---------------------------------------------- PSPS v3.0 --- PostScript PrintScreen Utility ----- Copyright 1993 A.N.D. Technologies ----- ---------------------------------------------- -------- OVERVIEW -------- PSPS is a versatile screen dump tool for PostScript printers. PSPS allows you to use the PrintScreen key (or Shift-PrintScreen) and capture screens into PostScript format. Feature list: Output - to LPT port using BIOS or fast hardware port mode - Encapsulated PostScript file or regular PostScript file - Novell print queue Text mode screens (any size) Graphics adapters supported - MDA, CGA, Hercules, EGA, MCGA, VGA, VESA Super VGA, or any graphics adapter which supports Int 10 BIOS functions. Printing modes - monochrome, reverse monochrome, grayscale, reverse grayscale, color, reverse color PostScript Level 2 support. This version is much faster than previous versions of PSPS. PSPS will not work with the extended graphics modes of 8514/A or XGA. PostScript is a trademark of Adobe, Inc. Windows and DOS are trademarks of Microsoft, Corp. And of course Novell and IBM. ------------ INSTALLATION ------------ PSPS requires 12K of RAM, and may be unloaded when you're not using it. You may load PSPS high into a UMB, but you'll need a 21K free area. -------------------- COMMAND LINE OPTIONS -------------------- If PSPS is already loaded, just type PSPS to find the current settings. You may also change one or more settings without affecting any of the others. L=N[B,H] Output to LPT port where N=1,2,3 [B=BIOS, H=HW Port] F=E,P Output to new EPS,PS File: PSPSxxxx.(E)PS; xxxx=1-9999 FS=fsname File Server for queue (must come before queue) Q=qname Output to Novell print queue "qname" U Uninstall O=P,L Orientation=Portrait, Landscape M=M,RM,G,RG,C,RC Mode=Mono, Rev. Mono, Gray, Rev. Gray, Color, Rev. Color X=N,Y=N Dimensions of graphics screen which PSPS can't detect PSL=N PostScript Level to use for graphics; N=1,2 ND No graphics status Display S=N Text Screens per page; N=1,2,3 E Eject page, flush unprinted text screens ------------------------------------------------ L=N LPT port where N=1,2,3 [B=BIOS, H=HW Port] ------------------------------------------------ Default=LPT1 using hardware port. The hardware port option is much faster, especially with newer printers which have high-speed parallel ports. However, if there are any incompatibilities with your parallel ports, you may choose the BIOS option. You should also use the BIOS option if you are capturing printer output to a non-Novell network printer. Ex. L=1B - LPT1 using BIOS L=2H - LPT2 using HW Port ------------------------- F=E Create new EPS File F=P Create new PS File ------------------------- The EPS file is suitable for import into word processors and desktop publishing programs. However, it is unlikely that EPS files created by PSPS will will be viewable by image editing programs; these programs often need their own specific information which they incorporate into their own EPS files. EPS files are named PSPSxxxx.EPS, where xxxx is a number from 1 to 9999. PS files contain exactly the same data as if it were sent to the printer. PS files are named PSPSxxxx.PS, where xxxx is a number from 1 to 9999. EPS files will not print if sent unmodified to the printer. In text mode, only PS files are supported. File numbers begin at 1 for every new PSPS session. Files are placed in the current directory. Files with the same name WILL BE OVERWRITTEN. --------------------------------------------------------- FS=fsname File Server for queue (must come before queue) Q=qname Output to Novell print queue "qname" --------------------------------------------------------- PSPS now has support for Novell print queues. If the specified queue is not on the default file server, then it is necessary to use the FS option. Do not use the common Novell syntax FileServerName/QueueName, because PSPS treats the "/" character as a command line argument separator (even though it's not necessary). If FS is necessary, you must use it before the Q option, or else PSPS will be unable to locate the queue. The Novell CAPTURE command is not necessary. --------------- U Uninstall --------------- Removes PSPS from memory. ------------------------------------------ O=L Landscape Orientation (11" x 8 1/2") O=P Portrait Orientation (8 1/2" x 11") ------------------------------------------ Default=Portrait Will work in both text and graphics modes. PSPS should work fine with A4 size paper, although the graphics images will be slightly off center. ---------------------------------------- M=M,RM,G,RG,C,RC Graphics Printing Mode ---------------------------------------- Default=Reverse Grayscale The choices are monochrome/reverse monochrome (1 bit), grayscale/reverse grayscale (8 bit), color/reverse color (12/24 bit). Monochrome and grayscale use a black background, so use reverse if you want a white background. PSPS will not create grayscale or color data from 2 color graphics screen modes. When using a monchrome printing mode with a 4/16/256 color screen mode, the background color is assumed to be color 0 in the palette, which is usually black, and all other colors become the foreground color in the PostScript output. See the next section for instructions on Hercules graphics mode printing. Color printing uses RGB values. Each 6 bit red, green, and blue color register is automatically converted to a 4 bit value (PS Level 1) or to an 8 bit value (PS Level 2). Therefore, there will be problems with 24 bit graphics screen modes. This may be changed in later versions. Reverse grayscale inverts everything. Reverse color exchanges black and white - all other colors remain the same. The percentage of the elapsed job time is displayed on the upper left. ---------------------------------------------------------------- X=N,Y=N Dimensions of graphics screen which PSPS can't detect ---------------------------------------------------------------- PSPS can detect the dimensions of CGA, EGA, MCGA, VGA and VESA Super VGA graphics screens. Therefore, if you use Hercules or other Super VGA specific screen modes, then you must tell PSPS what the screen dimensions are. If you haven't specified these values, then PSPS will perform a text screen dump if it can't detect the screen mode. For Hercules graphics modes use X=720 Y=348. The graphics adapter must support VGA Int 10 BIOS routines. Not all VESA Super VGA adapters support standard BIOS calls. PSPS won't try to print graphics on these adapters. ------------------------------------------------------ PSL=N PostScript Level to use for graphics; N=1,2 ------------------------------------------------------ The default is PSL=1. In graphics modes, the size of the resulting file or print job can be pretty large. The header is not very long, so here are the sizes you can expect using PostScript Level 1: Monochrome modes: 1 byte of data for every 4 pixels Grayscale modes: 2 bytes of data for every pixel Color mode: 3 bytes of data for every pixel Typical data sizes for 640x480 screen dumps: PS Level 1 Grayscale 615K PS Level 2 Grayscale 385K (at most) PS Level 1 Color (12 bit) 922K PS Level 2 Color (24 bit) 386K (at most) If you choose PostScript Level 2, PSPS uses ASCII85 encoding. Unlike some compression methods, there is never any data loss (or gain!). At most, ASCII85 encoding generates 5 bytes for every 4 pixels. For Level 2 color, PSPS uses a color lookup table as opposed to generating RGB values for each pixel as in Level 1. PS Level 2 grayscale laser printers WILL convert color images to grayscale. It will be advantageous for you to use the color option if your screens have black (or whatever the background color 0 is) areas, because ASCII85 encoding will create even less data if the data contains consecutive zeros (1 byte for 4 pixels). You should absolutely use the PSL=2 option if you have a PostScript Level 2 printer. ----------------------------------- ND No graphics status Display ----------------------------------- Suppresses the status display during graphics screen dumps. ---------------------------------------- S=N Number of text screens per page ---------------------------------------- Default=1 (Not supported in graphics modes) Since most text screens have 25 lines, you will find that one text screen dump hardly fills a sheet of paper. You may choose to print up to three screens on one page. PSPS will scale the size of the text to fit on the page based on the number of screens you have chosen, the dimensions of the first screen to be dumped, and the page orientation. You should note that PostScript printers have a job timeout feature; this setting automatically ends a print job after a specified time interval