Improving Your Printouts

Last Updated: 19th June 2003

In conjunction with
Turboprint 7 / Irseesoft

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Introduction
The ability to print web pages is a very important aspect of any browser, and IBrowse² is no exception. Sadly, as the printing system in AmigaOS® is rather limited, IBrowse² needs to implement its own printing system. Due to the amount of work that this involves, graphical printing has not yet been implemented into IBrowse² via a native system, which has left two other choices: plain text printing or printing via PostScript.

This chapter covers PostScript printing, as text printing is very straight forward, and can be achieved by two methods: directly to a PostScript printer, or via a PostScript interpreter (which will allow PostScript data to be printed on a non-PostScript printer).
Info Only greyscale PostScript printing is currently supported in this release of IBrowse.
For non-PostScript printers, it is recommended that you use the 3rd party printing system Turboprint 7 by IrseeSoft, as this will provide the best results and is required to follow the details below. IrseeSoft also provide a version of GhostScript5 (a PostScript interpreter), which comes with support for Turboprint 7. By using these two pieces of software and following this section, the printouts from IBrowse² will be greatly improved by producing WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) A4, portrait orientated, hard copies.

Preparation & IBrowse²
Before you can configure the specific settings, you need to ensure everything is correctly installed. The first part of this process is to download all of the *.afm files from the Adobe Inc. FTP directories:
After downloading the files, they need to be renamed exactly as follows:
  • com_____.afm as courier.afm
  • cob_____.afm as courier-bold.afm
  • coo_____.afm as courier-oblique.afm
  • cobo____.afm as courier-boldoblique.afm
  • hv______.afm as helvetica.afm
  • hvb_____.afm as helvetica-bold.afm
  • hvo_____.afm as helvetica-oblique.afm
  • hvbo____.afm as helvetica-boldoblique.afm
  • tir_____.afm as times-roman.afm
  • tib_____.afm as times-bold.afm
  • tii_____.afm as times-italic.afm
  • tibi____.afm as times-bolditalic.afm
Once the files have been renamed, they need to be moved to a suitable directory, e.g. SYS:Fonts/PostScript, then IBrowse² needs to be configured to use this directory. To do this, first load IBrowse² and open the settings using Menus » Preferences » Settings.... Once the window has opened, go to the Preferences » HTML » Fonts section, and click on the For PostScript printing tab. In the AFM (metrics) files section, use the file requester gadget to the right to browse to the directory you chose above, or type directly into the string gadget.
The next stage is to open Menus » Windows » Print Manager and configure it as follows:
  • Printmode: PostScript
  • Destination: Custom
  • String Gadget: PS:
The rest of the options in the Print Manager can be left as they are, or configured to your requirements. 		Print Manager Settings

Turboprint 7 & GhostScript 5
These details are for use with Turboprint 7.x and AmigaOS® 3.5/3.9 only. Any settings that are specifically relevant to your printer and/or its driver, have been omitted as only you can decide what these should be set to.
Info Whilst AmigaOS® 3.1 will work, the various printer preferences layouts are slightly different from those of AmigaOS® 3.5/3.9, so you will need to work out the equivalent items or corresponding values.
Before continuing, Turboprint 7 must have been correctly installed, along with a version of GhostScript that supports the Turboprint 7 device. For Turboprint 7 owners, this can be obtained from the IrseeSoft website, please see http://www.irseesoft.de/ghostscript/default.htm for more details. Lastly, the PS: DOS driver must be correctly installed, which should be done automatically during the installation of the version of GhostScript from the IrseeSoft website.
! The preferences must be changed in the following order: Turboprint 7, then AmigaOS®. This is due to Turboprint 7 not being aware of the new IFF hunks introduced with the newer printer.prefs file, so if you save your Turboprint 7 settings after your AmigaOS® settings, you will loose some of the settings.
In order to set up Turboprint 7, open the preferences, click on the PS tab and configure it as follows:
PS Printmode
  • Printmode: as in Config
  • Density: as in Config
  • Quality: as in Config
 PS Position
  • ZoomX: 50
  • ZoomY: 50
  • MoveX: 0
  • MoveY: 0
 Turboprint 7 Preferences
Ghostscript Settings
  • Buffer kB: 4096
  • B/W Dithering: Unchecked
  • Command Line:
    Ghostscript:GS -dNOPAUSE -sDEVICE=turboprint -q >NIL:
  • Temp Dir.: Turboprint:temp
Finally, click on Save to make the changes permanent and complete the Turboprint 7 configuration.

Workbench » Printer
The next area to be configured is AmigaOS®, starting with the Printer preferences. The settings for Printer Type can be ignored, as Turboprint 7 will take care of these for you. The remaining settings should be made as follows:
Top Area
  • Printer Device Unit: Unit 0
  • Unit Name: <blank>
 Page Size & Margins
  • Paper Type: Continuous
  • Paper Format: DIN A4
  • Print Pitch: Pica (10 cpi)
  • Print Spacing: 6 Lines Per Inch
  • Paper Length (lines): 66
  • Left Margin (characters): 1
  • Right Margin (characters): 80
  • Density: 5
 Workbench Printer Preferences 1
Settings
  • Print Quality: Draft
  • Dithering: Ordered
  • Scaling: Fraction
  • Image: Positive
  • Aspect: Horizontal
  • Shade: Grey Scale 1
  • Threshold: 8
  • Left Edge: 0
  • Centre Picture: Unchecked
  • Smoothing: Unchecked
 Limits
  • Type: Ignore
  • Width: 0
  • Height: 0
 Workbench Printer Preferences 2
Finally, click on Save to make the changes permanent and complete the Printer preferences configuration.

Workbench » PrinterPS
The final area to be configured for AmigaOS®, is the PrinterPS preferences. The settings should be made as follows:
Left Area
  • Driver Mode: PostScript
  • Copies: 1
  • Paper Format: Custom
  • Paper Width: 16.52
  • Paper Height: 23.38
  • Horizontal DPI: 600
  • Vertical DPI: 600
 Text
  • Font: Courier
  • Pitch: Normal
  • Orientation: Portrait
  • Tab: 1 Inch
 Workbench PrinterPS Preferences 1
Dimensions
  • Left Margin: 1.00
  • Right Margin: 1.00
  • Top Margin: 1.00
  • Bottom Margin: 1.00
  • Font Point Size: 10.0
  • Line Leading: 2.0
 Workbench PrinterPS Preferences 2
Graphics
  • Left Edge: 1.00
  • Top Edge: 1.00
  • Width: 6.50
  • Height: 9.00
  • Image: Positive
  • Shading: Grey Scale
  • Ditheing: Default
 Workbench PrinterPS Preferences 3
Scaling
  • Aspect: Normal
  • Scaling Type: Aspect; Both
  • Centering: Both Directions
 Workbench PrinterPS Preferences 4


These settings may not suit everybody and are really only for a guide. As they only affect PostScript printouts, other applications are unaffected, e.g. Multiview, CygnusEd, WordWorth etc., and will print exactly as before. If you find the results are unacceptable, you may like to adjust the following settings; however you will need to use trial and error to find satisfactory values:
Turboprint 7 » PS Position
  • Zoom X
  • Zoom Y
Workbench » PrinterPS
  • Paper Width
  • Paper Height

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IBrowse² Documentation v2.3 © 2002, 2003 Dave Fisher ~ IBrowse² Development Team Revision 1.0