JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu (JKT) (02/07/91)
There ARE printer drivers for the Mac that will let you print to
various LaserJet and InkJet printers. I just found this out after
calling ReadySoft and asking if I could use "Freedom of Press" with
A-Max. They recommended a product called "JetLink Express" which
contains many printer drivers and that they have tested and found to
work with A-Max.
My review of JetLink Express: It works--almost. JetLink Express
comes with drivers for seventeen (17) printers: Canon's BubbleJet-10e,
BubbleJet-130, BubbleJet-130e, LBP-4, LBP-8 Mk III, LBP-8 Mk III R,
and LBP-8 Mk III T, and HewLett Packard's DeskJet/DeskJet Plus, DeskJet
500, DeskWriter, LaserJet, LaserJet Plus, LaserJet II, LaserJet IID,
LaserJet IIP, LaserJet III, and LaserJet IIID. The package also comes
with thirteen outline fonts, and all Adobe Type 1 fonts are supported,
as is ATM, so if you've got a bunch of Adobe printer fonts, you're in
business.
Installation is a simple as copying the printer driver for your printer
to the System Folder and double-clicking on it to unpack it. Then
your printer can be selected under "Chooser" just as you would normally
select either ImageWriter or LaserWriter. When you select your printer,
you get many more options than the other standard printers give you.
These include whether you want to use the Serial or Parallel ports, and
if you choose Serial, what baud rate (9,600 thru 54,000 baud) you want
to use. When you choose "Page Setup" you also get more options, such
as whether you want to use the GDT Fonts (the thirteen included with
JetLink Express) or not (you would choose not to if you use ATM fonts
for those typefaces), whether you want proportional spacing, and you
can even choose to use cartridge fonts if you have a font cartridge for
your printer. All in all, JetLink Express has done a marvelous job
of giving the user many options in a very simple to use format.
Now, on to why I say it almost works. I'm using a LaserJet IIP, and
chose that printer driver. When I printed, the pages that came out
all had flaws somewhere on them. The parts that WEREN'T flawed looked
marvelous - as if they had come from a postscript printer. But every
page had a "*b74WWAx$aAc0pp ..." line somewhere across it. It was
almost as if my printer were running out of memory (which it had
better not be - I have 3.5 megs in it!) Sometimes the pages would
continue to print after the error, sometimes they would eject. This
problem occurred with both GDT and Adobe fonts, whether I used one or
many fonts per page. If I printed the same page twice in a row with
no changes, the error would be in a different place each time.
I will endeavor to find the problem. If it is easily solved, then I
will unequivocally recommend this product to all A-Max users. From
the parts of the pages that printed correctly, this package is a
wonderfully inexpensive alternative to a postscript printer or postscript
cartridge; JetLink Express only costs $89 compared to $400 for the
next cheapest alternative, and the print speed is quite fast too!
I will keep you up to date.
Kurt
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|| Kurt Tappe (215) 363-9485 || With. Without. And who'll ||
|| 184 W. Valley Hill Rd. || deny it's what the fighting's ||
|| Malvern, PA 19355-2214 || all about? - Pink Floyd ||
|| jkt100@psuvm.psu.edu --------------------------------------||
|| jkt100@psuvm.bitnet jkt100%psuvm.bitnet@psuvax1 QLink: KurtTappe ||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------jmw@sdchemg (John M. Wright) (02/08/91)
Were you using A_MaxII or original v.1 with JetLink Express? Your description of your problems sounds much like my experience with printer-interface III from datapak, which is a driver specifically for the HP DeskJet printer. With original A-Max, this combination worked flawlessly for many MacWriteII and MacDrawII documents. As soon as I upgraded to A-MaxII, I got "almost-working" behavior similar to what you described: extraneous characters printed on the page, extraneous lines on the page, and extraneous page breaks, all occurring non-reproducibly. (I would describe this as "seriously broken" rather than "almost working", but no matter.) John Wright Chemistry, B-014, UCSD, La Jolla, CA 92093 jmw@chem.ucsd.edu jwright@ucsd (619) 534-3049
JKT100@psuvm.psu.edu (JKT) (02/08/91)
Update: I called ReadySoft today and described the "flawed page" problem
to them. They said they have heard of the problem with A-Max II and are
preparing a new version (version 2.0.6) which they hope to be sending out in
about two weeks. They said 2.0.6 will fix the problem with JetLink Express.
Before calling ReadySoft, I took my Amiga to work and tried it on a
colleague's LaserJet IIP. We only had serial cables at work, so I tried
connecting via serial cable and printing that way. Miraculously, it worked
without fault! Of course, when I got home and connected to my own IIP with
a serial cable, A-Max II refused to find the printer (despite many attempts
at various baud rates, and other settings.)
Anyway, a solution is in sight for those of you with A-Max II and Laser or
Inkjet printers.... It will just take a couple weeks. *sigh*
Kurt
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
|| Kurt Tappe (215) 363-9485 || With. Without. And who'll ||
|| 184 W. Valley Hill Rd. || deny it's what the fighting's ||
|| Malvern, PA 19355-2214 || all about? - Pink Floyd ||
|| jkt100@psuvm.psu.edu --------------------------------------||
|| jkt100@psuvm.bitnet jkt100%psuvm.bitnet@psuvax1 QLink: KurtTappe ||
-----------------------------------------------------------------------