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From: stevem@hpvcfs1.HP.COM (Steve Miller)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: The real "scoop" on HP DeskWriter
Message-ID: <780017@hpvcfs1.HP.COM>
Date: 7 Jul 89 17:55:25 GMT
References: <780014@hpvcfs1.HP.COM>
Organization: Hewlett Packard, Vancouver, WA
Lines: 32



Well, just to get in on the fun, I'll fill in some of the DeskWriter details
for those interested.  The Courier, Times, and Triumirate (Helvetica) fonts
come in regular, bold, italic, and bold-italic which makes them look better
than bit-map fonts that are slanted to look italic, or shifted to look bold.
The Symbol set comes in regular only.  The outline fonts can be printed up
to 250 pts in size and support all of the quickdraw enhancements (outline, 
shadow etc..)  The characters can be rotated in 90 degree increments.

Other quickdraw printing features supported are landscape orientation, exact
size bitmaps, arbitrary document enlargement/reduction from 25% to 400%,
font substitution, page range selection, and printing back to front (from
most applications).  Hairlines, pattern scaling, and polygon smoothing are also
implemented in the driver.

Application compatibility is very high.  FullPaint, MS Basic, and a couple of
terminal packages are the only major packages that won't work with DeskWriter.
The Postscript only applications will print, but usually don't support high
quality printing.  They are often limited to 72 DPI output on non Postscript
printers.

But, like Dave Neff said, you should take a look at one to get a good feel
for the product.

My opinions are also biased since I too worked on the product (printer firmware
and driver).  But, being a Mac user since late '84, I've been wanting a printer
like this for a long time and was tickled to be able to work on it.

Steven Miller     stevem@hpvcfs1
Vancouver Division
Hewlett Packard