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From: cds@duke.UUCP (Craig D. Singer)
Newsgroups: net.micro.apple
Subject: Appleworks Question
Message-ID: <6933@duke.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Feb-86 12:34:31 EST
Article-I.D.: duke.6933
Posted: Tue Feb 18 12:34:31 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 19-Feb-86 23:45:20 EST
Organization: Duke University
Lines: 61

Hello,
This question concerns the use of Appleworks on a //e with 128k and an
Imagewriter Printer.  What I would like to know is...is there a simple way
of sending printer control characters to my Imagewriter *in the middle of*
printing a word processor file?  There are lots of good reasons for doing
this, of which my main interest is to temporarily change the character set
to a custom set which I have read into the printer's memory before booting
up Appleworks.  Usually, I want to print just one or a few custom characters
and then return to the normal font.  Things that don't work include:

	1. Trying to insert control characters directly.  Appleworks just beeps.
    2. Using the "EK" (enter keyboard) command to make the printing pause.
       In the first place, even if this did work, it would be a royal pain
       to use, but in any case, you still can't enter nonprinting
       characters.
    3. Probably any other direct command sequence in Appleworks.

Things that do work, but are so convoluted that I really wonder why I
bother, include:

    1. Using the part of custom character memory which occupies the
       low-value ASCII codes, I recreated the regular printing set of
       characters for all ASCII values which I use (alphanumerics, some
       punctuation) and then customized the keys I don't use to whatever
       characters I needed for that application.  Then, I tell the printer
       (before booting up Appleworks) to print everything in the custom
       character font, which is mostly just the regular characters.  This
       process is not actually that painful once the regular character set
       is recreated and stored in a file, but it severely limits the number
       of custom characters I can use in one session.  Besides, this
       solution only takes care of custom characters, not other printint
       codes which one might want to turn on and off in the middle of a
       file.
    2. Writing a utility that takes an Appleworks output file (sent to disk
       with the printer control characters) and replaces special characters
       that I don't generally use in the file (like "{" and "~") and
       rewrites them as sets of control characters which turn on and off the
       custom character set.  This gives me the full range of custom
       characters I need but requires a second utility to take the text
       output of the first one and print it (since Appleworks won't print a
       text file without first making it an Appleworks file, which causes
       escape sequences to become invisible).  I have not actually tried
       this method but someone else has and says it works but, naturally,
       slows down the process of printing a file tremendously.  I don't feel
       like writing the utilities, anyway.

What I'd really like to know is whether someone has found a sneaky, easy way
to accomplish this goal, or if there is some cheap software which will work
nicely with Appleworks and take care of the problem (by cheap I'm thinking
of under $40 or so).  I suppose I should just buy Applewriter, or any of a
dozen other word processors which let one insert such characters, but I like
a lot of the things Appleworks does and I've already bought it and used it
extensively.  Any suggestions?  In any case, thanks for reading this long
article!
-- 
 

Craig D. Singer, Dept. of Computer Science, Duke University
Durham, NC 27706-2591.  Phone (919) 684-5110  (ext.20)
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