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PRINTING SPEED


Tips for increasing printing speed in New Deal software

Graphics Printing

New Deal software normally prints in graphics mode. That is, it sends all output to the printer in the form of ones and zeroes (bits), each corresponding to a black or white dot on the page. Laser printers generally print at 300 dots per inch (300 dpi), so this is a lot of dots! A page may require 8 million bits of data.

More conventional programs print in text mode. They send one number to specify each character (65 for "A," 66 for "B," etc.). The printer then uses its built-in character set to figure out how to paint the character on the page. So in text mode, the computer sends just one number, taking up 8 bits of data, which tells the printer to print dozens or even hundreds of dots. A page sent this way typically requires transmitting just 32,000 bits.

Therefore, New Deal's graphics-mode printing can be considerably slower than more conventional text-mode printing. A single NewWrite page printed in high quality mode, can take from 2 to 30 minutes to print, depending on the speed of the printer (8 MHz is a slow printer, 16 MHz is fast), the speed of the computer, and other factors.

The advantage, of course, is that since New Deal software takes complete charge of "painting" the whole page, you are not limited to the printer's built-in fonts (or added font cartridges). You can choose from all different sizes, orientations, and patterns. You can combine text and graphics. You can get printouts that look exactly like the screen.

Print Quality in New Deal software

In recent versions, New Deal has increased print resolutions for most supported printers, compared to older versions of the software. For many printers, the High Quality resolution in earlier versions was approxiimately 150 dpi (dots per inch), while in New Deal Office, Schoolsuite and other products, the High Quality resolution is closer to 300 dpi. Because you're getting better print quality, printing will take longer because more information is being sent to the printer. Try printing in Medium Quality mode -- it will print faster, and the print quality may be adequate for you.

Text Mode

Sometimes you may just want a printout of your text, and may not want to wait for something snazzier. To get a fast printout of your document, use the "text mode only" option. This simply dumps the characters in your document to the printer, more like a conventional word processor. Choose "text mode only," in the Printer Control box that appears when you print a document. Text mode is not an option in NewDraw.

Spacing may come out strangely on printouts using text-mode only. If it does, change your document to the font URW Mono. This is a non-proportionally spaced font (that is, small letters like "i" take up the same amount of space as large letters like "m") that is most similar to the Courier font that is often the default built-in font on printers.

Laser Printers

The "HP PCL Download Font Driver" will actually try to download accurate representations of your document's multi-size fonts to the printer, using HP's "Printer Control Language" (PCL), when you select text mode only. This gives you nice-looking documents and fast printing from HP-compatible laser printers.

RAM on Laser Printers

In order to print the most complex document you can design in New Deal software you will need 1.5 megabytes of RAM on the printer itself. The amount of RAM on the printer will not affect the speed of the print job -- it will only affect the size and complexity of the document you can print. Keep in mind that some models of laser printers, such as the HP LaserJet III, come with one megabyte of RAM on the printer, but 300K of that one megabyte is used by the printer itself for processing. Therefore, only 700K is available for printing and that may not be enough to print more complex documents.

Other Tips for Speeding Up Printing

  1. Always print from a parallel port. Printing on a parallel (LPT) port is several times faster than printing over a serial (COM) port.
  2. Have several megabytes of space free on your hard drive, if possible. New Deal software spools everything to be printed onto the hard drive, and hard disk access is considerably faster if there are at least a few megabytes free.
  3. Don't work on other things while a document is printing. There is a lot of background processing going on while your New Deal software prints, and it can go much faster if you are not trying to run some application in the foreground.
  4. Use interrupt-driven parallel port interface. Double click on Preferences, click on Computer, and look at how the LPT port you are using is set. For most efficient printing, LPT1: should be set to 7. LPT2: works fastest set to 5. The BIOS setting is about 8% slower than 5 or 7, and the DOS setting is slower still. However, the BIOS setting may be needed to prevent spurious "Printer off-line" errors, and DOS may be needed on some networks. Choose the fastest setting that works.
  5. Avoid rotated or re-sized bitmaps in your documents. If you've got a logo that you've scanned in and then re-sized, for example, your document printing can slow down considerably. The best solutions would be 1) try to re-create the logo in NewDraw instead of scanning it in, 2) scan it in from an original that is the correct size and orientation, or 3) print all but the final copies of your document in text mode only.

Font Cartridges, Third-Party Download Fonts, and Other Add-On Fonts

New Deal software does not support add-on font cartridges or third-party download fonts. You may add fonts to your New Deal software itself, however. New Deal has several font packs available (call our sales lines), and several other manufacturers (Zsoft, MicroLogic) sell fonts compatible with New Deal software. At this time, the lowest-price fonts we know of for New Deal software are those sold directly by New Deal.

The Best Speed Solution: PostScript

PostScript printers have a computer on board the printer that does the hard work of turning a page description into a pattern of black and white dots. They will print from New Deal software up to five or ten times faster than a standard laser printer.

Unfortunately, PostScript printers cost quite a bit more than standard laser printers. Add-on PostScript cartridges are available for many laser printers for several hundred dollars, and as with most electronics, prices are coming down. If you are doing a lot of printing, or are sharing a laser printer over a network, we highly recommend adding PostScript capability.

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