From: wfaust@venus.adsp.sub.org (Wolf Faust)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications,comp.sys.amiga.hardware
Subject: Deskjet troubleshooter - old subject: Re: another PageStream2.2 problem...
Date: 11 Nov 92 11:02:48 GMT
Organization: Not an Organization

Fabbian  sent me a small dumpfile that showed the problems several
Deskjet  users  have talked about.  Because several people had the
same problems, here the cause/solution of the problem:

***** THE PROBLEM ************

:   Graphic renderings on pages after the first are placed lower on the paper
:than they are on the first page.  When I copied DrawFJ to PAR: three times
:in succession the second and third pages printed 11/32" lower than the
:first.
:   I've experienced shifted output with Draw2000, PLT:, Deluxe Paint
:(version 2 and 3), and Photon Paint 2.0.  Most text printing programs seem
:to avoid the problem by sending a form feed to the printer at the bottom of
:the page instead of a series of line feeds.  Since most people format their
:documents with more that a 1/2" margin the printer is never left with data
:that won't fit on the page.

What is causing the problem:

In  case  your  first printing after loading the printer driver in
memory  is  graphics,  your printer is not automaticly initialised
(aRIN command). At the end of your graphic dump, the application
program send a FormFeed for ejecting the paper. Because the
FormFeed command is interpreted as the first text command after
loading the driver, an aRIN command is executed wich intialises the
printer.

On  the  second  dump  of  the  graphic  document,  the printer is
allready  intialised  from the first dump and because of this, the
graphic gets shifted lower.

Note: the printer only gets automaticly initialised in case you
print text. This is why most of the text applications do not have
the problem.

:Both PageStream and WordPerfect work properly for me.

Yes, PageStream and Wordperfect do come with custom drivers that
do initialise the printer before printing anything. So there is
no "shift-problem".

:If I reset the printer between pages the shift does not occur.

Yes, in case you reset the printer between the pages, you also
undo the initialising that was done at the end of your previous
graphic dump (wich should have been at the start of the graphic
dump).

:   The problem seems to be that the DeskJet cannot print to the edges of the
:paper.  There are minimum left and right margins of 1/4" and a bottom margin
:of 1/2".  There is also a 1/2" top margin if perforation skip is enabled,
:but perforation skip doesn't affect the problem.  It seems that data which
:can't be printed in the bottom margin of the page is retained in the
:printer's buffer and printed at the top of the next page.

Well, you can only define the text length using the printer
preferences with Commos Deskjet drivers. There are three
commercial drivers that do allow you to alter the page
size/margins in different degrees:

Studio (shiping starts 25th this month):
All text and graphic margin/sizes can be adjusted independly.
All KS 2/3 papersizes are supported.

DJHelper/SuperDJ from Creative Focus:
All page/text size/margins can be edited, though, you can't define
graphic and text size independly.
Also, not all KS2/3 paper sizes are supported.

TurboPrint from IrseeSoft:
Nearly the same possibilies as DJHelper regarding page
size/margins. Not all KS2/3 paper sizes are supported.

With these driver you can setup your page size as you like.
For instance, I use Studio wich allows me to print 68 lines text
on  an  A4  page  without  using textscale (the printers textscale
feature can be controlled by the Studio or Creative focus
drivers  and increases the amount of text lines).  For graphics, I
have a top/bottom margin of ~.2 inch.

**** HOW TO AVOID THE PROBLEM *****

There are several solutions on how to avoid the shift of graphic
output:

1.   Run the "Initprinter" program (on your WB or Extra disk)
before doing the first dump (only in case this dump does graphics)
after turning on/reseting the printer.  This way your printer gets
initialised and all dumps hereafter should be ok.

Initprinter will cause an empty page on your printer. This can be
avoided by selecting continuous papertype in preferences before
running Initprinter.
Note: on some applications you do not need to turn this setting
back to single page to get a formfeed at the end of each page.

2.   So  far, the only Amiga drivers I know wich do initialise the
printer  on  the  first  graphic  dump, causing  the  problem  to
disappear, are my drivers (ie.  Studio drivers and, in a different
way, the Canon drivers; DJHelper doesn't do this!).

You  even  can  force  the  Studio PCL3/5 driver to initialise the
printer  before  each(!)  dump  (not  only  the first dump).  This
allows  you  to  reset/turn off/on your printer without caring for
initialising the printer afterwoods.

:Then I compressed the file by running it through FastJet
:(Copyright  1990 Charles Tyson).  That reduced the file size from about
:300K to about 85K bytes by using the DeskJet's data compression codes.  It
:didn't affect the symptoms at all.

Fastjet  uses TIFF packbits compression.  This compression is done
by the commercial driver mentioned above.  So there is no need for
Fastjet   with  these.   Also,  TIFF  packbits  is  not  the  best
compression  available  on  the latest Deskjet printers (this does
not mean, it's worse...  it just means, you can do better)


PS:   I really don't want to force you buying one of the mentioned
commercial driver, but I think they are surley worth the money and
far from being expensive (at least Studio and DJHelper). Also, in
case of Studio/TurboPrint, you get much better graphic output...


:--Fabbian G. Dufoe, III
:   350 Ling-A-Mor Terrace South   | GEnie:    F.DUFOE3
:   St. Petersburg, Florida  33705 | internet: fgd3%nifty@tct.com
:   813-823-2350                   | uucp:     ...tct!deep6!nifty!fgd3


-- 
Wolf Faust                 Internet: wfaust@aurea.hotb.sub.org
Germany                        FIDO: 2:249/3.5
Tel: (+49)69 5486556         CBMNet: wfaust@venus.adsp.sub.org