[comp.periphs.printers] Testing a laser printer's compatibility

ryan@aladdin.b11.ingr.com (Ryan Waldron) (03/05/91)

Recently, I was given a laser printer (a LaserPro Silver Express) that
claims to be fully HP LaserJet+ compatible.  Now, knowing very little
about such things, I have been hard-pressed to tell whether this claim
is accurate.  I was given the printer because the original owner was
unable to make it work with a software package (Glyphix, I believe)
which he had purchased to work with WordPerfect (PC version).  The
program essentially added a whole bunch of nice fonts to WordPerfect,
converting them on-the-fly to something an HP LJ+ could understand and
print nicely.

The symptoms were that you could choose any of the available fonts at
the top of the document, and it would print fine until you changed to
an italic version, or decided to underline it, etc., after which point
nothing else would be printed.  If you used one of the two built-in
fonts ( I don't have any cartridges for the printer ), you could
underline, italicize, etc., with impunity, but the same symptoms would
occur if you tried to change to a new font.

So, I would like some advice on how to determine whether this printer
is actually HP LJ+ compatible, and what I can look out for in trying to
get things to print properly.  I currently have the printer connected
to an Amiga, but I can move it to any of a number of platforms if I
have to in order to find out what I need to know.  I have a utility
(Khalid Aldoseri's LJP, for any Amiga owners reading) that is supposed to
provide multiple font support, but it also exhibits some strange behavior,
the oddest one being that the first line of any document is broken into two
lines after the first character, and the rest of the page is fine.

Whew!  I know this is long, but I don't know a short way to describe the
problem very well.  Thanks for any help you can provide me!

-- 
Ryan Waldron ||| ryan@aladdin.b11.ingr.com ||| ...!uunet!ingr!waldronr

"You read me Shakespeare on the Rolling Thames, That Old River Poet
	 that never, ever ends.
 Our Thumping hearts hold the Ravens in, And keep the tower from tumbling." -KB