% correctly) under VAX/VMS, and the
only printer which it has been used with is the AGFA P-400.
Our AGFA has two text channels and one line-drawing channel.
We normally use the "times" font for text, and the "helmat" font for mathe-
matical symbols (we will get the "math" font later).
The problem arises only with mathematical equations (from EQN), and it goes
as follows:
Whenever 3 or more rectangles containing an AGFA "token" overlap or touch each
other, only 2 get printed and the rest appears as an (infamous) grey rectangle.
Needless to say, TROFF's intention of putting the symbols in their place is
well justified for aesthetical reasons, and it is mostly just the blank areas
of the tokens that overlap. However, a reasonable printer would just print
what I request where I want it, without shouting at me !!!!
Thus there appears to be a fundamental limitation in the AGFA software
(or hardware ?).
Examples are (input to EQN):
sum from {i != j} to { n sub i }
DELTA E tilde sub Z
int sub {s sub i}
and so on .....
My questions go as follows: Have you found any way to work around these bugs ?
If so, could I get a copy of your device driver ?
And finally, do you have device drivers for any small laserprinters ?
(Do you wonder why I ask the last question ?)
With best regards
Ole H. Nielsen (ohnielsen@nbivax.uucp)
Nordic Institute of Theoretical Physics, Copenhagen.uh@bsiao.UUCP (Uul Haanstra) (10/24/86)
> Our AGFA has two text channels and one line-drawing channel. > > The problem arises only with mathematical equations (from EQN), and it goes > as follows: > Whenever 3 or more rectangles containing an AGFA "token" overlap or touch each > other, only 2 get printed and the rest appears as an (infamous) grey rectangle. I don't think you can get around it on the P400: 2 text channels means that no more than 2 rectangles outlining a shape may overlap. This isn't a bug, it is a feature apparently inherent to the machine's architecture. It actually says so in several places in the Software Command Description manual. For some reason the bits don't get ORed, as one would expect. -- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Uul Haanstra, Postbank N.V. Amsterdam ...!mcvax!bsiao!uh Pb 21009 1000 EX AMSTERDAM +31-20 584 3312 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -