[comp.sys.mac] Upside down printing on a DeskWriter

holey@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (J. Andrew Holey) (03/28/90)

Last night, a friend was using my Mac II + Deskwriter to print some
MSWord files containing Mac Draw graphics.  One particular graphic
apparently contained some perculiar control sequence, because after
that graphic was printed, the rest of the file printed upside down.
In fact, the rest of the page was printed superimposed over the offending
graphic.

We tried to open the original Mac Draw file in MacDraw II, but it said
there wasn't enough memory (even when all other applications were quit -
I have 5 Meg.)  Finally, we copied the graphic from the Word file into
a blank MacDraw II window and then pasted it back.  After this, there
was no problem.

Any ideas what could have caused this?

J. Andrew Holey
University of Minnesota
holey@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu

jeffe@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (George J. Jefferson) (03/28/90)

In article <1990Mar27.163059.1872@cs.umn.edu> holey@umn-cs.cs.umn.edu (J. Andrew Holey) writes:
>Last night, a friend was using my Mac II + Deskwriter to print some
>MSWord files containing Mac Draw graphics.  One particular graphic
>apparently contained some perculiar control sequence, because after
>that graphic was printed, the rest of the file printed upside down.
>In fact, the rest of the page was printed superimposed over the offending
>graphic.

.. stuff deleted

Neat!  This could be a useful tool if one understood what happened.
I have to suspect Word (4?) as the culprit rather than the Dewskwriter,
however.

I would be very interested to learn about any other 'hidden talents' of 
the DW.  For example has anyone noticed that a '50%' fill pattern from
Superpaint or whatever prints as a very nice 300 dpi grey, but every
other fill (is far as I can tell) prints like a 72 dpi 'screen dump'.
Is there a way to get other high resolution fills (without doing a 25%
reduction of the entire document) form my 'low end' graphics applications?

George Jefferson
jeffe@eniac.seas.upenn.edu

robertt@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Bob Taylor) (03/29/90)

My best guess on problem one:  It sounds like the offending graphic
set text rotation to flip (or rotate 180 degrees) and never bothered to turn
it off.  Just a guess, but that could be why MacDraw II wouldn't open it also.

As far as pattern fills go, the DeskWriter does patterns just like the
LaserWriter IIsc.  For most patterns, it scales them to 300DPI (this way,
bricks look like bricks, etc.  This actually took a lot of effort since
Quickdraw only scales patterns by 2 (for the IW).  Most of the 3rd party
DJ drivers and most other Quickdraw printers just scale by 2).  A few patterns,
however, (once again, the same ones as the LaserWriter IIsc) are "standard"
gray scale patterns and are mapped to 300DPI gray scale patterns on the DeskWriter.  I can't speak for Superpaint (since some apps. choose to use their own
gray scale patterns rather than the standards), but all of the standard gray
scales patterns in MacDraw II do map to DW 300DPI grays.

Bob Taylor
HP Vancouver - Home of the DeskWriter

/* these comments are mine and are not necessarily those of my employer */