Changes to the CanonBJ-EC V5.4 driver ------------------------------------- This chapter is only of use to those Canon BJC users who have used the CanonBJ-EC V5 and older driver in the past and don't want to read the full docs again (other users should continue reading the next chapter below). Here are some of the important issues that you should be aware of: 1. The new V6 CanonBJ-EC driver now overrides the dither setting defined by an application or the Workbench printer preferences program unless you select a density below 3. So basicly, you now don't have to care about the dither method set in printer preferences unless you use a density below 3. This also means things are more simple: The CanonBJ-EC V6 driver behaves like a stupid driver if you select a density below 3. In this case, none of the drivers advanced color correction or dithering is used during printing and the driver mainly offers the plain functions of most original Workbench drivers. But if you do select a density above 2, you can be pretty sure now that the driver's features are enabled and work correctly as the driver overrides all bad settings that might be caused by Workbench preferences or the application. This means, at density above 2, the driver always uses the dither routine and color adjustment defined in CanonBJECPref. It disables the printer device color correction. 2. The driver disables the color correction of the printer device. This color correction should never be used. Again, this is only true as long as you select a density above 2. 3. The driver is now able to automatcily switch between Epson and Extended emulation. So you can now set the Canon driver to Extended emulation using CanonBJECPref and you don't have to switch back to Epson emulation just to print some text using the printers internal font. However, there is still a limit by the printer: you can't print text using the printer font and graphics using extended emulation on exactly the same page. So, the printer driver can only switch emulation at the start of a page. However, please see the error chapter if you run into problems when using Extended emulation (mainly an "empty page" problem). 4. The CanonBJ-EC driver now uses the much advanced dither routines of CanonStudio V2.13. As a result, the quality and the speed especialy of the more complex dither routines has been dramaticly improved. Also, the driver now offers more dither routines: Blue Noise 30% (Serp.) Blue Noise 50% (Serp.) Burkes Burkes (Serpentine) Floyd Steinberg (Serp.) Jarvis (Serpentine) Sierra2 Sierra2 (Serpentine) Sierra3 Sierra3 (Serpentine) Stucki (Serpentine) Here are some typical print times measured with Final Writer (a full DIN A4 page of text was printed with a small 2*2 cm colored logo): CanonBJ-EC V5.4 Canon BJ-EC V6.0 Speed Increase OrderedA256 140 sec 140 sec 0% Blue Noise 30% 400 sec 150 sec 267% As you can easily see, the new drivers complex dither routines are not much slower than the fast Order type dithering. Take care: the speed of the new driver mainly depends on the page contents printed and the dither routine used. You can easily see print speed increases by 300-400% if the page is not fully covered by all colors. Note: the dither routines are able to detect blank areas in the output even if this area is surounded by color. 5. Preferences DIN A4 setting is now causing the driver to use the printers maximum print area (ie. 2880 instead of 2804 dots at 360dpi). This is not the correct way, but most drivers (including most of the original Workbench drivers) do it this way and it seems to center the output better. If you must have the old setting back because your created documents print with an offset and updating the documents is too much trouble: define a custom DIN A4 page size (that is, set Custom ResX to 2804). 6. The driver now uses it's own simple UCR/GCR function (wich is 100% compatible to the printer device routine, but faster). As a result of this, users black adjustments for color printing might have to get readjusted when used with error diffussion or blue noise dithering. 7. The height of the printable area was increased by 0.1 inch for BJC 4xxx users under Extended Emulation. UPDATE HISTORY ============== CanonBJ-EC (or CanonBJC800) --------------------------- 03.09.92 V1.0 23.09.92 V1.1 19.11.92 V1.1b 20.02.93 V1.2 15.07.93 V1.4 21.08.93 V3.0 06.09.93 V3.1 22.09.93 V3.2 30.08.94 V4.0 28.11.94 V4.1 20.02.95 V4.3 - Canon BJC 600e support added 07.03.95 V5.0 - Canon BJC 70, BJ30 and 200ex support added - fixes a problem when selecting a print mode under BJC 600 (not e) Extended Emulation - Setting CustomResX and ResY didn't work under Extended Emulation. 