EGAD Screen Print

EGAD Text & Graphics Screen Print

Copyright © 1988-1996, 1997 LS Software [wlindley.com, l.l.c.]

What is EGAD?

EGAD Screen Print improves the Print Screen function of your computer.

DOS comes with a rudimentary function which supports few printers and offers few features. Windows does not include a one-keystroke Print Screen function. Other Screen Print packages are much too large and cumbersome for most tasks. EGAD fits comfortably between these alternatives.

With EGAD, you can press the Print Screen key whenever you want to print text or graphics. Then use the arrow keys to adjust the “Crop Box” and pick a portion of the screen, if you desire. Then just press ENTER to start printing. You can also select to enlarge or reduce graphics, print rotated or non-rotated graphics, and more.

START HERE

How to Read This Manual:

• Begin with the Installation section. EGAD should then be configured and running on your computer.
• “Activating EGAD” covers how EGAD can be loaded into memory, and the command-line switches for setting options.
• “The Crop Box” describes how to manipulate the box which displays when you press Print Screen.
• “Use with Windows” explains how EGAD can work with Windows.
• “Configuration,” starting on page 12, covers changing default settings, like printer ports, rotation, and colors.
• “Printer Specifics,” on page 17, is an introduction to the details of how EGAD prints and how to make it work best for you.
• Questions? Problems? See page 18.

Installation

You may wish to check the boxes to the left of each paragraph as you proceed. Please be sure to read each paragraph fully before proceeding.

Copy EGAD To Your Working Disk

As the first part of the installation process, we copy one of the EGAD drivers from the EGAD disk to your working disk (usually your hard disk, such as C:.)

• Insert the EGAD Screen Print diskette into floppy drive A: (or B:). From the DOS command prompt (C>) type the following: A:INSTALL and press ENTER. (Type B:INSTALL if you placed the diskette in the B: drive.)
• At the Install menu, press the ENTER arrow key to select the choice “Install EGAD.” From here, follow the Install menu prompts.

Select a Printer

• Select your printer − or a compatible model − from the printer menu. Use the up and down arrows and PageUp and PageDn keys to move through the list. Press ENTER to select support for that printer.

HINTS:

If you have installed other graphics software which successfully prints on your printer, look for the printer model which you have selected on those installations. Or consult your printer manual for a list of compatible printers.

• HP inkjets: The DeskJet 500 driver works for most HP inkjets without color, or for 8 gray tones using the black cartridge only. Use the DeskJet 500C driver for all HP inkjets with a single cartridge slot (switch cartridges for color) and the 550C driver for all HP inkjets with dual cartridges (color and black simultaneously.)
• Canon Color inkjets: These must be set in the Epson mode to print color. See the next paragraph.
• Bubble, Inkjet, 24-pin Matrix: Many printers (such as Canon and Panasonic) can be set to work in either “Epson” or “IBM” mode. (“Canon” mode is equivalent to “IBM.”) If you have one of these printers, you may need to examine the printer’s DIP switch settings or front panel setup to determine the EGAD driver to install. Many bubble and inkjet printers emulate 24-pin matrix printers and will use the matrix printer drivers. In general, printers in Epson mode use the “Epson LQ” driver while IBM or Canon mode will use the “IBM ProPrinter X24” setup.
• Other Matrix: Earlier matrix printers often emulated the Epson 9-pin printers (MX, FX, RX, etc.) If in doubt, try EGAD’s “Epson/Compatible 9-pin” driver. This works on most matrix printers, even 24-pin models (although they may print a “squished” or incorrect aspect-ratio image.)
• Laser: Most laser printers are compatible either with the Hewlett-Packard (HP) LaserJet series or with Adobe PostScript. Printers with PCL 5 can use EGAD’s LaserJet IIP/III/4 driver for additional speed.
• Color: Printer setups marked “(Color)” can print in up to 64 colors (8 colors on some older models.) Of the 64 colors, three are gray tones. Even if your printer can print in color, you may wish to choose the non-color equivalent to obtain seven gray tones.
• Wide: The “Wide” printer selections allow EGAD to print across an 11″ wide sheet of paper for bigger images, but are otherwise identical to non-wide.

Once you have selected a printer, the Install program will tell you EGAD’s name for the type of printer you have selected. For example, if you choose Apple LaserWriter as your printer, Install will tell you that “This printer will use the EGAD setup for: PostScript.” This simply means that the Apple LaserWriter is compatible with EGAD’s PostScript driver.

