PPType 1.4a User Manual Aug 17, 1992 Preface ======= The programs and files in this distribution are freely distributable, but are also copyright (c) Nico François. They may be freely distributed as long as no more than a nominal fee is charged to cover time and copying costs. No commercial usage is permitted without written permission from the author. Everything in this distribution must be kept together, in original unmodified form. Coverdisks or diskmagazines need written permission of UGA to offer the Powerpacker utilities or Powerpacker/Reqtools libraries on their disk. For commercial use please read the copyright file on your original PP disk. The above is generally known as freeware. If you have suggestions or remarks about this program, or if you find any bugs, please let me know. Write to the following address: Nico François Corbielaan 13 B-3060 Bertem BELGIUM Contents ======== 1. An introduction 2. Usage 1. An introduction ================== Hmmm, PPPrint... yeeeez, enough Ps to make soup out of ! Let's call it PPType, yeah, that's better :^D I have never been able to figure out why I have been unable to find a simple, yet useful printing program for the Amiga. Sure, you have all these powerful text formatters, but they are way too complicated to quickly print out something. Almost all the other programs print by dumping everything to the printer, printing straight over paper perforation instead of sending a formfeed (euh... including PPMore :-). Therefore I thought it was about time somebody wrote a utility to print out a file that would first of all divide the file up in pages before printing and maybe even, if at all possibe, print the filename and page number at the top of each page. The program should get the pagelength from preferences, because not everybody has the same type of paper and the tab size should be user definable (never understood why the ANSI tab is set every whopping 8 characters, I prefer a much smaller tabsize). Since nobody else seems to wanna write this, I decided to do it myself. Probably needless to say PPType also loads and prints files crunched with PowerPacker :^) If you haven't got PowerPacker you are of course missing one of the main features of this program. PowerPacker is available as shareware (up to version 2.3b) or as a commercial program (version 4.0a). Order a copy from UGA, P.O.Box 881, 3700 AW Zeist, The Netherlands. The commercial version offers several enhancements like 40 to 50 times faster crunching, overlay support, an ARexx port, and much more. 2. Usage ======== PPType will print a file (or files) to the printer or a file, it will decrunch files crunched with PowerPacker before printing them. A header can be printed at the top of each page. The tabsize is set to 8 by default, but can be changed. The filename in the header will not include the path nor will it have the '.pp' suffix of crunched data files. PPType will check the current preferences for pagewidth and pagelength, so check that these are correct. Also make sure all the other printer preferences are set correctly (e.g. correct printer driver) and that the 'printer.device' and the 'parallel.device' or 'serial.device' (depending on your printer) are in DEVS:. If you want to make use of the filerequester you should also put the 'arp.library' in LIBS:. PPType can be used in four different ways. - First of all via the CLI or Shell: If you enter 'PPType ?' you will get a usage template. You use PPType like this: PPType [] [] [[] ...] With = [-o] [-c#] [-l#] [-t#] [-a|h|p|n] As you can see, PPType accepts multiple filenames on its command line, you can also use the options between two filenames. PPType does NOT support wildcards yet :-(, these will probably be supported in the next version. PPType can be made resident so it doesn't have to be loaded every time you use it, use the ARP ARes command or the AmigaDOS Resident command for this. You CAN'T make PPType resident when it is crunched !! The file is supplied as an uncrunched command file with the pure bit set. If you omit the filename, you will be presented with either a file prompt or a filerequester (if asl.library or arp.library is available). Entering PPType with a directory instead of a file as an argument will also get you a requester, but it will be positioned in the directory you specified. If you 'Run' PPType the output will go to a small window PPType will open. This way the CLI is free to be used for other things and you won't be bothered by the output from PPType. If you are using ConMan or Kickstart 2.0 the window will not be activated and will have no sizing gadget. Options: (# means a number) -o Use this to redirect the output to a file instead of the printer. -l# Use this to override the preferences page length. -c# Use this to override the width. -t# Set tabsize used to print. (default 8, max. 16) The following options are switches that can be toggled: -h Switch header on/off, if on, the top two lines of each page are used for a header and a blank line. The header can hold both the filename (without the path and the .pp) and the pagenumber. When the header is switched off the top two lines will be used for text. -p Switch page numbering in the header on/off. -n Switch filename in the header on/off. -a Switch the use of ANSI escape codes to print the header in bold on/off. A header in bold gives a nice effect, but you may want to switch this off when output is redirected to a file. Examples: o PPType -h text.doc Print the file 'text.doc' but do not print a header at the top of each page. o PPType -o ram:file -l50 -a docs:test.doc -a -t3 ansititle.doc This will print to 'ram:file' instead of the printer, pages with a length of 50 lines will be used. The first document will have a plain header without ansi escape codes, the second file WILL have a bold header. The tabs will be set every 3 characters in the second file. - Via the WorkBench: There are three different ways of using PPType via the workbench: you can single click the PPType icon, press the shift key and select multiple text file icons ending by double clicking the last text file icon (files will be printed in the same order as they were selected), you can double-click the PPType icon and enter a filename in the string gadget (or the ARP file requester) you will be presented with, or if you are using Workbench 2.0 you can drop an icon on top of the PPType icon. There are some preferences you can set with the aid of the WorkBench tooltypes. PPType will look for five tooltypes, they should equal ON or OFF and they are all set to ON by default (except TABSIZE, which should equal a number). These tooltypes should be set in the PPType icon, NOT the text file icons ! (Use 'Info' from the Workbench menu, or 'Information' from the Icons menu if you are using Workbench 2.0) o HEADER Equivalent to the '-h' option above. (e.g. use 'HEADER=OFF') o PAGES '-p' o NAME '-n' o ANSI '-a' o TABSIZE Use this to change the tabsize. (e.g. use 'TABSIZE=3') NOTE: - PPType will add '.pp' to the filename when the file wasn't found. This is very useful in the WorkBench enviroment: you can make an icon for 'text.doc' but name the file 'text.doc.pp'. Now the WorkBench will show an icon with 'text.doc' as name, but if you doubleclick it 'text.doc.pp' will be displayed. (As long as there is no 'text.doc' file in the directory !) - When PPType makes the pages too long or too short check the PageLength in preferences. Also set the margins as wide as possible (e.g. Left Margin 1 and Right Margin 80). - A tip: put something like this in your startup-sequence: 'Alias PPType Run PPType -t3 []' This way PPType will always be run as a background task and use tab size of 3. This is the best way to use PPType as a semi-detachable program. The reason I didn't make PPType detach automatically from the CLI is that it then could no longer be made resident, and I thought it was more useful if it could. As always, I hope you find this program useful ! ***************************************************************************** PPType 1.4b written by Nico François (Yes, Nico is my first name :-) (c) 1991 Nico François