There are four Amiga Preferences editors that you can use when setting up your printer and setting up how your printing appears:
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Specifies a printer driver, the serial or parallel port, and non-PostScript text settings. |
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Used only with Serial printers. The Serial editor is described in Chapter 5. |
The Printer Preferences editor lets you select a printer driver, the printer port, and various text options. The settings made in the Printer Preferences editor (as well as PrinterGfx and PrinterPS) are defaults that are used when print settings have not been made elsewhere. Applications, such as word processors, typically provide corresponding options that override the Preferences settings. Figure 9-1 illustrates the Printer Preferences editor window.
Figure 9-1. Printer Preferences Editor Window (
picture 1 /
picture 2)
The Printer Type scroll gadget displays a list of available printer drivers currently installed in DEVS:Printers.
Select a printer driver by pointing to its name and clicking the mouse selection button. The selected driver is highlighted.
If a driver for your printer (or a printer that your printer emulates) is not in DEVS:Printers or the Storage/Printers drawer, select Generic.
The Printer Preferences editor window contains the following gadgets:
Specifies the type of port where the printer is attached: Serial or Parallel. If Serial is selected, you must also make sure that the serial transmission settings in the Serial Preferences editor are appropriate for your printer.
Specifies the pitch, which is the number of characters printed per inch (cpi) horizontally. The higher the number, the narrower the characters. Choose between Pica, Elite, and Fine.
Specifies the number of lines of text that are printed in one vertical inch of space. Select 6 lines per inch (lpi) or 8 lpi; the higher the number, the less space between the lines.
Determines the quality of the printout. Selecting Draft produces faster, lower quality printouts. Selecting Letter produces slower, higher quality printouts.
Specifies the type of paper used. The options are Continuous (tractor feed paper) or Single (individual sheets).
Specifies the size of paper used. Selecting Custom as the paper size can eliminate printing problems that occur with dot matrix printers.
If Custom is selected, be sure to specify in the Paper Length gadget the correct number of lines that fit on the paper.
The total number of lines of text printable on the page, including top and bottom margins. For example, 11-inch paper with 6 lines per inch has a Paper Length of 66 lines. To change the default value, select the gadget, delete the existing value, type in the new number, and press Return.
The width, in numbers of characters, from the left edge of the paper to the starting text position. The Print Pitch setting (number of characters in a horizontal inch) affects the size of the margin. For example, when Print Pitch is Pica (10 cpi), a Left Margin setting of 10 gives a one-inch margin. To change the default value, select the gadget, delete the existing value, type in the new number, and press Return.
The width, in number of characters, from the left edge of the paper to the position where the right margins is to begin. To change the default value select the gadget, delete the existing value, type in the new number, and press Return.
The Device Unit text gadget appears in the Printer Preferences editor only if the UNIT Tool Type for Printer is enabled. Use it to direct printing to the desired port when you have expansion hardware that provides additional parallel or serial ports. Enter the number for the printer port specified in the expansion hardware documentation.
