Using an Amiga with OS4.1 for daily work.

[broadblues]

I do abit of work down a Historic Tin Mine like writing notes and making posters/leaflet's for people locally. Use Microsoft Word and Adobe Photoshop. Thought it would be interesting to use Amiga Software on a real amiga for this.

The kind of work you describe can easily be done on an AmiagOS 4.1 machine.

I use Wordworth 7 for wordprocessing, poster / flyer creation. Printing to postscrit them converting to PDF with Ghostscript.

(my PDFMaker script isavailable here http://www.broad.ology.org.uk/docs/amiga/proaction/05_A_Simple_App.html , realy ought to split that out of the tutorial an upload it to os4depot)

I use SketchBlock and ImageFX for graphics creation, saving the results inot 3 formats native (.skprj for further editing) , .ps for inclusing in Wordworth docs, and 24bit ilbm for previewing in wordworth (need imagefx for that). And ofcourse jpeg png etc for websueage where required.

Printing wise I have a HP laserjet Pro 200 color M251n which takes postscript data direct. This is important, don;t get any new printer that doesn't support postscript. You want a lasre for quality anyway, and all the other will lack somewhere in the driver chain.

[broadblues]

@OlafS3

How does he exchange data with a print office? I would guess they do not support amiga software there.

PDF, most printers ,in the UK anyway, prefer it. At least those that provide, CD / DVD  cover, poster , flyer , leaflet printing services anyway.

[broadblues]

"PDF-Printer" on amiga or exporting PDF? I am not aware that this is possible but would do be interested. You can print as postscript file and this convert f.e. on windows but that is not amiga-only then.

Most of the DTP related apps I ever used on amigaos (which ever vintage) had Postscript print abilties, so does iBrowse IIRC and certainly the like of OWB do.

ImageFX can "print" to EPS, which is invaluable when used in combination with Wordworth as wordworth then passes the high quality EPS straight through, and does create it's own grayscale version.


I added this functionailty to print to PS / EPS Sketchblock to replicate that workfow, but you can also output direct to PDF via PIL. (Python Imaging Library)

AmigaOS has PS prnter driver that can also save psoscript direct to file, for printing from those apps that don't do postscript output themselves.

To convert to PDF simply use ghostscripts PDFWrite "device"

Another problem... at least the software I use to design "printable" documents supports different versions of PDF, not possible on amiga I guess.

I've not yet come across a situation wher the version of PDF I *created* was important. I have couple of times come across PDFs from else where that the current OS4 versin of ghostscript doesn't work on. I used linux to sove that hickup.

[broadblues]

WW7's postscript output had some serious limitations IIRC, like all graphics (or was it just vektor graphics?) being limited to grayscale.

Actuall it's bitmap graphics that get converted to greyscale, but EPS files get passed through untouched, which is why I convert graphcs to .eps first as I mentioned above.

How did you solve the font problem? IIRC, you were limited to the fonts used in regular printers (I don't think I ever managed to embedd another font in a postscript file) and I never got  WYSIWYG working because It was impossible (for me) to have the same (postscript) fonts used for screen output that were used in my printer...

Printer Settings Window->Postscript Settings SubWindow offers ths choice to download fonts (once , every time (which I think means per page), or never) I have that set to once.

Then you need to install a set of postscript fonts to work from, those that come with ghostscript are good start.  You can't use compugraphic fonts, for postscript printing.

[broadblues]

Wordworth has no "export to Postscript" ARexx command

Yeah that a right PITA when come to scripting the process, I just save to set file name ram:ww.ps to simplify the later stages.

My PDFMaker script will scan the ghostscript statd.ps file and display all my custom page sizes I created over the years for odd things like custom sized adverts in magazines  A5 with bleed for print shop flyers etc etc.

[broadblues]

Modern printers hardly have any need for dedicated drivers, they typically hand over a PPD when you install the printer unit in your OS, and you are set. But I suspect that the AmigaOS 4.1 printing system supports neither network printing nor PPD files.

PDP support probably not, but network printer yes, there a couple of options.

With my hp200 M251N I honestly find it simplest to print to file and the ftp the file to the printer, its faster than going via the PS driver in pass through mode.

I did have it connected via usb too, but it confuses the usb stack when goes in and out of standbye mode.

[broadblues]

@Duce

I'd get laughed out of the print shop if I took pdf's into being mass printed, lol.

So what format would you take you print shop? And what kind of shop / printing are you doing?