Tell INSTALL Where to Put EGAD

• Press ENTER to accept the printer type, and proceed to the Directory menu. The Directory menu allows you to specify the subdirectory of your hard disk onto which you would like to install EGAD. The directories in your PATH statement are listed here. The current directory (that is, the one which you were in when you typed A:INSTALL) is always listed as a choice as well, for those users with floppy only systems or network users.
• From the list of directories, choose the one into which you would like to install EGAD Screen Print. Press ENTER to start installation. HINT: You may wish to select either 1) a directory in which you put other utility programs; or 2) the directory containing the software you will usually use EGAD with.
• If a copy of EGAD Screen Print already exists in that directory, you will see a message and a matching menu. Choose the appropriate action to continue. A copy of EGAD already exists in this directory. If you are installing an update, choose “Overwrite.” To support a second printer, use “Additional.”
• You should then see a message, “Please wait for file to be extracted” as the Install program copies the EGAD Screen Print program from the floppy disk.

Do You Want EGAD to Load Automatically?

At this point, EGAD has been copied to your working disk. However, it will not be active unless it is loaded from the disk into memory. You can do this manually each time you want to use EGAD; you can load EGAD from a batch file; or you can select to have the INSTALL program modify your system files so that EGAD will be active each time you start your computer.

• The INSTALL program can automatically modify your startup files (specifically, CONFIG.SYS or AUTOEXEC.BAT) so that EGAD is loaded each time you turn on or reset your computer. While the Install program can generally modify simple configurations successfully, you may wish to review the changes (or have your System Administrator review them) if your system includes any of the following: · 386 Memory Manager · Network · “Multi-Boot” function · Menuing, Windowing, or other Automatic start-up.
• If you have installed EGAD before, and it is already loading into memory successfully, choose No.
• If you wish to allow Install to modify your system files, select Yes. Then choose the disk which you boot from (generally C: for hard disk users and A: for floppy systems.) Install will then tell you that it is going to modify CONFIG.SYS (for DOS 5.0 and above, or AUTOEXEC.BAT elsewise) and ask for confirmation.
  Lastly, INSTALL copies the SETEGAD program into the same directory where you placed EGAD. SETEGAD is used to permanently set options such as color, print orientation, etc.
• After INSTALL finishes, the message, “Install Operation Complete” appears. EGAD Screen Print is now installed on your system.

NOTE: You only need to perform the above “COPY” steps once.

• If you selected automatic configuration, wait a few seconds and then reboot your computer (by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Del.) As your system loads you should see the message, “EGAD has been loaded and can be activated by pressing Print Screen.” If you see this message, proceed to the section “Making your First Printout” below; otherwise, review your system files.

Manually Loading EGAD Into Memory

Once EGAD is copied onto your working disk, it can then be loaded into memory. You must issue the command EGAD/T after each power-up (or reboot) if you wish EGAD to be resident or place that command in a Batch file. Let’s do it manually once as a test.

• At the DOS prompt, type the command: EGAD/T and press ENTER. You should see a banner which will include LS Software’s address, the EGAD version number, and the type of printer selected. You should also see a message stating, “EGAD has been loaded and can be activated by pressing Print Screen.“

If the computer responded with “Bad Command or File Name,” that means that the computer could not find the program EGAD.EXE. Check to ensure that the directory into which you copied the EGAD.EXE file is in your path by typing PATH and pressing ENTER. If you did not get the “Installed” message, re-type the command, being sure to include the /T and checking that you have the “forward” slash (/).

Test Time! — Making Your First Printout

• Be sure your printer is turned on and ready to print.
• Once you get the “Installed” message, press the Print Screen key. You should see a rectangular line around the screen. This “crop box” indicates EGAD is ready to accept your print command. Now press ENTER. Your printer should print the EGAD sign-on message (and whatever else is on the screen.)
• If you did not see the box, press and hold the Shift key, and then Print Screen.
• If you saw the box and pressed ENTER but received no printout, check your printer. Is it On-Line? Is it connected to LPT1? (If it is connected to a different printer port, see “Command Line Switches.”)
• If you still don’t get the box or a printout, print out your AUTOEXEC.BAT and CONFIG.SYS files, and call LS Software. Please mention your: ⋅ operating system (DOS, Windows 95, Windows NT, etc) ⋅ printer type ⋅ network type.

Congratulations! EGAD is now installed on your computer. You may want to look at the “Questions & Answers” or “Printer Specifics” sections. of this manual.

Activating EGAD

EGAD may be used two ways: as a memory-resident program (activated by the Print Screen key), or as a command (from the command line, from a batch file, or “spawned” from your application program). By loading EGAD as a memory-resident program, you can print the screen from within any program by pressing the Print Screen key. This normally brings up the Crop Box, described below.

The Installation process (above) can change your system configuration (the AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS file), adding a command to automatically load EGAD into memory each time your system starts.

EGAD is usually loaded with just /T switch: EGAD /T while other switches (see below) can also be used to change various parameters. Once EGAD is loaded into memory, it is active until removed with the /U switch, or the computer is rebooted.

NOTES:

• Do not make a Windows 95 shortcut to the EGAD program. This would run EGAD, then immediately exit to DOS (which unloads EGAD). See page 11.
• Some programs disable the Print Screen key. See “Technical Notes” in this manual if pressing Print Screen does not work from your application.)
• In the command line examples, in order for MS-DOS to find the “EGAD” command, EGAD.EXE must be in the current directory, or a directory listed in the PATH environment string.

Command-Line Switches

The following command line switches are recognized by EGAD. Note that the equals signs (=) are shown, but are not required: /B0 is equivalent to /B=0. Dashes (-) may be substituted for slashes (/). ‘n’ is to be replaced with a number. If the EGAD command is given with no switches, a brief help message will be shown.

Exactly one of /T, /P, or /U must be specified.

The defaults for /A, /B, /D, /E, /F, /R, and /V are set via SETEGAD (use “Modify Disk File.”) SETEGAD may be used to override these settings for a memory-resident copy of EGAD (use “Modify Memory”).

/A Horizontal Alignment Default: /A=1 (Left)

This switch sets the horizontal placement of EGAD printouts; i.e., the left-to-right alignment as the paper feeds out of the printer. See /N for vertical alignment.

/B Enable/Disable Crop Box Default: /B=1 (Enabled)

Generally used in conjunction with /P to cause EGAD to immediately begin printing. For example, your program may wish to draw several graphs and print them with no user intervention. However, it may be used with /T — if so, pressing Print Screen will not bring up the crop box, but will begin printing immediately.

/C Set Printout Colors Default: [printer dependent]

The /C switch overrides the color selections made via SETEGAD, and should be followed by one or more printer color numbers: the first of these is used for screen color 0; the second for screen color 1; etc. For example, to print screen color 0 as printer color 7, and screen color 1 as printer color 0, use /C=7,1 If fewer than 16 colors are supplied, the table will be filled with the last entry given (in this case, 1.)

/D Set Output Device Default: /D=LPT1

The default output device is initially LPT1:. This can be changed by using SETEGAD to modify the disk file. Using /D also overrides the default output device. Valid device names are COM1 through COM4 and LPT1 through LPT3. For example: /D=LPT3

/E Set Enlargement/Reduction Default: /E=1 (Normal)

Sets the enlargement/reduction factor, which affects graphic printouts. Be sure to disable the crop box (using /B=0), or it will override this setting. Values for /E are:

0 (reduced printout)
1 (normal sized)
2, 3, or 4 (2x, 3x, and 4x enlargements)
5 (1½x enlargement).

/F Page Formatting Default: 1[Laser], 0[others]

Selects whether EGAD will eject the page after each printing. Enabled if /F=1, disabled if /F=0. With Laser printers, /F=0 will allow you to make multiple printouts on a single sheet of paper; however, if any printout is too large to fit on the page, it may be “truncated,” or “split” across two pieces of paper. While judicious use of the Form Feed button on the printer will prevent this, we recommend using /F=1 on laser printers. On HP LaserJet printers only, /F=2 resets the printer before printing;
/F=3 resets before and ejects after (Other printers regard these as equivalent to 0 or 1). These are especially useful when sharing a printer on a network. Use /F=3 with
/N=3 for proper vertical positioning on HP LaserJets.

/G Special Graphics Force Mode Default: 0 (Normal)

With some Monochrome Graphics adapters, EGAD cannot detect the screen mode (graphics vs. text). /G=2 forces Graphics printouts. See SPECIAL NOTE, next page.

/O Select Orientation Default: 0 (Automatic)

“Automatic” orientation (/O=0) allows EGAD to select the rotation of the printout (i.e., Portrait or Landscape) to most closely match the aspect ratio of the screen to that of the printer, resulting in minimum distortion. Forced Portrait (/O=1) may be desirable when mixing text and graphics, and forced Landscape (/O=2) allows your printouts to use the maximum amount of printable area on the page.

/R Specify Print Region Default: Whole Screen

Specifies a print region. For example, the command: EGAD/R=0,10,40,20 will select a region whose upper left corner is (0,10) and whose lower right corner is (40,20). Note this describes a box 41 pixels wide (0..40 inclusive). The lower right hand corner of the screen in 640×350 mode, for example, is (639,349).

If /R is specified with /T, the given box will be the “default” for the crop box each time Print Screen is pressed. And if /R is used with /T and /B=0, then pressing Print Screen will always print the specified region.

To specify the entire screen (regardless of the size) use /R=0,0,0,0

/V Set VGA Divisor Default: /V=1

Sets the color divisor for 256-color modes. EGAD can print at most sixteen colors, and using this divisor gives you some control when printing from the 256 color mode. Generally, use this formula: Divisor = # of Screen Colors / # of Printer Colors.

Example: with a laser printer (8 gray tones), and a 256 color image, use Divisor 32 (i.e., 256 / 8). See the “Questions & Answers” section for more information.

/U Unload EGAD from Memory

Removes a memory-resident copy of EGAD, freeing memory. Note that if another memory-resident program is loaded after EGAD, the freed memory may not be usable by all programs.