if a job is incomplete and no more data is received during that time. This value should be high enough to allow for any pauses you may encounter during multiple text screen dumps. Similarly, if you are capturing data to a network printer, then your network capture timeout value should also be large enough to allow for pauses between text screen dumps. ---------------------------------------------- E Eject page, flush unprinted text screens ---------------------------------------------- If you have unprinted screens, then this will eject the page. It simply sends a CTRL-D (character code 4) to the printer. If you send it manually, the next text screens(s) may not print correctly. --------------- TEXT MODE NOTES --------------- PSPS detects EGA/VGA 43/50 line and SVGA 132 column text screens. PSPS uses bitmaps for line/box characters, Symbol font for some extended characters, and Courier font for the rest. Control code characters (less than 32) are printed as blanks. If the cursor is off, you will not see PSPS moving through its routine. --------------------------- USING PSPS IN A DOS SESSION IN MICROSOFT WINDOWS 3.1 --------------------------- In Windows 3.1, the PrintScreen key is used to copy the screen contents to the Clipboard. You can disable this feature and return the PrintScreen key to be used with PSPS by editing the PIF file used in your DOS session. In the PIF Editor: 1 - Click on [Advanced...] 2 - Next to Reserve Shortcut Keys, mark PrtSc 3 - Save the PIF file. ------ NOTICE ------ PSPS is distributed as is, with no warranty implied or otherwise. If you distribute PSPS, you may not charge anything for it, other than any distribution costs you may incur. If you do so, please distribute it in the zip file PSPS30.ZIP, including the files PSPS.EXE, PSPS.DAT, and PSPS.TXT. ---------------- REGISTERING PSPS ---------------- A lot of time and testing went into PSPS. The unregistered version has all the same features as the registered version. When you first load PSPS, you will encounter an "Unregistered version" notice. This does not occur once you register. The price: $25 US for 1 license $125 for a site license $40 for a 1 license PSPS/T2PS bundle (see below for T2PS) $200 for a PSPS/T2PS site license If you are registering from outside the US, please make sure your payment is cashable at a US bank so that there are no conversion fees. Credit cards are not accepted at this time although they may be in the future. Purchase orders are accepted. Please add $10 for wire transfers. After you register, you will be sent a new PSPS.EXE by E-Mail. If you require a diskette to be mailed, please include an extra $5 inconvenience charge. Please send payments to: A.N.D. Technologies P.O. Box 64811 Los Angeles, CA 90064 USA Please include your name, company, mailing address, E-Mail address(es), and how you found out about PSPS. Registered users of previous versions of PSPS are also registered for this version. Please contact A.N.D. for a registration number. ----------------- TECHNICAL SUPPORT ----------------- Most communication is done by E-Mail, which is always monitored. Please feel free to leave questions and comments at: Internet - andtech@netcom.com Compuserve - 71011,3570 Phone/Fax - (213) 467-8688 In order to keep the software inexpensive, it's highly unlikely that long-distance phone calls will be returned. ---------------------------------------- WHERE TO FIND THE LATEST VERSION OF PSPS ---------------------------------------- On CompuServe: in IBMHW:Printer Utilities On Internet: at ftp.netcom.com, in pub/andtech PSPS - Copyright (c) 1992-4 A.N.D. Technologies ------------------------------------- OTHER SOFTWARE BY A.N.D. TECHNOLOGIES ------------------------------------- PCOUNTER 2.33C - A PAGE COUNTING PRINT SERVER FOR NOVELL NETWORKS Features: PostScript and HP LaserJet page counting; fast printing - including baud rates up to 115K baud; Text to PostScript conversion; user accounting; support for networked printers; simple configuration; and more! T2PS 1.0 - TEXT TO POSTSCRIPT CONVERSION TSR Features: Requires only 6.8K of RAM, and may be unloaded; user sets the font size, tab size, margins, page orientation, and LPT port; supports the extended IBM character set; ignores PostScript data. Great for programs without PostScript drivers. See above for info on a T2PS/PSPS bundle.