#LaserJet & Amiga
6 messages in this thread
The card I got with my version of City Desk (special promo with C Ltd. for
free Jet Set) says the Commercial Font Set ($99.95 List) has Times Roman
and Helvetica in "Upright, Italic, Cilati, Bold/Upright, Bold/Italic and
Bold/Cilati type styles. Each type style is provided in 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9,
10, 11, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 24 and 30 points." This is 180 fonts in all.
The Business Font Set ($79.95 List) has both fonts but only with Upright,
Italic, Bold/Upright, and Bold/Italic type styles. These are provided in
6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 18, 24, and 30 point sizes, plus 4, and 5 point in
upright style only, totaling 76 fonts.
Surprizingly enough, this card was not included with my version of Jet Set.
BTW the Cilati, if you don't know, is italics slanted the opposite way, get
it italics spelled backwards is cilati.
It would seem that either of these sets would work for most applications,
BUT, BE WARNED, they are not fixed font widths, they are proportional which
means that you will have problems doing tabular data within spreadsheets
and documents. (The decimals won't line up).
Thanks for the information. Yes, it surprises me also that C-Ltd didn't
include a card, or even a page of the 95 page JetSet manual, that describes
what sets are what fonts. I've used proportional fonts before, so I
understand the caution. By the way, I think that is something that
enterprising PD font designers could work on – providing more attractive
fixed space fonts for the laserjet family. There are lots of proportionally
spaced fonts, but if you want a table (as you said) or a printout of a
document someone has already formatted, you are largely limited to HP's
built in fonts or HP or another vendor's cartridge fonts. Mike
The proportional problem is new to me since I haven't had anything but a
dot matrix printer.
My Deskjet is great until I try to print out that kind of material. Even
Jet Set's printer driver for Textcraft and/or Scribble doesn't do anything
with proportional fonts. Screen formatting is a trial and error exercise
in paper wasting.
If I remember correctly tho, Jet Set does include a fixed spaced Roman font
called RFP10. I am wondering if C Ltd. has any other fixed sizes and
styles. (A quick DIR of the fonts directory confirmed this- ahh
multitasking).
Anyway, how do you like the HP & Amiga marriage? Is it working out like
you planned? Any pitfalls yet? Any tips?
When you responded to my questions about DeskJet last month, you said–I
think–that there were no soft fonts available to us Amiga users for
DeskJet. Does JetSet change that? I'm not sure how to interpret your
answer to michael ferguson a few days ago, since you were talking mainly
about the Laserjet. Is it now possible to download and use Laserjet fonts
on the DeskJet?
You told michael that your favorite DTP software is City Desk. I don't
suppose any of these 300 dpi graphics capabilities work with DeskJet, do
they? (You had told me they don't because City Desk doesn't send bit
mapped lines to the printer. So I was surprised to hear it was your
favorite.)
I had resigned myself to waiting perhaps forever for anything better than
DeskJet cartridges for fonts and 75 dpi for graphics. By the way, how much
do the font cartridges cost? And the ink cartridges? I'm still using the
ink cartridge that came in the box and I'm worried I'll run out of ink on a
day when subway tokens are the only liquid assets I have.
You've been a great source of information about this printer. HP forum is
not big on the Amiga, so the discussions over there about DJ fonts fall a
little flat for me. So go ahead and write a book. _I'll_ buy it.
Phew! Let's start at the beginning.
1) Soft Fonts: At this moment there are no Amiga specific soft fonts
available. If you buy HP's (or anyone else's for that matter) soft font
you will have to find an IBM machine and transfer them over (Oh maybe not,
you could use the bridgeboard in a 2000 or even Dos 2 Dos -great program-
and Commodore's 5.25" disk drive or even transformer) OR
You could download two Freeware fonts in the Compuserve HP forum. They are
nice 10 point proportional fonts in Times Roman and Helvetica faces. They
are Deskjet fonts ONLY.
JetSet is a utility that allows users to download fonts to primarily
LaserJets but it will work with the Deskjet because DJ uses the same
language inside as the Laserjet (PCL) but a slightly different version. Jet
set will work with the above Freeware fonts on the DJ.
2) Laserjet fonts: Will not work with the DJ. The file structure is
different and they are not compatible.
