jacksu@sara.atmos.uiuc.edu (Jack Su) (01/09/91)
Hello net world.
I wrote a short little utility that allows me to print 300 DPI full-page
graphics to my lowly 512K HP Laserjet plus. This small program strips out
any continous run of white spaces (0 bit) greater than 10 bytes and replace
it with the proper "cursor" movements. The end result is that I am able to
print most of my graphs at 300 DPI full-page to a laser printer that only
has 512 KB of memory.
Freelance 3.0, Quattro Pro 1.0 and many other programs insists on sending
the laser printer the white spaces, eating up valuable printer memory.
By printing 300 DPI to a file then using this little program, I can print
300 DPI full-page.
If anyone want this program, I'll be glad to send you a copy. If
there are sufficient requests, I'll post it somewhere. If there is a
program out there that already does this, ignore my ramblings and let
me know.
CAVEATS: 1) This program has only been tested with the raster files
generated by Quattro Pro 1.0 and Freelance 3.0. I don't have any other
graphics program. Send me raster files generated by some other programs and
I'll test them.
2) Also if the graph to be printed is sufficiently "black"
(eg. area of the dark spaces is greater than 1/2 of the page) you still
won't have enough printer memory.
3) This program will work with any HP plus/II compatible
laserjet printer. I don't know if it'll work on HP Laserjet III (why
bother with program if you have a III :-) .)
In short, this is a poor man's utility. No $$$ to get a printer with
more memory.
Jack Su (j-su@uiuc.edu or jacksu@sara.atmos.uiuc.edu)
BTW: There is a unix version of this also, no big deal.
****************************************************************************
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usage:
LJCOMP.EXE infile outfile
OR
LJCOMP.EXE infile
Without specifying an outfile, the compressed output
will print to lpt1:
****************************************************************************
****************************************************************************
****** sample run using a 300 DPI print file generated by Freelance 3.0 ***
ljcomp cplicso.jet
PROCESSING ..........
DONE! Processed 2647 raster lines
Original file used 582793 bytes of printer memory
New compressed file used 170993 bytes of printer memory
Saved 411800 bytes