The Crop Box

When EGAD is activated, the crop box is normally enabled. (It may be disabled by the /B=0 command line switch or through SETEGAD.) Activating EGAD (via the Print Screen key or a program call) will then bring up a rectangular “crop box,” initially the size of the screen. This crop box determines the area of the screen which is to be printed. Text and graphics “under” the crop box is included in the area to be printed (thus allowing you to select the whole screen.) In text modes, the box will be shown in inverse video; in graphics modes, it will be in white and blue (cyan in CGA.)

SPECIAL NOTE for SUPER VGA and MONO GRAPHICS users: In some Super VGA text modes (e.g., 132×44), and with some monochrome graphics (MGA) adapters, EGAD may be unable to determine whether the screen is currently in Graphics or Text mode. If the crop box does not appear, or appears as a series of horizontal lines, or as inverse letter ‘a’s, press the F10 key to toggle the Crop Box into the appropriate Graphics (or Text) mode.

Changing the Size of the Crop Box

To change the size of the crop box, or to move it, use the arrow keys. The Home, PgUp, PgDn, and End keys can be used for diagonal motions. Remember that if NumLock is ON, the keypad will be in a “Shifted” state. You may have to press NumLock to make the arrow keys work as described here.

To make the arrow keys work “faster” or “slower” (in larger or smaller increments), use the keypad + and – (plus and minus) keys.

The crop box adjuster has three states: ⋅ Moving the lower-right corner of the crop box (this changes the size of the box); ⋅ Moving the upper-left corner of the crop box (this also changes the size of the box); and ⋅ Moving the entire box (this does not change the size of the box).

Initially, the adjuster defaults to moving the lower right corner. Press the up or left arrow keys to make the box smaller, or the down or right arrows to make the box bigger. You cannot move any part of the crop box beyond the screen boundaries.

To adjust the upper left corner of the crop box, press the 0 (Ins) key on the keypad. In graphics modes, the colors of the crop box lines change to highlight the selected corner. When adjusting the upper left corner of the crop box, the down and right arrows make the box smaller; the up and left arrows make it bigger. To adjust the lower right corner again, press the . (Del) key on the keypad. The TAB key toggles between adjusting the upper left and lower right corners.

To move the crop box around without changing its size, hold down the Shift key on the keyboard while pressing the arrow keys. The crop box will not move beyond the edge of the screen. (May not work on separate arrow keys on 101-key keyboards.)

To reset the crop box to full-screen size, press the F9 key.

Orientation (Rotation)

You may select the Orientation of your printout while the Crop Box is displayed. Pressing ‘P’ will force the printout to be in Portrait (non-rotated) mode, while pressing ‘L’ will force a Landscape (rotated) printout. These keys select a one-time override of the selected orientation.

Reverse Colors

To reverse the order of the palette (e.g., when printing a gray-scale image) press the ‘R’ key. This exchanges the printer colors used for screen colors 0 and 15, 1 and 14, etc. Normally this makes white on the screen, print as white on the printer, and black as black. Pressing ‘R’ again restores the original color order.

Printout Alignment

With the crop box displayed: Horizontal Positioning: the ‘C’ key selects centering; the left and right brackets (‘[‘ and ‘]’) select printing at the left and right margins respectively. “Horizontal” refers to left-to-right as the paper comes out of the printer. Vertical Positioning: The ‘V’ key selects Vertical centering on the page. You can press ‘C’ then ‘V’ for a completely centered printout.

To Print or Not To Print — How To Start the Printout

When you wish to print, and are finished adjusting the crop box, press the ENTER key. The crop box disappears, and printing begins. The computer will “beep” when the printing finishes. Instead of ENTER, press ESC to exit without printing.

Enlargement & Reduction

While pressing the ENTER key starts printing with normal size, when the screen is in a graphics mode you can also press the ‘2’, ‘3’, or ‘4’ keys (above the letter keys) to start printing with enlargement. The ‘1’ key begins printing a 1½ times enlargement.

If you press the ‘0’ key instead of ENTER, you will get a REDUCTION, which prints at your printer’s highest resolution, (i.e., the smallest size) with one printer dot per screen dot. NOTE Reduction printouts may not match the aspect ratio of the screen.

Canceling Printing

When the crop box is displayed, or while EGAD is printing graphics, you can press the Esc (Escape) key at any time to halt EGAD operation and return to your application.

Crop-Box Page Eject

When the crop box is displayed, pressing the ‘F’ key will send a Form Feed (page eject) to the printer, and EGAD will terminate. (This is especially useful for laser printers which can buffer several printout images before printing a page).

RECAP: Adjusting the Crop Box

Press the Print Screen key. With Num Lock OFF, adjust the lower-right corner of the crop box; press TAB and adjust the upper-left corner. Optionally, use any of the keys described above to select options (Portrait, Landscape, Horizontal Centering, etc.) Then press ENTER to begin printing.

