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From: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu (David Phillip Oster)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Printer Driver
Message-ID: <20944@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU>
Date: Fri, 25-Sep-87 10:46:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.20944
Posted: Fri Sep 25 10:46:56 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 27-Sep-87 01:00:57 EDT
References: <4065@pyr.gatech.EDU> <11540021@hpsmtc1.HP.COM>
Sender: usenet@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Reply-To: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu.UUCP (David Phillip Oster)
Organization: School of Education, UC-Berkeley
Lines: 44

Would someone who has actually used the SoftStyle LaserStart printer drivers
please E-mail to me and tell me how well they work?

You should be able to print anything you can see on the screen - the software
architecture by which Mac applications communicate with the printer driver
is general enough.  However:

1.) You can't print a page of graphics at 300dpi unless you have 1Meg
of memory in your printer, and 1Meg of memory free at print time in
your Mac. (Postscript printers don't need the free Meg in the Mac, and
the General Computer's PLP is an exception to both halves.)

2.) Most printers interface to the Mac over the serial port. If the
printer talks to the Mac at 9600 baud (This is the speed the
imagewriter uses) then sending 8"x10"x300dots per inch=90000dots per
square inchx80 square inches= ~15 minutes assuming that the Mac can
send the bits at the full speed of the port. That's 15 minutes per
page, or roughly 4 times slower than an imagewriter.  If you can take
advantage of the built-in fonts in the printer, you'll be able to do
better, but I am under the impression that the LaserJet doesn't have
much in the way of built-in fonts, and certainly it won't have the
Macintosh fonts we like to use.

3.) Some fonts, like Adobe's "Sonata" music typesetting font are sold
only in postscript form. To convert these into bitmaps so they can be
printed on a non-postscript printer (like an imagewriter LQ, a General
Computer's PLP, or an HP LaserJet) you'd need a tool like Fontographer
that can create mac screen fonts in any size from the postscript
description. (Or use Fontastic+ to create, and smooth by hand a large screen
font from a small point size one.) Remember, that to print 12point
text on a ImageWriter in best quality, you really should have the
24point version of the font in your system file. On an Imagewriter LQ,
you'll need the 36point version of the font, and on the 300dpi laser
printers you'll need the 48point version of the font. (or maybe the
50point version of the font, depending on how the printer driver is
written.) 

Once again, has anybody actually used a LaserJet with LaserStart?
Please E-mail to me. Aside from the above theoretical concerns, how
bad is it really?

--- David Phillip Oster            --My Good News: "I'm a perfectionist."
Arpa: oster@dewey.soe.berkeley.edu --My Bad News: "I don't charge by the hour."
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