PREFACE: SmartPrint II is an "extension" of SmartKey II. If you've already learned how to use SmartKey, learning to use SmartPrint will be a breeze. SmartPrint II is not merely SIMILAR to SmartKey II, it actually DEPENDS upon the use of two SmartKey II files: SMARTKEY (to create SmartPrint definitions) and FIXKEY (to save them). So: * If you haven't already read the SmartKey II Manual - and acquired a working knowledge of SmartKey II - please do that first. You won't be able to use this program until you under- stand how to use SmartKey II. * If you don't already have (or didn't just get) SmartKey II, you won't be able to use SmartPrint II. (It's a bit like buying an automobile air conditioner without having a car.) So if your dealer sold you this program without also selling you SmartKey II, cuss him (or her) out for us - and go get SmartKey II. (There's a slight discount for buying both programs at the same time. Make sure you receive it.) IMPORTANT: Disks DO wear out! And electrical surges, glithches, burps, and power failures CAN destroy the information on them. So if you haven't already done so, please make a "working copy" of your SmartPrint II disk. Store the original in a safe place and use it ONLY to make new "working copies" as they become neces- sary. ALSO: Please take a moment to fill out and mail the "Warranty Registration Card." Without it, we won't be able to help you if you call (or write) us with ques- tions or problems. Nor can we send you low-cost up- dates as they become available. And, just as impor- tantly, we won't be able to replace a damaged master disk (for a very nominal charge) - unless we have your registration. PLEASE NOTE: SmartPrint II is ONLY COMPATIBLE with Smart- Key II. It WON'T work with the "original" version of SmartKey. In order to add all of SmartKey II's new features, compatibility between versions just wasn't possible. 1 INTRODUCTION: SmartKey II does one thing: it translates what your keyboard sends to your software. SmartPrint II, on the other hand, translates what your soft- ware sends to your printer. It was designed to help you solve either (or both) of these problems: * If your SOFTWARE can't do enough, that is your word processor or program can't take advantage of the hidden powers of your printer. * If your PRINTER can't do enough, that is your printer can't do what you or your software wants it to do. These aren't mutually exclusive problems. Some "daisy wheel" printers (when used with certain software) can have BOTH problems: they may lack certain characters on their print wheels - AND have special features (like variable pitch) that you can't use beacuse your software can't send the signals. IF YOUR SOFTWARE CAN'T DO ENOUGH: This is where SmartPrint II really shines. Many printers - especially "dot-matrix" printers - have "GRAPHICS" characters, "GREEK" character sets, variable pitches and line heights, even double-width characters: every "bell and whistle" you can think of. But most software won't allow you to use it all! Perfect Writer, for example, will let your printer blow just ONE of its whistles (unless you're willing to give up boldface - then you can have TWO). Whenever you fence something in with its "Italics" markers, Perfect Writer will send your printer whatever special code you've "installed" it to send. So if you type: This is normal, but @I(this is special.) Perfect Writer will send whatever signals you've told it to send, so that your printer will type the part inside the paren- theses in double-wide characters, or compressed pitch, or Greek... You choose which one - but that's the ONLY one you'll get. Even WordStar, famous for its versatility, doesn't have enough custom "user patches" to allow my C-Itoh 8510 to really strut all its stuff. But with SmartPrint II, you can blow every whistle and ring every bell! 2 IF YOUR PRINTER CAN'T DO ENOUGH: SmartPrint II can work wonders, but it can't perform mir- acles. If your printer's "daisy wheel" doesn't have a particular printing character, SmartPrint II can't "grow" it for you. But it can HELP solve this problem: If there is some special symbol that you need which your daisy wheel doesn't have, you can use SmartPrint II to SUBSTITUTE some other symbol OR ANY ABBREVIATION that might "stand for" that symbol - no matter how long or short the abbreviation might be. For example, if your printer can't print: ^ SmartPrint II could automatically substitute: CONTROL- Or (in boldface): C- Or: CTRL- Or even: [CONTROL] Of course you COULD do the same thing yourself (or have SmartKey II do it for you) when you're WRITING your text. Or you could use your word processor's "global replace" feature to do it AFTERWARDS. But there's an advantage to letting SmartPrint II do it: If you're likely to print your text again on a DIFFERENT printer - one that HAS the symbol your original printer DOESN'T - you won't have to make any changes in your text. Just use Smart- Print II to "translate" the symbol for one printer - then print the text WITHOUT SmartPrint II on the other. You can also use SmartPrint II to add accent marks used in other languages or even combine characters to build entirely new ones. See page 14 for several examples. You need to be aware, however, that if SmartPrint II "trans- lates" ONE special symbol into a SERIES OF CHARACTERS, any "flush-right" justified line containing that character will go past the right margin. If your original text looks like this: This section deals with the use of "CONTROL" char- acters. There are several "CONTROL" commands to delete text: ^G will delete the next character - that's the character on which the cursor happens to be when you issue the command. When you use SmartPrint II to "translate" it for your prin- ter with the "deficient" daisy wheel, it will look like this: This section deals with the use of "CONTROL" char- acters. There are several "CONTROL" commands to delete text: CTRL-G will delete the next character - that's the character on which the cursor happens to be when you issue the command. 3 Despite this (unavoidable) drawback, substituting an abbre- viation can still be a very useful trick. If you're NOT right- justifying your lines, one short abbreviation or so per line will probably still look quite acceptable: This section deals with the use of "CONTROL" characters. There are several "CONTROL" commands to delete text: CTRL-G will delete the next character - that's the character on which the cursor happens to be when you issue the command. And even if you ARE right-justifying, if you know that your text will end up printed on a machine that HAS the missing sym- bol, you might feel that the "translated" version on your "defi- cient" printer is more readable as a "working draft." HOW SMARTPRINT II WORKS: To understand how SmartPrint II works, let's compare it briefly to SmartKey II: You load SmartKey II into your computer's memory, and it "lurks" there - invisible to any other program you later load - monitoring your keyboard. If you type a key that you've already told SmartKey II you wanted to "redefine," SmartKey II will pounce on that signal before it gets to your word processor (or filer or database manager or whatever you're using), and will send your "definition." This definition can be something that you just made up on the spur of the moment - or it can part of a "definition file" that you wrote using SmartKey II and SAVED using Fixkey. (If you haven't already done so, please read the SmartKey II Manual FIRST for details of these processes.) SmartPrint II works in just the same way - except that it monitors your computer's OUTPUT TO YOUR PRINTER. Since SmartPrint II ISN'T monitoring your keyboard, you CAN'T ADD new definitions "on the fly" as you can with SmartKey II. Your PRINTER definitions have to be already "saved" in a "definition file." Which means that, in order to work, SmartPrint II has to have a "definition file" it can use. So if you try to load JUST SmartPrint II, it will BEEP at you, and tell you that you haven't "specified" what "definition file" to use - and it won't load! Don't panic - that's what its SUPPOSED to do. The ONLY WAY to load SmartPrint II is to type: smartprn [space] But BEFORE you do that, you'll need to MAKE some defini- tions, and then to SAVE them. So let's look at the whole pro- cess, now, step by step: 4 HOW TO USE SMARTPRINT II: * To CREATE SmartPrint definitions, you use SmartKey. * To SAVE them, you use Fixkey. * And to USE them, you use SmartPrint. Which of these files to keep on which disks is a question we'll deal with later, but for now let's assume that you have (at least) the following files all on the same disk: SMARTPRN.___ * (the SmartPrint II program) SMARTKEY.___ * (the SmartKey II program) FIXKEY.