Use with Windows

EGAD was designed as a DOS program, and as such can be used with Windows with the following items in mind:

Loading EGAD into Memory

It is easiest to load EGAD in your Startup files (AUTOEXEC.BAT or CONFIG.SYS). With this configuration, EGAD will be available to any DOS program, whether inside Windows or not. This also, however, means that EGAD will occupy memory in each of those environments; and with DOS memory constraints, this may not be feasible.

A “shortcut” to EGAD won't work − it will open a DOS window, load EGAD into that DOS window, and immediately close the DOS window − unloading EGAD.

To load EGAD with an application, copy the supplied EGADW.BAT file to your application's directory; and, using a text editor (DOS EDIT or Windows Notepad) change “RISA3D” (after “SET CMD=”) to the name of your application. Then create a shortcut to the EGADW.BAT file in that directory. Further instructions are in the EGADW.BAT file. Call LS Software if you have any questions.

Activating EGAD

Windows reserves the Print Screen key for its own use. To activate EGAD while running a DOS program inside Windows, press Shift + Print Screen.

You can use Windows™ Print Screen function also − it copies the screen to the Windows Clipboard. Then you can use a Paint program to paste from the Clipboard and save the screen to a file. Note: most Windows paint programs produce unsatisfactory printouts from screen shots taken this way.

Windows Printer Settings

Windows 95™ − If printing is very slow: From the Start button, click Settings; then Control Panel; then double-click the Printers icon. Right-click on your printer and select Properties from the menu. Under Details, choose Advanced if that choice appears; then click Port Settings. Make sure that the check box “Spool MSDOS Print Jobs” is not checked.

Windows NT − Windows NT 3.51 requires special setup: e-mail or call LS Software for instructions. Windows NT 4.0 does not allow DOS Print Screens.

Print Drivers − EGAD is a DOS program and thus does not use the Windows printer drivers. Even though your printer may work fine from Windows, EGAD must be configured independently..

DeskJet 1600 − To avoid incomplete printouts, set the Timeout parameter to 255.

Configuration

The program SETEGAD.EXE is used to configure the EGAD Screen Print program. The INSTALL procedure copies this to your hard disk. (To use this program, either change into the directory where EGAD is located, or have that directory in your PATH.) From the DOS command line, issue the command:

SETEGAD

To use the SETEGAD menus, use the up and down keys (or space and backspace) to highlight a different choice. If a menu item contains a highlighted (bright) letter, that alphabetic key (A-Z) will move to that menu choice. When the desired choice is highlighted, press the ENTER key. The Esc key exits the current menu.

The first menu will have the following choices. (The choices for “Set Memory” will not be displayed if EGAD is not memory-resident.)

Select Operation:
Exit to DOS
Set Program in Disk File
Set Program in Memory
Set Program in Disk & Memory

If you select to change memory only, the printer will be determined by the copy of EGAD which is memory-resident; proceed to the Change Menu.

If you have selected to change a Disk File, SETEGAD will search the current directory, and all those directories in the PATH, for copies of the EGAD program. If one or more are found, you will be asked to choose which one you wish to change the parameters in, with a menu similar to this:

Select EGAD Program:
C:\UTIL\EGAD.EXE
C:\UTIL\EGADPOST.EXE

In the above example, there are two copies of the EGAD Screen Print package installed in the C:\UTIL directory: a “default” one and one which supports a PostScript printer.

If there are no copies of EGAD in those directories, SETEGAD will inform you of that fact. To set parameters in other files, change to their directories using the CD command from the DOS prompt (or your favorite menu system).

From the program list, choose the program for which you wish to change parameters, and press ENTER. SETEGAD will check the version of that program to ensure that its parameters can reliably be changed.

Now let’s start configuring EGAD:

SETEGAD Menu Screens

The current menu will appear on the right section of the screen. In the top right corner of the screen is indicated the selected printer, and whether you are changing disk and/or memory. The box in the left half of the screen shows how the various EGAD attributes are currently set (for example, the current Printer Port, whether Page Eject after Print is enabled, etc.). Also in the left box are the screen color to printer color (or printer gray tone) mappings. There are four tables, one for each of the four basic screen mode types (Text; EGA/VGA Graphics; CGA 4-Color (320×200) Graphics; and CGA 2-Color (640×200) Graphics.) For each screen color in each mode there are two numbers — for example 5:2. This indicates pixels or characters in screen color 5 will be printed as printer color 2.

The Change Menu
Change Menu
Colors
Crop Box
Printout Attributes
Printer Port
Print-Screen Key
Exit to Save Menu

All the settings shown on the left side of the screen can be changed by using SETEGAD. Each section is described below.

