mdfreed@ziebmef.uucp (Mark Freedman) (01/19/89)
*** WARNING ***: frustration alert !!!
(please excuse the tone of this message ... it's been a long day)
I have been trying to help a friend who has (unfortunately ??)
"upgraded" from WordPerfect 4.1 to 5.0. She has an Epson FX85, and wants
low, medium, and high quality to correspond to Epson's default font, NLQ
font, and (assuming that WordPerfect Inc. can provide a working driver)
WordPerfect "high-quality" font, respectively.
Release 4.1 included the utility PRINTER.EXE which allowed one to
specify a correspondence between fonts and printer escape sequences.
For example, font #1 might be ESC M (switches to elite), font #2
might be ESC ; (switches to NLQ), etc. This utility was also vital
when one had an unsupported printer.
Release 5.0 has no such utility. The PTR.EXE utility seems to be
aimed at the desktop publishing crowd. I sped through the three pages
of documentation ("see online help" :-)) and slogged through screenfuls
of shading, dot spacing, weighting, and other jargon, but I never found
a screen which allowed me to define the escape sequences corresponding
to a given quality / font. The only options regarding print quality seem
to be to enable / disable high, medium, or low (options offered when one
goes to print a document).
To aggravate the situation, the FX85 driver which came with the May
release does a second print pass on a WORD, rather than LINE basis. This
is excruciatingly slow, probably hard on the stepper motors, and produces
print "quality" which is appalling. The November maintenance release does
NOT include a driver for the FX85 (several drivers for "older" printers
seem to have fallen off the disks).
My friend did call the Canadian WP support line (three hours to get
through - must have been a good day:-)), and the support person agreed
that we have an interesting technical problem. He also offered to sell
her the "Printer Definition Program Manual" for $27. I suspect that this
is oriented towards desktop publishing and laser printers, and wouldn't
solve our simple problem. (has anybody seen this manual ??).
We know that WP allows one to insert escape sequences directly into
the document. Given the cost and complexity of the product, I'm hoping
that there is a more elegant / flexible solution.
The current work-around is to use the May print driver for the
FX80 (missing from the November release :-)) in draft mode, and to
select the desired font via the printer's control panel.
Any suggestions (no, she won't switch to MS Word :-)) would be
appreciated.
Perhaps it's time for WordPerfect Inc. to split the product into
"WP - Light" for those who want to do wordprocessing, and "WP - Desktop
Publisher" for those who want the more powerful / complex product. As
it stands, I wouldn't consider WP 5.0 as suitable for the average person
interested only in word processing (perhaps owning a supported laser printer
would ease some of the pain of using the product).