brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer) (01/23/90)
I've gotten myself a little confused lately, and I wonder if someone could help me get my mind right on the subject of Printing on the Amiga. A friend of mine wanted a Word Processing program to prepare her correspondence with. She insisted on an integrated package with spell-checking and WYSIWYG-ishness, that would work with her HP DeskJet printer. She got a copy of ProWrite, version 2.5. Up till now, I'd been ignoring the issue of How to Print, except for a slight puzzlement at all the number of people at the local Amiga users' group meetings asking if someone, anyone, could help them with their Printer. "What kind of rubes ARE these people", I'd wonder. "Can't they type 'run copy <file> PAR:'?" (Well, that's how I print all *my* source files....) The fun my friend and I are having trying to coax decent looking copy from her ProWrite/DeskJet combo has awakened an appreciation in me of what a tin of bait this printing business can be, and I must humbly retract my mental question. I *should* have wondered, "Can't they afford a Mac?". The thinking I've done on the subject has led me to an unpleasant conclusion: As long as its fonts are bit-mapped instead of outline, the Amiga can't deliver WYSIWYG printer functionality. The best it can do is "WYGRWYSDT" (What You Got Resembles What You See, Doncha Think?). It seems to me that the word processors are trying to allow the use of any bitmapped font in one's FONTS: directory, while matching the text sizes on the screen and paper. Given that the pixel sizes of the printer (300dpi on my friend's DeskJet) don't match the pixels on the screen (64dpi horiz, ~30dpi vert by my estimate) the results are about 47 times cruder than the printer is capable of. I hope someone can explain that the Amiga concept of a unified and consistent PRT: device can be made to work after all. Brian Rhodefer
jer@stiatl.UUCP (John Ramspott) (01/24/90)
I agree that I wouldn't want to use ProWrite for desktop publishing, but it can certainly handle most writing tasks normal folks need. But just because that particular program is not perfect is no reason to suggest that people should run out and buy a Mac. That is just plain ignorant. If you want great WYSIWYG, use Profesionnal Page, Professional Draw, and Transcript for your writing. ProPage and ProDraw both use non-bitmap fonts that render beautifully to PostScript and other high-end printing devices. My wall is covered with great stuff that I did strictly on Amiga software that looks indistinguishable from the best Mac stuff. Some very nice magazines are produced with the above combo, including A.X. Magazine and AMigo-Times. Don't put down an entire computer because of deficiencies, real or imagined, in one of its products. -- John E. Ramspott -- John Ramspott gatech!stiatl!jer Sales Technologies, Inc 3399 Peachtree Rd, NE Atlanta, GA (404) 841-4000