Change: Colors

The Set Colors menu allows you to choose which of the printer colors are used in printing text or graphics. You can select a different set of colors for each of the four basic screen mode types. Also, SETEGAD allows you to restore the “default” set of color selections – the one which is included in the distribution copy.

Set Colors Menu
Set Text Colors
Set EGA/VGA Colors
Set CGA/4 Colors
Set CGA/2 Colors
Default Color Table
Black/White only Table
Reverse Color Table
VGA/256 Divisor
X: Exit to Change Menu

Selecting one of the “Set Colors” choices will erase the Set Colors menu, bring up an instruction box (shown below), and will also bring up a list of the possible printer colors and their corresponding numbers.

The number 0 will highlight in the column for the screen mode you have selected, indicating the screen color number.

Following the instructions at the bottom right of the screen, choose the number of the screen color (0 is the “background” color in text and CGA modes) with the space and backspace (or Up and Down) keys. Press ENTER to change the color table entry (as described below). The Left and Right keys move between the columns. Pressing the Esc key will take you back to the Set Colors menu above.

Once you press ENTER, the highlight will move over to the printer color, and these instructions will appear:

Enter the PRINTER color for
SCREEN color 3 and press ENTER;
or press ESC to restore value to 192

Note that the previous choice for printer color is shown for your reference. If you decide not to change this entry, you can press the Esc key to restore the original value. Otherwise, type in the printer color number.

Once you press ENTER to enter your new number, the screen color number will highlight again; proceed as above in choosing a screen color.

These colors and numbers depend on the screen mode, and may vary from mode to mode. (For example on the Star NX-1000 Rainbow, 8 is Black in the Text mode, while 192 is Black in EGA/VGA graphics. On the HP LaserJet, 0 is white, 7 is black, 1 through 6 are intermediate gray tones, and 8 through 15 are patterns — vertical, horizontal, and diagonal stripes, and checkerboards.)

Colors: Default Color Table

Selecting “Default Color Table” will restore the original color selections; the screen will be redrawn to reflect the color table.

Colors: Black/White Only Table

Creates color selections which will make screen color 0 print as White, and all other screen colors print as Black (7 on B&W, 63 on color drivers.) This selection can be especially useful if you wish to eliminate gray tones to get a solid black printout.

Colors: Reverse Palette

When printing gray scale images, it is often necessary to set a “reverse” palette; one in which black on the screen prints as black on the printer. (With a “normal” palette, black on the screen becomes white – no printing – and white on the screen prints as black). If this option is used, the order of the current palette entries is reversed. Note these examples (for a printer with 8 gray levels):

If palette was: 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7
“Reverse” Palette will be: 7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0,7,6,5,4,3,2,1,0

VGA/256 Divisor

In the 256 color modes of the VGA and MCGA, screen color numbers are divided by this number to obtain the palette index. Generally:
divisor = (number of screen colors) / (number of gray tones)

For example, with a laser printer with 8 grays, and a 256 color picture on the screen, generally choose 256 / 8 = 32. (See the “Q&A” section below).

Change: Crop Box

With this menu, the crop box can be enabled or disabled, and the default region changed. If the crop box is enabled, the user can adjust the region to be printed; the enlargement factor is also determined by the user. If it is disabled, then the “default crop box” will be the region, and the selected enlargement factor will be used without user intervention.

Crop Box: Region

This menu allows you to set whether the crop box, when it appears, will be the whole screen (the original setting) or some part of the screen. If you pick “Whole Screen” no further action is necessary.

If you pick “Specific Region,” however, you must input four numbers to indicate the upper left and lower right corners of the region (x first, then y). Note that the upper left corner of the screen is (0,0). For any of the four entries, press ESC to leave the entry unchanged, or enter a number and press ENTER to advance to the next entry. (When EGAD is activated, the box will be truncated at the screen boundaries.)

Change: Printout Attributes

Printout Attributes
Orientation...
Alignment...
Page Formatting...
Enlargement...
Print Sizing...
Exit to Change Menu

Attributes: Orientation

Auto, Portrait, or Landscape orientations may be selected through this menu. Auto is the default mode, and allows EGAD to orient graphics images for the best aspect ratio and color or gray scale reproduction. The Portrait and Landscape selections override EGAD’s selections, and force the selected mode.

Attributes: Alignment

EGAD can print your graphics and text at the printer’s left margin, right margin, or centered between them. (The actual position depends on the size of the crop box, not the actual graphics within it.) Select one of the choices here and press ENTER.

Then select Vertical alignment. Options are Current position (printing begins wherever the last printing stopped); Bottom of Page (assumes the printer is at the top of the page); and Centered (also assumes the printer is at the top of the page). For Bottom and Centered printouts, it is recommended that Page Formatting be set to “Reset Before, Eject After” if available (/F=3 on the command line.) This is important on HP LaserJet printers because the “Reset Before” action sets the top margin. If “Reset Before” is not available, use either Formatting option; using /F=3 on the command line will be interpreted as /F=1.

