Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!pitt!unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu!ejkst
From: ejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Deskjet Printer
Message-ID: <18323@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu>
Date: 7 Jun 89 01:16:21 GMT
References: <7549@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: ejkst@unix.cis.pittsburgh.edu (Eric J. Kennedy)
Distribution: usa
Organization: Univ. of Pittsburgh, Comp & Info Sys
Lines: 63

In article <7549@hoptoad.uucp> slc@hoptoad.UUCP (Steve Costa) writes:
>I'd like to hear from people using the HP Deskjet or Deskjet Plus printer.

Yo.

>How well does the Amiga use its capabilities? Does it do a good job in
>desktop publishing applications? I'm particularly interested in whether
>the current driver is strictly pixel-oriented, or whether it is able
>to use the line-drawing capabilities of the printer.

Well, it doesn't do real great when using any of the fancy features like
cartridge or soft fonts, landscape mode (Plus only), proportional fonts,
or the like.  In fact, the Preferences printer device doesn't know about
this kind of stuff at all to my knowledge.  However, text output looks
wonderful, and I think everything works.  (I'm having trouble getting 12
pitch rather than the default 10 pitch, but I haven't looked at it too
hard.)  

Graphics is another story.  The graphics capability of the 1.3 drivers
is improved tremendously over 1.2 and earlier, so that it's possible to
get decent printouts.  You still have the problem that the screen
resolution is so much lower than the printer resolution, so if you print
it out large, it will be blocky.  If you work with large bitmaps (in
dpaint or express paint) and print it out with integer scaling, you can
get some decent results.

The bottom line is it depends on your software.  I bought my Plus mainly
for use with AmigaTeX.  This is a great combination!  Other software
that is capable of generating graphics for high resolution devices
should also work well.  This hopefully includes PageStream, Professional
Draw, but I can't verify it.  (I probably will soon, though.)
Professional Page will still give blocky output, from what I hear, since
it's mainly geared for Postscript.  Any software (i.e. WordPerfect) that
strictly uses text mode should work quite well.  Oh, yeah, the PlotOnJet
program recently posted on the net gives *wonderful* "plots" of Aegis
Draw{+,2000} files.

>I've heard that a Postscript emulator has been written for use with the
>IBM. I assume it's too optimistic to hope that such a thing has been done
>or planned on the Amiga. However, since I have an IBM that I occasionally

PrintScript exists for the Amiga.  It is not a complete interpreter, and
comes with a very limited selection of fonts, but for the price (around
$79?) I've heard nice things about its output.  It's slow though.

>Any other observations on the Deskjet would be appreciated.

I would recommend the DeskJet Plus wholeheartedly if it weren't for the
potential problems with the applications software.  This situation
should definitely improve as time goes on.  For now, I might suggest
that you find out just how the specific software you want to use does
with it.  The only software that I can verify gives professional-
looking graphics is AmigaTeX* and Draw+/PlotOnJet.  Some others I 
may get a chance to try out soon.

*AmigaTeX does text, yes, but it does as a bitmap, because it
supplies its own fonts, and the DeskJet doesn't have enough ram to
download all the necessary fonts.  So, in that sense, it's graphics.
And the actual graphics (using PiCTeX) are very nice, too.

-- 
Eric Kennedy
ejkst@cisunx.UUCP