ARTPRINT program. Clip Art printing program by Peter D Hibbs. Version 1.2 Oct 1991. There are hundreds of clip-art pictures in the public domain which may require dozens of disks for storage. It is obviously very difficult to remember every one and which file it is in, this program allows a complete disk of picture files to be printed out in one session. The program works only in high resolution mode and with most 9 pin and 24 pin parallel or serial printers. Note also that the resource file ARTPRINT.RSC should also be present in the same folder as the main program. The ARTPRINT.INF set-up file should be present in the root directory, if required, and is loaded automatically when the program is first loaded. If no ARTPRINT.INF file is present the program default values are used, see below for further information. When the program is run a menu is displayed with nine main options which function as follows :- (1) Load clip-art picture. Clicking on this button will display the standard file selector for the current drive. Select a clip art picture file to be loaded in the normal way. The program can load seven different picture file formats as follows :- .PI3 Degas high resolution. .PC3 Degas high resolution compressed. .ART ArtiST public domain drawing program. .DOO Dr Doodle public domain drawing program. .IMG High resolution image files. .TN3 High resolution Tiny compressed files. .TNY High resolution Tiny compressed files. If a file with some other extension is selected, the program warns that it is not a recognised file format and gives the option to load it anyway. If the file is loaded it is stored and displayed as a straight binary file, this may show a picture or may not depending on how the picture was stored. Note that the file should not be larger than 33K bytes. If a .IMG file is loaded which is larger than the screen size, the top left corner of the total image will be displayed. The file selector can be used to change to a different drive or select a different folder. Note that if the picture files are in a folder (rather than in the root directory) this facility should be used to select the required folder. A picture in the folder should be loaded to set the path-name for the current folder. When the search or print facilities are used, only the current folder is used (see later). When the picture has been loaded the file selector is replaced by the picture image. To return to the main menu press the right mouse button. (2) Find clip-art picture. To search for a particular picture on the disk click on this button. A new form will be displayed which shows the current drive and the current folders path-name (if any). Click on CONTINUE to start the search sequence or CANCEL to return to the main menu. The pictures on the disk will be displayed one after the other with the filename shown in inverse video at the bottom of the screen. Press the SPACE-BAR (or left button) to pause on a picture and then the RETURN key (or left button) to continue the search or press the ESCAPE key (or right button) to return to the main menu. Note that if the mouse buttons are used they must be held down longer since the operating system does not store the operation as it does for the keyboard. If the pictures are being loaded from a hard disk (or RAM disk) the display time may be too short to see each picture properly. Pressing keys 0-9 will insert a delay between each picture load, 0 is the fastest and 9 is the slowest. If it is necessary to change the disk during the search sequence first pause the scan (by pressing the SPACE-BAR), change the disk and then press the RETURN key to resume the sequence. If the pictures are in a folder, the folder path-name should first be initialised by loading a picture in, as mentioned above in option 1. (3) Print current picture. The current picture can be printed by clicking on this button. The picture is printed out four times actual size, that is one pixel on screen is printed as four dots on the printer. If the PICTURE BORDER 'ON' button is highlighted, a border is drawn around the picture. See also options 7 and 8 for printer set ups. (4) Print all pictures. To print all or some of the picture files click on this button. The required drive should be first selected by clicking on the appropriate drive button. A form is displayed which shows the current drive (and path-name where appropriate). If the pictures are in a folder, the folder should be selected and a picture loaded in as described in option 1 above. The title of the disk should be entered, this name is printed (together with the filename) at the top of each picture, this title is also displayed on the main menu for reference. Now click on the 'SOME' or 'ALL' button, the screen is cleared and a form is displayed at the top of the screen together with all the valid picture files on the current disk. If 'SOME' was selected, none of the files are ticked and if 'ALL' was selected, all the files are ticked. In either case, clicking on a filename will display or erase the tick against the file. Select (or deselect) the files required and then click on 'OK'. The pictures which have been ticked will be printed out eight to a page in actual size, i.e. one pixel on screen equals one dot on the printer. For 9 pin printers the pictures will be slightly distorted due to the lower resolution of these printers as compared with 24 pin printers. The disk title and the filename of each