27.12.95 V5.2 - Canon BJC 610 support added with 720dpi. - right margin calculation was partly faulty when using a density other than 360dpi. Fixed. - Noise added to error diffusion dithers reduced because slight artefacts showed up. - "Color" cycle gadget in CanonBJECPref's color adjustment window may not reflect the sliders shown (occurs only after exit/ returning into the window). Fixed - Canon BJC 600 print mode text gadget was faulty for the last 4 print modes. This had no affect on the function, wich worked fine when selecting the print mode by mouse. - faster dither preview in prefs program. 08.02.96 V5.30 - Canon BJC 4100 support added with 720*360dpi. (new SetupBJL-BJC4100 program introduced) 17.06.96 V5.40 - Fixed Smooth gadget in CanonBJECPref not getting loaded correctly (setting did work). - BJC 210 support added 06.12.96 V6.00 - DIN A4 size changed from 2804 to 2880 dots. - Support for BJC 240, BJC 4200, BJC 4550 added. - Support for Photo Ink Cartridges added. - Mirror function improved - unnecessary >68020 code removed to make driver smaller - Driver now uses it's own UCR/GCR function - Now uses CanonStudio dither routines (much faster and better quality) - New dither algorithems added (mainly Serpentine versions of error diffusion dithers. - Treshold dither was used with user color adjustment. Fixed. - Setting file changed for new dither routines - NULL command is now ignored for FF detection (possibel empty pages are avoided now if applications sents NULL (DPaint). - Driver now automaticly switches between Epson and Extended Emulation if required. - Transfer(), DoSpecial() completly rewritten. - Driver Presets added and improved - PageStream 2.x BJC 4xxx resolution fixed 08.03.97 V6.30 - Canon BJC 150 Gfx support added. - Bug in the new V6 automatic emulation switching routine fixed. In the worst and VERY unlikely condition, the driver might have printed code in the wrong emulation of the printer. - Order 4 dither methods altered. - Printer device dither methods were not 100% identical. 03.09.97 V6.40 - Fixes a problem that could cause old Amiga's with 68000 CPU to crash. - Blue Noise 30% could show slight vertical stripes in the dither pattern since V6.0. Now more randomized. 24.02.98 V6.50 - Canon BJC 80, 250, 4300, 4650 Support added. - Drop Modulation Support (DMT) added. 07.03.98 V6.50 - Fixed Photo Ink problems on BJC 250 in V6.5 from 24.02.98 19.08.98 V6.51 - Fixes a bug in the margin optimization call of the multilevel color dither routines used by DMT and Photo print modes. Caused light shaded areas below some objects. Did not affect normal print modes or b/w. Bug only affected V6.5 of the CanonBJEC driver. 01.11.98 V6.52 - Fixes a problem with BJC 6xx printers of V6.51 causing "ghosted" output in Extended Emulation. SetupBJL -------- 12.02.96 V1.0 - First version of the Setup software for Canon BJC 4100 16.06.96 V1.01 - Auto Power On feature disabled unless USEPOWERON tooltype is defined. This was necessary after hearing some problems with the printer after enabling the otherwise very usefull option. 27.11.96 V1.11 - Renamed to BJC 4xxx and BJC2xx - USERPOWERON added as shell option 08.03.97 V1.2 - Code 852 charset selection for BJC 2xx fixed. 08.03.97 V1.3 - BJC 1xx version for BJC 150 released. 13.11.97 V1.4 - Setup programs failed to correctly recognize the output device set in preferences (for instance defined using the "SetDevice" program) CanonBJ10: Now named CanonBJ5-230 ------------------------------------ 22.07.91 V1.1 27.11.91 V1.2 Version for Commodore + set presentation highlight removed for BJ300/330 printers (NOTE: this driver - with DIN pages sizes added - will become available on the Workbench 2.1/3.0 disks) 09.12.91 V1.3 Further changes for the BJ300 made 20.04.92 V3.0 major update: + arXon support added + new WB paper sizes added + I' accent fixed + CanonBeep option added + CanonTime option added + CanonResX option added + CanonConv option added + CanonTab option added + CanonPerf option added + CanonTop option added + CanonForm option added + CanonFont option added + FontShop program added + CanonPref program added + Report program added + aTBCALL command fixed + Check for MemCpy() fixed + MemCpy()/MemClr() improved + most text style commands changed for download font usage 01.06.92 V4 - changes in the documentation - a small bug in MemCpy() fixed, causing chars to appear in dark graphics - misaligned slider in CanonPref fixed 27.03.93 V5 - 100% new font independent CanonPref program - CanonGFeed option added (adjust graphic line spacing, avoiding stripes) - CanonMirror option added (mirror graphic dumps) - Supergrey function added (256 simultanious greyshades instead of 16 using WB color dump mode) - max. print size in 240*360 dpi mode fixed - free definable dither routines added - greyscale adjustment improved, replacing CanonConv (now named CanonGAdj) - FontShop is now font independent. - Security checks added to FontShop, avoiding crashes caused by corrupt fonts. - now compiled using SAS/C V6.2 - Native mode added for BJ200 graphic dumps (native mode uses TIFF compression) - CanonResX changed. Now CanonResX defines the paper size including borders (0.5 inch). - CanonResY added. Defines paper height including non printable border (0.6 inch). - PageStream 2.x native mode driver added (useable with BJ200, BJ230 and BJC800) - density settings changed for new greyscale adjustment/dither functions. 27.07.93 V5a - PageStream driver updated (now V2) o multiple page document now works o number of copies now works - PageStream driver now flushes WB driver 21.08.93 V5b - CanonPref/FontShop code improved. - Hexagonal dither added. - Current dither is highlighted while selecting a new dither. 06.09.93 V5.1 - printer got switched to emulation mode during aRIS causing trash to be printed. Though, this bug should only showed up in bad written programs (multiple pages on Final Copy). 22.09.93 V6.0 - 100% new dither routine - now with error-diffusion and blue noise dither - CanonPref > V5 CanonForm checkbox gadget was not sized right when used under WB 2.1 or 3.0 - "Graphics only" mode is now enabled after each Open() of device, avoiding problems with bad user habits (turning/reseting printer without InitPrinter afterwoods) - bad dither alignment fix added. - Custom dither now works with 1*1, 2*1 and 1*2 matrices - CanonPref dither listview now shows current dither matrix - CanonEmu definition changed (0=Text&Graphics 1=Graphics only) - automatic page size initialisation before graphics changed - PageStream driver now disables perforation skip that might have caused empty pages to be printed because of bad page size defined by user (it's a simple user fault!). Paper size must now be defined in the special gadget! 28.04.94 - PageStream 2.2 driver renamed to BJ200 and BJ230. BJ230 driver reworked for A3 sized paper. 22.01.95 V7.1 - fixes stripes problem with error diffusion dithers - Now compiled using small data mode... - All driver settings are now saved in one file in ENV: named "CanonBJ5-230Pref". - MAJOR changes to CanonPref: + Menu items added + similar to WB preferences USE, SAVE and FROM tooltype/arguments was added. + improved error message handling + improved dither window with preview. + presets for BJ printers available... 07.03.95 V8.0 - Canon 200ex support added - Setting CustomResX and ResY didn't work under Extended Emulation. 27.12.95 V8.01 - Minor internal changes... Still no bugs found - faster dither preview in prefs program. CanonBJ300 ---------- 25.07.91 V35 Rev 1 28.10.91 V35 Rev 1.2 - lf/cr bug removed 08.12.91 V35 Rev 1.3 - On request: HQ/DRAFT setting doesn't affect graphic dumps 20.04.92 V35 Rev 3 - major update: + arXon support added + new WB paper sizes added + I' accent fixed + CanonBeep option added + CanonTime option added + CanonResX option added + CanonConv option added + CanonTab option added + CanonPerf option added + CanonTop option added + CanonForm option added + CanonPref program added + CanonType option added + CanonFeed option added + Report program added + aTBCALL command fixed + Check for MemCpy() fixed + MemCpy()/MemClr() improved 25.05.92 V35 Rev 3.01 - HQ/DRAFT setting doesn't affect graphic dumps (now works... sorryyy) 01.06.92 V35 Rev 4 - changes in the documentation - a small bug in MemCpy() fixed, causing chars to appear in dark graphics - misaligned slider in CanonPref fixed 03.06.92Version 35 Rev 4.1 - bug in margin command fixed 20.02.93Version 35 Rev 5 - 100% new font independent CanonPref program - CanonGFeed option added (adjust graphic line spacing, avoiding stripes) - CanonMirror option added (mirror graphic dumps) - Supergrey function added (256 simultanious greyshades instead of 16 using WB color dump mode) - free definable dither routines added - greyscale adjustment improved, replacing CanonConv (now named CanonGAdj) - now compiled using SAS/C V6.2 - CanonResY added - density settings changed for new greyscale adjustment/dither functions. 