3) My favorite DTP software is CityDesk but I have to warn you. You
cannot print too well with the DJ inside CityDesk using its HP Laserjet
driver. You will have to print to preferences for heavy DTP work. Why?
Well, the Laserjet is a page printer and CityDesk puts graphics and
lines/boxes and words out to the printer in no specific order. It puts
each item out separately, but not necessarily in order from left top to
bottom right. If you plan on doing columns of text in a downloaded font
with graphics on the page as well, FORGET CITYDESK'S HP DRIVER.
The Deskjet doesn't have a reverse page feed option so when the program
sends a graphic to the bottom of a page it will print (in 300 dpi) but when
it then sends another graphic or text to the top left of the page, the DJ
just spits out the ink on the page without advancing, either forward or
backward, the paper. What results is a blob of ink on the paper. If
CityDesk had a driver that would print to the printer an entire page that
is raster graphics (including the Downloaded fonts) it would work just
fine. But it doesn't. I haven't used Pro Page or Publishing Partner Pro
yet so I don't know if they support the HP specifically or just via
Preferences.
4) Cartridges: Cartridges will eliminate the need for JetSet but will not
give you the necessary flexibility. HP is currently the only maker of font
carts. for the DJ and their's are, well, limited. Typically they only have
1 typeface in just a few sizes. They cost around $75 – $125 and you can
only have 2 of them in the DJ at once. Memory carts. will allow you to
Download soft fonts into the printer in any size, any style, any face, and
in any combination. This gives a less limited use of fonts – more,
different, etc. They are not cheap however, I paid $95 for mine. You can
put in two of these as well and get a total of 256K of fonts available for
soft fonts. I have one cart. with 128K of memory and I think that's
plenty for proposals and things.
Ink carts. do run out without warning. They cost about $14-$17 and last
about a month here in the office. I have had my Dj for 5 months and have
gone through 4 carts. I always keep a few around just in case. Also, I
note that some cartridges seem to last longer than others. I don't know
why but it seems that way.
5) HP forum: I too have seen absolutely nothing in the forum about the
Amiga. I think that a lot of the DJ stuff is usable for the Amiga though.
Soft fonts are available, but the DOwnload programs will obviously not
work. Also, the program drivers and stuff like that is not usable. BUT,
what can we do inside that Forum? Well, I for one saw the review of
Goscript, a Postscript file translator that will print out files on an HP
printer. After reading about the program I called the company and requested
they do a version for the Amiga. The guy was hesitant because they need
capital to replentish what was spent on the IBM program and development
takes $. So I suggested he contact Commodore regarding this and maybe they
would license his program and make it a part of WB or something. He was
VERY interested and I gave him CBM's address and phone number. I don't
know if he called or what, but I think if we get on CBM this kind of thing
could work.
Anyway, that's a long winded answer to your message. I hope it helps.
IMPORTANT: I don't know if I can do this, but I will anyway. I have
contacted C Ltd. regarding their JetSet utility and the lack of DeskJet
soft fonts in the Amiga market. Currently I am working with them on an
addition to the JetSet program that will translate any Laserjet font into a
DeskJet font. I have been in contact with Ed Lippert who wrote Jetset and
he says he is done the initial code and will send it to me for testing. The
addition will be a program called MakeDJ and will just translate the LJ
fonts file structure into a DJ file structure. Other additions to the
Jetset utility include a program to landscape any font, and reverse video
any font, even outline a font. This will give Postscript functionality to
the HP. I'm excited and I will keep you informed when the product is
available!
It's working out great. What you need to take full advantage of a printer
with proportional fonts is a word processor or desk top publishing package
which understands how to justify proportional fonts. It isn't a matter for
the printer driver. What the publishing package has to understand is
exactly what size the characters are in the font. That is why Jet Set
includes the two utilities MakeCD and MakeWP. What they do is to take the
font you tell them to analyze and output a table that is readable for their
respective programs, City Desk, and Word Perfect. I hope this helps the
clarify the issue somewhat. By the way, you might look around for the
utility package "LJ2.ARC" on the forum. Khalid has repackaged a program
that was originally written for IBM's which prints out two pages side by
side in the landscape lineprinter font. It can also print out an extra-wide
page along with lots of other options. It is a great way of reducing the
bulk of 'doc' files! Mike H.