picture will be printed immediately above each picture for easy identification. Note that if the PICTURE BORDER 'ON' button is highlighted on the main menu, a border line will be drawn around each picture. To abort the print-out press the ESCAPE key. Note that not more than 100 pictures should be present on a disk (or in a folder) or the program may crash. (5) Show current picture. Click on this button to remove the main menu and show the current picture. Press the right mouse button to return to the main menu. (6) Show in inverse video. Click on this button to invert the colours black and white. This only works for the current picture in memory and cannot be used when printing out all the picture files. (7) Set up defaults. To change the printer default settings click on this button. A form is displayed showing the RS232, handshaking and printer type options. If a parallel printer is being used it is not necessary to change any of the RS 232 settings. If a serial printer is being used, the 'SERIAL' button should be clicked on together with the required Baud rate, Parity mode and Handshaking mode buttons. When printing out the pictures, the left margin and the gap between the pictures can be adjusted by entering new values into the form. If these settings are only required for the current printing session, click on 'OK', if they are to be used every time the program is used, click on the 'SAVE' button. This will save the current settings in the ARTPRINT.INF file which will be written to the root directory of the current drive (first ensure that the disk with the ARTPRINT.PRG program is in the current drive). Note that if an ARTPRINT.INF file already exists, it will be over-written and if none exists, a new one will be created. When the program is first loaded, the ARTPRINT.INF file is also loaded in to set up the defaults, note also that the printer codes (see next section) are also saved in the ARTPRINT.INF file. The disk titles and filenames at the top of each picture are printed in condensed print and are in a fixed position on the line. The position of the pictures beneath can be adjusted with 'Left margin' and 'Central gap' fields. These should be set so that the pictures are printed directly under the title text. (8) Set up printer codes. If the printer being used is not a Panasonic KXP 1124 or 1624 click on this button to change the control codes sent to the printer (if necessary). Although the method of printing text and graphics data is fairly standard on most printers, the actual control codes to set up various facilities may vary slightly. Rather than use a printer driver system for every different printer this program stores its own printer control codes which can be configured for the printer being used. This does depend, however, on the standard Epson bit graphics mode for 9 and 24 pin printers, i.e. the graphics code followed by the number of bytes to be sent followed by the bit image data for the current line. The user should consult his printer manual for the relevant control codes as described below. Field 1 Printer name & number. The printer type can be entered here as a reminder of which printer the program is configured for. Field 2 Printer initialisation sequence. These codes are sent to the printer at the start of each printing session and are used to initialise the printer, set the top of form and clear the printers internal print buffer if necessary. It could also be used to set the print style for the picture headings if required. Note that the codes must be in Hex format only, this and subsequent fields will only accept hex characters and the space character. The codes may be separated by a space for clarity although this is not necessary. Field 3 Condensed print control code. The text at the top of each picture is set to condensed type otherwise it would be larger than the picture width. Field 4 Microline feed control code. This code is used to move the paper down by a few lines after the title has been printed so that the picture starts just under the title. The code is followed by the distance to be moved, (normally 5 microline- feeds). Field 5 Unidirectional print control code. This code sets the printer to unidirectional printing to improve the print out quality and ensure that the lines are printed exactly beneath each other. It is sent to the printer at the start of each graphics line. Field 6 Microline feed spacing code. This sets the number of microline feeds that is sent for each linefeed code and is always set to the number of pins, i.e. 24 (18 hex). For 9 pin printers the linefeed is set to 8 pins. Field 7 Bit image control code. This starts the bit image mode in 180 dots/inch (24 pin Triple Density) and is followed by the number of rows of dots (640) and then the graphics data. For 9 pin printers the bit image mode should be set to quad density or else the image will be too big. Some typical values for two printers are shown below, if no ARTPRINT.INF file is present the Panasonic values are used. PRINTER- Panasonic KXP1124 (24 pin) Microline MP192 (9 pin) Initialisation 18 1B 40 18 1B 40 Condensed print 0F 0F Microline feed 1B 4A 05 1B 4A 05 Unidirectional 1B 55 01 1B 55 31 Microline feed space 1B 33 18 1B 31 Bit image control 1B 2A 27 1B 5A As described in the previous section, click on 'OK' to enable any changes or on 'SAVE' to save the changes to disk. (9) Quit to desktop. Click on this button to quit the program.