matthews@TCGOULD.TN.CORNELL.EDU.UUCP (02/11/87)
Wordperfect and the Laserwriter
WordPerfect Corporation's announcement that WordPerfect 4.2 would support
the Apple LaserWriter made me rush right out and get an update. When it
arrived, I was disappointed to find that the 4.2 update pages contained only
about two paragraphs regarding the LaserWriter support. Since then, setting up
the PC half of a small Appletalk network with one Mac Plus, one LaserWriter+
and one IBM/PC has been interesting. Having recently completed (?) this task,
I offer the following notes. The system under discussion was set up in the
Department of Plant Pathology at Cornell University. I have no affiliation
with WordPerfect Corporation or Centram Systems West (makers of TOPS and TOPS
PRINT) except as a satisfied customer.
First a word about interfaces. WordPerfect Corporation presently supports
only the serial interface. The telephone support people at WP Corp. seem to
know little or nothing about the alternative: TOPS. If you are using your
Laserwriter with MS/DOS machines only, the serial interface is simpler to deal
with and has official support. If the LaserWriter is shared with one or more
Macs, the situation becomes more complicated. Since the Mac can only use the
Appletalk interface, a serial interface to the PC would mean switching the
printer between serial and Appletalk input. This is even more undesirable than
it sounds since the switching involves software as well as hardware. The file
INITLWRT.PS, part of the WP 4.2 package, when sent from the PC to the
LaserWriter, enables hardware handshaking between the two devices. This change
is made in the persistent memory of the LaserWriter and lasts until it is
reversed by other software or until the printer ROM is replaced. Turning the
printer off and on won't do it. Before you send INITLWRT.PS to your printer,
be sure you have its alter ego, XONXOFF.PS. This file returns the Laserwriter
to its original mode of communication. This is essential if you are ever again
to address the printer from a Mac. Either of these files may be sent to the
LaserWriter with the DOS copy command (e.g.: copy a:initlwrt.ps com1).
The alternative to all of this is to use TOPS and TOPS PRINT. TOPS is a
network adapter board (and software) for the PC which enables the PC to be
connected as a node of an Appletalk network. In addition, it will translate
output designed for an Epson FX-80 into Postscript before sending it on to an
Appletalk connected LaserWriter. (This translation is not needed with WP.)
The TOPS PRINT program adds the further refinement of intercepting output to
LPT1 from any application and rerouting it to the LaserWriter through
Appletalk. When Wordperfect 4.2 is used with this system, no switching of
the printer is needed, and INITLWRT.PS is not used. There is a change which
must be made to one WordPerfect file. Releases of WP 4.2 prior to 12-18-86
include a file called LASERWRT.PS; in more recent releases, it's called
PSCRIPT.PS. These are both versions of a Postscript program called
"PtrEmulate". As distributed, these files have a <ctrl>D character at the
beginning and/or end of the file. These <ctrl>D characters must be deleted
if present in order for jobs to pass through the TOPS/Appletalk system. This
is the only modification needed for the Appletalk interface. WordPerfect
should be set up to use one of the LaserWriter printer definitions and route
print output to LPT1.
The PtrEmulate program enables the LaserWriter to recognize and respond to
low ascii control characters just like any other printer. Regardless of
interface, this file is sent as a prolog to each job printed from WordPerfect
using one of the LaserWriter printer definitions. When any of the LaserWriter
printer definitions is installed from the Printer 1 diskette to a program
diskette, the file containing PtrEmulate is automatically copied also. (In
some copies released after the PtrEmulate file was renamed from LASERWRT.PS
to PSCRIPT.PS, the printer selection routine was not changed accordingly.
Hence, a file not found error occurs when the program tries to copy LASERWRT.PS
to the program disk. To get around this, rename PSCRIPT.PS to LASERWRT.PS on
the Printer 1 diskette before you begin installing printer definitions. After
the installation has completed successfully, go to the working diskette and
re-rename LASERWRT.PS to PSCRIPT.PS.) With PtrEmulate resident in the
LaserWriter, you can use the "Insert Printer Command" option of the WP
Print Format menu to insert control codes for the usual motion controls, set
number of copies, change orientation, or change font. By this means, you have
access to all of the resident fonts of the LaserWriter. If you have a
LaserWriter+, you will need the more recent version of PtrEmulate distrubuted
as PSCRIPT.PS in order to access all of its fonts.
Documentation for PtrEmulate is contained in the file PSCRIPT.DOC.
Unfortunately, this file has not been distributed with all copies of WP 4.2.
The most reliable way of obtaining it is from WordPerfect Corp.'s bulletin
board (801-225-4414, <= 2400 baud, N parity). You'll have to answer a
questionaire the first time you call which includes your WP license number.
About three working days after that you will have access to the file area where
PSCRIPT.DOC resides and be able to download it. This bulletin board also has a
lot of other up-to-the-minute information, including XONXOFF.PS should you be
without it.
Now a word about fonts. WordPerfect uses character tables (contained in
WPFONT.FIL) to look up the width of each character of any proportionally spaced
font. WP 4.2 has character tables for Times and Helvetica font families only.
Thus, although you can access the other fonts, things like underlining and
right justification won't work right. You can make your own printer
definitions and character tables for these additional fonts by using
WordPerfect's own Printer program (PRINTER.EXE, usually on the Printer 2
diskette). This program allows you to create a definition by using an
existing one as a model and tinkering from there. You must change the control
sequences to begin each of the eight fonts, and create character tables
containing the correct widths, again by copying and modifying an existing
table. The Adobe Font Manual, published as Appendix C of Apple's "Inside
LaserWriter" gives character widths of 1 point type, i.e. width as a proportion
of height. These must be converted to widths in dots at the desired type size.
(72 points = 1 inch = 300 dots). I have access only to the October 1984
revision of the Adobe Font Manual, hence the only other font I have widths
for is Courier; not very thrilling since Courier is not a proportional font.
Since I'm not even conversant with the Macintosh, I'm not well acquainted
with the variety of fonts which are available on disk for downloading to the
LaserWriter. It seems like it would be very easy to download a font from a
Mac to the printer, then access it while printing a WordPerfect document from
the PC. It looks like another font would mean a slight addition to PSCRIPT.PS
to associate a font identifier (part of the change font control sequence) with
the font in memory and size the font for use. The process of developing a
printer definition for a downloaded font would be the same. Actually, I assume
those nice people at WordPerfect Corp. are working on much of this at present
and that we may see very substantial improvements in version 5.0.
In summary, the combination of WordPerfect, TOPSPRINT, and the
LaserWriter seems like a very viable combination. The one disadvantage I must
point out is speed. On an unaccelerated IBM/PC with floppies only,
WordPerfect's PRINTER.TST document takes over two minutes from <shift>F7 to
emergence from the LaserWriter as a printed page. On the other hand, the
LaserWriter's Postscript orientation gives it more power and flexability than
other non-Postscript laser printers. Where each of the fonts of an HP LaserJet
has a fixed size, the LaserWriter can resize any of its fonts to meet the need.
Centram Systems West recommend that their product be used with a hard disk, and
it is awkward with only floppies. Nonetheless, it will work; you'll just have
to ignore the error reading drive C when you boot up.
Please respond to: TL6J@CORNELLC (Barr Ticknor, Cornell University
Department of Plant Pathology).