andrea@hp-sdd.HP.COM (Andrea K. Frankel) (01/14/89)
In article <629@usl.usl.edu> pcb@usl.usl.edu (Peter C. Bahrs) writes: >- Driver or Printer? The HP-PaintJet is so slow we have decided to > buy new printers (looking at the Tektronics color printers...). How come > windows, or the Paintjet driver, will not let us get more than six colors > printed? Driver, not printer. Don't give up yet! The driver is being revised even as we speak (well, type...) and all indications are that the new one will be MUCH faster. The other colour printers I evaluated under Windows were occasionally faster, but some weren't able to successfully complete simple tests (mostly various Excel spreadsheets and graphs). Apparently we're not the only ones having driver problems. Caveat emptor, and insist on seeing the apps you're using run with your sample files. About the colours, PaintJet only has CMYKRGB when doing text or anything that's single pixel (lines, b&w bitmaps), but the driver handles some very large number of colours for area fill using dithering. I know this works, I've used it - so you're either using a buggy app, or trying to dither a single hardware pixel! ;@) ;@) ;@) Until the new driver is available, here are a few things to try to speed up output on the PaintJet: 1) use internal fonts when you can (Courier 10, Letter Gothic 12, Letter Gothic 18). I often write a memo using Courier 10 for drafts, until the final printout, at which time I ctrl-click and change the whole thing to one of the soft fonts. Note that the PaintJet's internal fonts are only available in portrait mode, not landscape (although there's no way to tell from the Windows menus!) 2) experiment with spooler on and off. Depending on the app, one is often noticeably faster than the other (but it varies between apps!). 3) consider whether you really need to mix vector graphics in with text and images (even a simple gridline or box around the text which invokes GDI's VRC will cause noticeable slowdowns). 4) use portrait mode instead of landscape when you can, especially when doing anything that involves GDI's VRC (and that includes gridlines on spreadsheets, in addition to any non-raster graphics). In addition to the font limitation, there's something about Windows' memory management that's less efficient in landscape mode. 5) bands with only black print 3x faster than bands with even one pixel of another colour. Yes, I love colour too, but when speed is an issue I often find it isn't that important to have the colour in an intermediate draft. To give you an idea of how much this can all add up, we took an Excel spreadsheet and tried it various ways. The fastest was using internal fonts, no gridlines, portrait mode, spooler off: 1 minutes 27 seconds. The worst was using Windows vector fonts, colour gridlines, landscape mode, spooler off: 20 minutes 20 seconds! I don't find that acceptable, and that's one reason we're revving the driver, but it does give you an idea as to how best to utilize PaintJet for quick printing. Andrea Frankel, Hewlett-Packard (San Diego Division) (619) 592-4664 "...I brought you a paddle for your favorite canoe." ______________________________________________________________________________ UUCP : {hplabs|nosc|hpfcla|ucsd}!hp-sdd!andrea Internet : andrea%hp-sdd@hp-sde.sde.hp.com (or @hplabs.hp.com, @nosc.mil, @ucsd.edu) USnail : 16399 W. Bernardo Drive, San Diego CA 92127-1899 USA