Attributes: Page Formatting

No Page Ejects produces printouts one after another without any form-feeds. Eject Page After Printing sends a form-feed after each printout. Reset Printer Before Printing (available for those printers requiring such support) helps ensure shared laser printers print properly, as does Reset Before, Eject Page After.

Attributes: Enlargement

Setting the enlargement factor through this menu will also disable the crop box. (When the crop box is enabled, the user determines the enlargement factor when printing by pressing ENTER or 0 through 4.) Factor 0 selects Reduction. Factor 1 is normal size print. 2 through 4 are enlargements.

Attributes: Print Sizing

Selecting this option will display a chart of printout sizes. (The chart is only available when setting memory.) For each video mode (e.g., CGA 320×200), one or two printout types are shown (e.g., Rotated and Not Rotated) with the resulting “normal print size.”

Change: Printer Port

This menu is entered from the Change menu, described above. It allows you to change the port which EGAD will use to communicate with the printer. Available ports are checked off. Network redirected ports may be selected. If you choose one of the serial ports (COM1–COM4), be sure that the MODE command is used to initialize that port. On some computers, COM3 and COM4 may not be available; see “Questions & Answers” near the end of this manual.

Saving Your Configuration

Once you have achieved the desired configuration (color settings, etc.), use the Esc key to exit all menus and get back to the Change menu. From there, pick “Exit to Save Menu.” The following menu will appear (“Disk” above may be replaced with “Memory” or “Disk & Memory” depending on your choices above.)

Save Menu
Save Changes to Disk
Make More Changes
Print Color Chart
Show Sample Screens
Quit; Discard Changes

To save your configuration, use the space or backspace keys if necessary, move the highlight to “Save Changes”, and press ENTER. Your configuration will be saved.

Selecting “Make More Changes” will return to the Change menu. “Quit; Discard Changes” will do precisely that, discard all your configuration changes.

“Print Color Chart” is a special option which only appears when you are setting a Disk copy (or Disk and Memory). Using the EGA 640×350 mode, this option creates a chart of all possible colors, gray tones, and patterns available on your printer.

The Sample Screen display may be useful in selecting printer colors, or demonstrating the print sizes available on your printer. Note that in order to access the Sample screens, SETEGAD will always first save your settings.

Printer Specifics

EGAD printer color numbers depend on the type of printer setup used. Remember, color printers can be set up to either print color or black only, depending on the EGAD driver you have installed.

Gray Tones and Patterns. Color numbers 0 through 7 on black and white devices indicate varying tones of gray from 0 (white) through 7 (black). [On older low resolution printers where gray tones are not supported, 1 through 7 will be black.] Color numbers 8 through 15 print as different patterns on most laser printers. (PostScript printers have additional “in-between” gray tones as 8 through 15.) Color Numbers. Similarly, color numbers 0 through 63 on all color devices indicate the same range of colors − and for those printers, such as the Dataproducts 8050, which can only print in eight colors (white, black, yellow, cyan, magenta, green, purple, red) the other color numbers are mapped to the closest available color.

Dithering (Gray and Color Rendition.) Because dithering (the use of different dot patterns) is used to create gray tones and color gradations on most devices, in some cases thin lines or dots may not print. This is especially noticeable with curved lines. You may wish to use the SETEGAD program to set all colors to print as black this will force all lines and dots to print on the page.

Text: Attributes and Color. When the screen is in a text mode, the Crop Box will appear with the width and height of a character (not a single pixel as when the screen is in a graphics mode.) With a text mode, EGAD sends characters (not graphics) to the printer; most printers can print attributes (e.g., bold, italic) for characters sent this way. A few printers can print characters in color, and EGAD supports color text printing on those printers which can do it. Color characters appear in seven standard colors (Yellow, Cyan (blue), Green, Magenta, Red, Purple, Black).

Questions & Answers

Q. I pressed the Print Screen key and nothing happened. Why?
A. If using Windows, see page 11.

Keyboard Problems: Keyboards without separate Print Screen keys require you to press and hold SHIFT, then press PRTSC. Some keyboards (Northgate OmniKey) require two presses of the Print Screen key to activate it (consult your keyboard manual if you think this might be the case.)

Invisible Crop Box: You should at least be able to bring up the crop box (unless you’ve disabled it.) If you have a MGA monochrome graphics card, or are using an extended text mode (such as 132×44), pressing F10 (to toggle between forced text, forced graphics, and normal operation) may make the crop box visible. Then try pressing ENTER; sometimes the crop box is there but can’t be seen (e.g., it’s black on black). If you still don’t get a printout, try disabling the crop box to force immediate printing (use SETEGAD or the command line: EGAD/T/B=0). Some programs, primarily games, don’t normally allow access to the Print Screen key. (See below.)