___ * (SmartKey II utility program) * - The three-letter file extension varies depending upon your operating system. It might be .COM or .CMD or .EXE Load SmartKey II by typing: smartkey SmartKey II will respond with a brief "sign-on" message, will declare itself "ready," and will return you to your opera- ting system. Now let's use SmartKey II to CREATE a pair of definitions. In the following example, I'm going to use the codes that the C-Itoh 8510 (the Prowriter) wants to hear so that it will switch to the alternate "Graphics" character set. These are: [ESC]-# (to switch to Graphic Symbols) and [ESC]-$ (to go back to normal characters) To make this exercise USEFUL, you should substitute whatever "codes" your particular printer requires to turn ON and OFF some special feature - alternate pitch or line spacing or graphics or whatever you would like. Please look in your printer's manual to find these codes. (And please DON'T call us to ask. We don't know what they are - every printer is different!) For the FIRST definition (to turn the special feature ON), tell SmartKey II to "redefine": { - the left brace or "curly"- bracket: SMARTKEY: redefine <{> to <^[#> For the SECOND definition (to turn the feature OFF), tell SmartKey II to "redefine": } - the right brace or "curly"- bracket: SMARTKEY: redefine <}> to <^[$> 5 Now let's SAVE this pair of definitions into a separate "definition file": Load FIXKEY.___, by typing: fixkey And from the menu of choices, select: 1 Give the file a name: printest [return] CLEAR the CURRENT definitions*: 5 OR: TERMINATE SmartKey II*: 7 Now exit from Fixkey, by typing: 0 * - If you DON'T do one of these two alternatives, then SmartKey II will continue to act on the two def- initions you just wrote. So when you try to type { or } in your practice file, you'll be sending [ESC]-# or [ESC]-$. Perfect Writer will "beep" at you - and other word processors will do other (possibly ugly) things. Now for the fun. Use your word processor to write a short test file. To keep things simple, write the test file on the same disk you've been using (the one with SmartPrint II on it). As you'll see later (FILE "MANAGEMENT") these files CAN be on different disks. But let's save some "disk-swapping." Put your word processing "edit" disk in A drive, and your "SmartPrint/test file" disk in B. Initialize the disks if your operating system requires it (by typing ^C or CONTROL-BREAK or whatever). If you left SmartKey II in memory, it will stay there during this changeover unless you do a "system RESET." Whether SmartKey II is IN memory OR NOT won't effect the rest of this example. (UNLESS you forgot to "CLEAR" its "CURRENT DEFINITIONS.") Smart- Print II ONLY NEEDS SmartKey II while you're MAKING and SAVING definitions. It DOESN'T need it while you're USING them to print. And it doesn't "resent" its presence either! They get along together in your computer's memory just fine... So write whatever you want in this test file. And wherever you want your printer to turn ON its "special feature," type: { To turn it off at any point,* type: } * - Some printers (the Brother HR-1 for example) re- quire a separate line before they can execute certain changes (like changing pitch). So experiment in your test file by putting the { and } sometimes on separate lines, sometimes in the middle of lines. When you've finished writing your test file, "save" it as you normally would. Then exit from your word processor. 6 Now switch to the B drive* and type: smartprn [space] printest * - You CAN stay on the A drive and summon up Smart- Print II; but you'll have to type it this way: B:smartprn [space] B:printest If you leave out the second B: you'll be telling Smart- Print II to look for the definition file on the "logged" drive - the A drive in this case. Since it isn't there, SmartPrint II will BEEP and tell you it couldn't find it. SmartPrint II will load itself, tell you it's "ready," and return you to your system. Now go back to your word processor and tell it to PRINT your test file. Just like SmartKey II, SmartPrint II will STAY IN MEMORY during a "Warm Boot" or "Control-Break" sequence. It will ONLY be terminated by a "System RESET." (Or by using Fixkey, as you'll see.) This is the test file I wrote: THIS IS A TEST. {IT IS NOT A VERY IMAGINATIVE TEST.} BUT IT SHOULD BE AT LEAST AN {INTERESTING} TEST... And when I printed it on my C-Itoh (using SmartPrint II and the definition file printest) this is what I got: THIS IS A TEST. IT IS NOT A VERY IMAGINATIVE TEST. BUT IT SHOULD BE AT LEAST AN INTERESTING TEST... 7