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{subhead} TurboPrint 7{def}{p}
Review by Peter Hutchison
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PRODUCT NAME
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  TurboPrint 7
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BRIEF DESCRIPTION
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  TurboPrint 7 is a printer driver replacement system for Workbench's 
preferences printer drivers.
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COMPANY INFORMATION
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  IrseeSoft{p}
  Meinrad{p}
  SpieB{p}
  Platz 2{p}
  D-87660 Irsee{p}
  Germany
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  {link http://www.irseesoft.com/}http://www.irseesoft.com{end}{p}
  mail@irseesoft.com
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PRICE
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  Approx £38 UKP.{p}
  Upgrade about £19.95
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  Check with dealer:{p}
   Wizard Developments (Compute!), UK{p}
   SoftHut, USA{p}
   Byte One Computer, AUS{p}
   GTI (dealers only), Germany{p}
   and others.
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HARDWARE & SOFTWARE REQUIREMENTS
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   Any Amiga{p}
   OS 2.04+{p}
   Hard Drive (for TurboSpool and Ghostscript)
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COPY PROTECTION
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   None
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SOFTWARE INSTALLATION
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   Software comes on floppy disk.{p}
   Installation is via a 'Install' script using standard Installer script.
   Takes up approx. 1.2Mb of disk space.
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REVIEW
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   Workbench has provided printing via the printer.driver and the
Printer, PrinterGfx and PrinterPS preferences since AmigaOS 2.04 and the
drivers included supported mainly Dot Matrix, and early Laser and Inkjet
printers. The last driver to be added was the CanonEpson driver in WB 3.1.{p}
   New drivers have been written since by third party sources and some have 
appeared on Aminet but unfortnately have been limited by the features of 
Workbench's printing system.{p}
   TurboPrint appeared to fix this problem by replacing Workbench's 
printer.device with a faster and better printing system:
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 * New printer drivers esp. for new Inkjet colour printers.
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 * 24 bit printer device giving 16 million colours (WB can only provide 
upto 4096 colours)
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 * Truematch colour system for best colour reproduction.
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 * Control over brightness, contrast, sharpness and dithering.
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 * Printer Spooling for background printing.
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 * Graphics Publisher for display and printing of pictures
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 * Intregration with Ghostscript for PDF and Postscript printing.
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 * Improved Printer Preferences
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And has a wide support for the following range of printers:
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 * Brother, Canon BJ/BJC, Citizen, Epson EX/LX/LQ/Stylus color/Stylus
Photo, HP Deskjet/Paintjet/Laserjet
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 * Lexmark Execjet, MT 7400, Nec, Okimate, Panasonic, Seikosha and Star
printers.
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It includes the following list of changes since version 6:
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* New Printer drivers for:{p}
  Epson Stylus Color 3000, 440, 640, 740, 850{p}
  Epson Stylus Photo 700, EX{p}
  HP Deskjet 1100C, 1120C
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* New interface to GNU Ghostscript for PostScript compatibility. 35 Fonts
included.
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* Print Postscript or PDF. Improved printing from Pagestream, Final
Writer,Wordworth and TurboCalc etc
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* New GfxText mode for graphics only printers e.g. Epson Styus Color 300 or 
Canon BJC7000.
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* Zoom function in GraphicsPublisher
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* Print multiple copies from TurboSpool.
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   The TurboPrint system completely replaces the printer.device in 
Workbench and all you need to do is run TurboPrefs to select which printer 
you require and set it up as you want it. TurboPrefs has improved upon 
Printer & PrinterGfx preferences with more advanced features such aS:
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* Ability to select which port to print to other than the standard 
parallel.device or serial.device.
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* Ability to redirect output to a file.
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* The density (with dpi shown), paper medium, quality level, paper format, 
paper feed.
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* Graphics settings include Brightness, Contrast, Gamma and Colour levels. 
Dithering levels
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* Ability to determine Poster size
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* If you have PowerPC board, you can increase the print speed by using the 
power of the PPC.
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  The TurboStart program can be placed into your WBStartup to automatically 
launch TurboPrint and you don't have to do anything else. TurboSpool is 
included to allow background printing while you work as long as you have 
enough hard disk space. NoTurbo program can be run to turn off TurboPrint 
if you wish to use the standard printer.device and finally there is a 
Deskjet-Utility to Clean or Align heads of Deskjet printers.
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  TurboPrint is very fast and prints high quality output everytime, if you 
ever move from Workbench to TurboPrint then you will notice a huge 
improvement in the quality and speed your output is produced to you £100 
or more printer.
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 There are a few critisms I could make of the system, first although there 
is a Deskjet utility, there is none for the Epson or Canon printers. There 
is the ESCUtil program from Aminet but a TurboPrint version wouldn't go a 
miss. Secondly, TurboPrint has been updated a year since the last version 
and a lot of printers have appeared in that time, some incremental updates 
would have been nice for those people who already have TurboPrint 6 but 
unable to use the full features and having to wait months before a new 
full version appeared. Irsee have released 6.02 but that was it.
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  The other thing to note is that some printers are still not supported on 
the Amiga such as Windows only or 'brain-dead' (processorless) printers 
and they are becoming more common. I think when the AmigaII appears that 
somehow these printers should be supported either by Amiga Inc or preferably
the manufacturers who concentrate on one market - the PC and leave other 
users in the cold. These printers are not advertised well as Windows only, 
as people still buy them in the belief they will work when all they get 
is total silence from their new printer and having to trail back to the
dealer to get it changed because its incompatible.
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DOCUMENTATION
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 TurboPrint comes with a manual (TurboPrint 6 cames with manuals for 
version 4 and 6). They are well laid out with contents and an index. One 
thing is missing is a complete list of compatible printers and a list of 
incompatible printers would be handy for those who would like to know 
whether their printer will work on TurboPrint. A list is available on 
Irsee's web page but not everyone has access to the Internet.
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SUPPORT
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  Irsee have listed their postal address, phone, fax and email addresses 
if people wish to contact them. Upgrades are available from numerous Amiga 
dealers inc Compute!, Power Computing, Epic Marketing, Eyetech Group, Weird 
Science in the UK. TurboPrint is also available from major dealers around 
the world.
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BUGS
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  None that I know of.
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ALTERNATIVES
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  Print Studio II{p}
  Freeware Printer Drivers from Aminet.{p}
  Workbench 3.5!
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CONCLUSION
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 If you have bought a laser or a colour inkjet printer then this should be 
added to your shopping list. Worth the extra to get the best from your 
printer, with these extra features it'll be even worth upgrading from 
version 6. Get it!