Beep but no print: If you hear the EGAD “beep” but nothing prints, and you are using a printer which is on a network, you may have to “Force” or “Flush” the printer queue. On Artisoft networks you would press Ctrl-Alt-Print Screen (after the “beep.”)

Q. Print Screen does something else (not EGAD operation.)
A. Some applications (notably, spreadsheets and games) disable the standard Print Screen key. The NOALTPRT utility on the EGAD disk can help; type or print README.TXT.

Q. What about windowing operating systems?
A. EGAD can pop up over a “DOS box.” See page 11, and print WINDOWS.TXT.

Q. Not all the pixels printed! Why?
A. When EGAD uses gray tones on some printers, printer color 1 (and perhaps also 2 or 3) is designed to produce a light gray tone. Because a pattern is used, only about 3/4 of the screen pixels are printed on the printer. This works fine for most graphics, but single pixels may “drop out.” Use the Black/White Palette Only option in SETEGAD to replace all palette selections FROM printer color 1 TO color 7. This will print in solid black only.

Q. I have 4 serial ports, but SETEGAD lists only COM1 and COM2.
A. Read or print file README.TXT; refer to the section on the COMPORTS program.

Q. I disabled “Page Eject After Print.” Some of my images are truncated.
A. Laser printers hold graphics data until the page is full (or overflows). You can force the printer to print at any time by pressing Print Screen, then ‘F’ (for Feed).

Q. How small does the ‘reduction’ feature make the printout?
A. It depends on the printer. In the reduction mode, EGAD always uses one printer dot for each screen dot. With the laser printer, this makes a very small printout, but on many dot-matrix printers, it will come out normally or near-normal sized.

Q. The line-drawing characters don’t print on my printer. Why?
A. Some printers don’t have a line-drawing set. On these printers, EGAD attempts to emulate them with characters like + – |. Other printers have non-standard sets, and EGAD uses these where possible. If you have a matrix or inkjet printer, check the DIP switches or printer setup to make sure you have selected an IBM Character Set.

Q. I tried to print a gray-scale picture from the screen, but it came out like a negative image (black printed as white, etc.).
A. The default palette prints white on the screen as black on the printer, and black on the screen as white on the printer. If you want black on the screen to print as black on the printer, you can use SETEGAD to reverse the palette order, or to create a custom palette.

Another method is to press ‘R’ while the crop box is displayed. If the palette is set as in the first line above, pressing ‘R’ will temporarily set it to be like the second line.

Q. Why is the printout sometimes rotated?
A. First, many printers have different “dot densities” in the horizontal and vertical directions. For example, most 9-pin matrix printers print 120 or 240 dots per inch horizontally, but 72 dots per inch vertically. The resulting dots are not “square.” EGAD tries to closely match the aspect ratio of the screen pixels, which sometimes requires a rotated printout. You can override the default selections by pressing ‘P’ (for Portrait non rotated) printout or ‘L’ (Landscape) while the Crop Box is visible.

Q. The printed colors don’t match the screen colors. Why?
A. For starters, colors on paper (reflected light) will never look exactly like colors on the screen (transmitted light). Further, each printer is capable of printing a different set of colors, so it may not be capable of printing the color you see on the screen. In EGA or VGA modes, there are thousands of possible screen colors, and there is really no way to match them to printer colors other than trial and error. (If there were, EGAD could do it automatically.) You can use SETEGAD to try different color combinations.

Q. Do I have to use INSTALL? What is in the __EGAD__.EX_ file?
A. Yes, you must use INSTALL to copy EGAD to your disk. The EX_ file contains compressed versions of the EGAD executable files (one per different printer type) to save disk space.

Supplied Files

README.TXT Contains additional information about this version of EGAD, including a technical reference section. Examples of calling EGAD from BASIC, C, and Pascal. Describes the COMPORT and NOALTPRT utilities.

WINDOWS.TXT Information on using EGAD with Microsoft Windows™.
See also page 11 in this document.

INSTALL.EXE EGAD installation program

SETEGAD.EXE Set printer color choices and other options.

COMPORT.EXE Allows use of COM3 and COM4 on some computers

NOALTPRT.COM Helps solve some instances where EGAD won't pop up.

Trademark acknowledgements: The following are trademarks of their respective companies: HP LaserJet and DeskJet (Hewlett-Packard); IBM ProPrinter (IBM); MS-DOS, Windows, and Windows 95 (Microsoft); PostScript (Adobe). Other trademarks are of the indicated companies.

Formerly undocumented command-line switch

The command-line switch /$ returns information about EGAD’s status, as shown in the table below. The return value is the child process code, accessible in a batch file with the “IF ERRORLEVEL” statment. This information is available from all versions of EGAD.

0=Hewlett-Packard
1=Epson 2=IBM 3=Toshiba
4=NEC 5=Dataproducts 6=Okidata
7=MPI 8=PCPI 9=Xerox 
10=Tandy (Radio Shack) 11=PostScript