22.09.93Version 35 Rev 6 - 100% new dither routine - now with error-diffusion, blue noise dither and hexagonal cluster dither - CanonPref code improved - now works with Cycle2Menu - bad dither alignment fix added. - Custom dither now works with 1*1, 2*1 and 1*2 matrices - CanonPref dither listview now shows current dither matrix - automatic page size initialisation before graphics changed 22.01.95Version 35 Rev 7.1 - fixes stripes problem with error diffusion dithers - Now compiled using small data mode... - All driver settings are now saved in one file in ENV: named "CanonBJ300Pref". - MAJOR changes to CanonPref: + Menu items added + similar to WB preferences USE, SAVE and FROM tooltype/arguments was added. + improved error message handling + improved dither window with preview. + presets for BJ printers available... 27.12.95Version 7.20 - recompiled using SAS/C V6.56 with full optimizer. - Minor internal changes... Still no bugs found - faster dither preview in prefs program. CanonBJ130 & CanonLBP & CanonBJC880 ----------------------------------- As the Canon BJ130 isn't sold anymore, the CanonBJ130 driver has been removed from this disk in order to get space for other software. The driver is still supported, however, not shiped with this disk. Please make a special request if you need the BJ130 driver. Similar to the BJ130 driver, the CaPSL drivers for Canon LBP and BJC 880 printers had to be removed from the disk in order to gain disk space. These drivers still exists and are support. However, they are shipped with a different disk. CanonStudio (limited/unlimited) ------------------------------- First, registered users can get an update for the CanonStudio program on the Internet. Watch the StudioAppDrivXX.lha file (and possibly others) on AmiNet in the text/print drawer for an update. 05.09.92 V1.0 First Version 08.09.92 V1.1 09.09.92 V1.2 16.09.92 V1.3 18.09.92 V1.4 23.09.92 V1.5 13.11.92 V1.51 02.12.92 V1.52 07.01.93 V1.53 27.01.93 V1.54 20.02.93 V1.55 11.07.93 V1.57 27.07.93 V1.58 22.09.93 V1.59 18.03.94 V1.62 22.01.95 V2.04 07.03.95 V2.07 21.07.95 V2.09 27.11.95 V2.10 20.02.96 V2.10c 20.02.96 V2.10d 21.04.96 V2.11 - ALL dither routines completly rewritten in order to suit upcoming optimize functions and image preview. - Right/Left margin handling of dither routines is optimized depending on image contents. When effectiv, can lead to 1000% speed increase... - Following functions have been translated to fast assembler code (% faster): - serpentine binary dither routines (30%) - IFF ILBM read routines (50%) - sharp/blur functions (10%) - 3d interpolation of CMS (10%) - Output modules are now listed in alphabetical order. Doubleclick can be used for selection. - CMSScan ink limit settings added. - CMSScan now applies a filter to CMYK profiles removing unwanted dots in the output. This means introducing faults to the profile for the benefit of better output. 21.04.96 V2.11b - Fixes the Error 50 problem in V2.11 after selecting top output module from the list. - Added a check avoid bad ink limit setups causing blank pages without CMS. 05.05.96 V2.11c - Printing program V2.11 didn't load 8 Bit IFF ILBM greyscale image with colormap correctly. Works again now... 10.06.96 V2.12 - PageStream 3.0i Server driver added - Improved server interface - 2 color IFF ILBM images were not loaded correctly by new V2.11 routines. Fixed - print dimension rectangle in window was wrong for VERY large (>900 inch!) posters. Fixed 05.10.96 V2.13 - PageStream 3.2 beta 6,7,8,9 driver added - All binary dither routines are now up to their final speed. This increases the Studio printing program speed further by 5-60%. - Recompiled for 68060 and full optimizer. - Now supports progressiv JPEG/JFIF files. Note: progressiv images currently must be printed from memory. - PNG read routines rewritten for new PNG library Version 1.0 beta 3-V0.89 and ZLIB 1.04 - Faster image file access implemented in: IFF ILBM, IFF DEEP, PBM, PGM, Targa, Gif, PCX, PNG. - Following serpentine(!) dither had a bug that might have caused a crash in Studio V2.11&2.12: Stucki, Jarvis and Sierra3. Again, only serpentine methods were affected. Fixed. - Effect window gadget scaling didn't worked for some fonts when opening the window multiple times. Fixed - Landscape poster printing for small image on computers with much memory and a high memory setting might cause the second row of pages to get inverted. Fixed - Studio could have crashed if an error occured while reading the image data of a PNG file. Fixed. - IFF read buffer underrun could cause Error 48 while reading IFF ILBM images. A rare bug in the original Commodore IFF source. Fixed. 