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From: brianr@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM (Brian E Rhodefer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Printing on Amigae
Keywords: WYSIWYG
Message-ID: <5434@tekig5.PEN.TEK.COM>
Date: 23 Jan 90 00:13:25 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: Tektronix Inc., Beaverton, Or.
Lines: 39

I've gotten myself a little confused lately, and I wonder if
someone could help me get my mind right on the subject of
Printing on the Amiga.

A friend of mine wanted a Word Processing program to prepare her
correspondence with.  She insisted on an integrated package with
spell-checking and WYSIWYG-ishness, that would work with her HP
DeskJet printer.  She got a copy of ProWrite, version 2.5.

Up till now, I'd been ignoring the issue of How to Print, except
for a slight puzzlement at all the number of people at the local
Amiga users' group meetings asking if someone, anyone, could help
them with their Printer.  "What kind of rubes ARE these people",
I'd wonder.  "Can't they type 'run copy <file> PAR:'?"

 (Well, that's how I print all *my* source files....)

The fun my friend and I are having trying to coax decent looking
copy from her ProWrite/DeskJet combo has awakened an appreciation
in me of what a tin of bait this printing business can be, and I
must humbly retract my mental question.  I *should* have wondered,
"Can't they afford a Mac?".

The thinking I've done on the subject has led me to an unpleasant
conclusion:  As long as its fonts are bit-mapped instead of outline,
the Amiga can't deliver WYSIWYG printer functionality.  The best it
can do is "WYGRWYSDT" (What You Got Resembles What You See, Doncha Think?).  

It seems to me that the word processors are trying to allow the use
of any bitmapped font in one's FONTS: directory, while matching the
text sizes on the screen and paper.  Given that the pixel sizes of
the printer (300dpi on my friend's DeskJet) don't match the pixels
on the screen (64dpi horiz, ~30dpi vert by my estimate) the results
are about 47 times cruder than the printer is capable of.

I hope someone can explain that the Amiga concept of a unified and
consistent PRT: device can be made to work after all.

Brian Rhodefer