01.01.97 V2.14 - recompiled using near code model. - memory for dither structure for preview wasn't free'd in V2.11 and V2.12 - Pointer array for landscape rotation was to small in V2.12 - 4 bytes trashed - BMP image format support added. Supported BMP formats are Windows BMP version 3 and OS 2 V1.x and V2.x: 1,4,8, 16 and 24 Bit. Uncompressed, RLE 4, RLE 8 and RLE 24 compression without delta is supported. Multiple image (or array) BMP's are supported and the first image from the array is used. - Left white margin check in multilevel BNoise dither routine of V2.11, V2.12 and V2.13 was not correct and caused a slowdown. The bug affected only very slightly the print speed - nothing else. - Multilevel dither routines restructered. CanonStudio now 40KByte smaller because of this. - BNoise and Order multilevel dither routines now written in assembler (20% total speed increase!). - Output modules now watch data send to the printer in order to avoid timeout problems if print data compresses to well. - PageStream 3.1 and 3.2 Studio driver did not print correctly if an unprintable margin was entered in PageStream. Fixed in Studio driver Ver 3 Rev 1. - BMP support added to CMSScan V2.14 (01.01.97) 14.05.97 V2.14c - TIFF V6 Support added - color CMS profile was loaded when printing using PageStream 3.x in greyscale mode using the Studio driver with CanonStudio set to color. - PrtDevice Halftone and Order were not 100% similar to the printer device method. - Server dpi info was overwritten by BMP reading routine if defined by server (so far unused by any server) 03.09.97 V2.15 - Binary (that is not Photo) assembler BNoise dither routines might show vertical stripes in light colors caused by random number generator introduced in V2.13. - Fixed a minor bug that caused the V2.14c TIFF reader to ignore DPI information. - Now compiled using SAS/C V6.58 - Fixed a bug in the left/right find() function that might cause longword access on odd address boundary (caused crash on old 68000 and 68010). This bug was introduced in V2.11. - Fixed a bug in the printing program causing the IFF ILBM output module to display error 14 when printing a poster with a startpage greater 1. - Fixed a bug in the printing program introduced in V2.14c causing the IFF ILBM output to fail printing non dithered 8/24 Bit images. - Fixed a bug when printing posters with a startpage > 1: in certain cases the last lines of the previous page are mixed with the start of the first (start)page printed. - Changes done to the multilevel dither routines allowing independent number of shades for each print color. Feature not used by Canon drivers. - Now uses AsyncIO link library V39.2 - IFF ILBM output module now warns when trying to print CMYK to 8/24 Bit file. - major speed improvements when printing using a startpage > 2. 10.03.98 V2.16 - A fault in the V2.14 and V2.15 CMS trilinear interpolation routine could cause an overflow in case the profile values differs greatly. As the fault introduced is usualy minor, the fault mainly becomes visible in sudden color changes of a smoth gradient. - The gamma window for measuring the users monitor gamma now works on 16/24 Bit screens. - All multilevel dither routines (Floyd, Jarvis, Stucki, Burkes, Sierra) are now implemented in assembler. This causes a total 30% speed increases. - Added Canon BJC 80, 250, 4300, 4650 modules - Profiles for BJC 2xx and 4xxx printers based on the Win 95 V3.93 drivers added. - SetAspect ARexx command did not work correctly while Landscape mode was enabled. - Fit Image on Page menu item and ARexx command added. - ARexx Version command will now report "4" to reflect added commands. - New monitor settings added. 15.06.98 V2.20 - Fixed serious bug in the manual display program of the CDROM (finaly someone told me it didn't work... it mainly worked with Gfx boards) - You had to abort printing for each page printed using the Show_Manual program. Now abort means all pages are aborted printing. - The program for transfering the dumpfiles to the printer (CDROM) didn't noticed any changes to the output selection device, unit and filename. - Improved manual (CDROM) - More images for testing (CDROM). - Epson emulation dumpfiles (CDROM) now changed to much faster Canon Extended emulation. 19.08.98 V2.21 - Fixes a bug in the margin optimization call of the multilevel color dither routines used by DMT and Photo print modes of the BJC output modules. Caused light shaded areas below some objects. Did not affect normal print modes or b/w. Bug only affected V2.14-V2.20 of the printing program and V6.50 of the CanonBJEC driver. (Continue by pressing 'Q' / Weiter mit Taste Q)