FastPrint
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FastPrint is an accelerator for use with Calamus and the HP
LaserJet (or compatible) printer. You will have noticed that
Calamus takes a consistent eight minutes to print an A4 page, even
when only a small portion of the page is used. FastPrint works by
intercepting Calamus' printer output and eliminating blank lines.
This can result in a drastic reduction in printing times. It also
eliminates Calamus' infuriating habit of throwing out a blank page
after every full A4 page printed.
How to use it
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Simply copy FASTPRT.ACC into the root directory of your boot
disk. FastPrint will install itself and sit quietly in the
background. FastPrint takes up one of your six desk accessory
slots.
FastPrint should remain transparent to you at all times. It
will not interfere with your normal printing activities until you
use Calamus. In the extremely unlikely case of FastPrint
interfering with your normal printing activities, you may disable
and re-enable FastPrint by selecting the 'FastPrint' option from
the 'Desk' menu. If you should call up the 'FastPrint' option from
within Calamus, be sure to click quickly on the alert buttons or
Calamus will start to interfere - Calamus does not like desk
accessories.
Performance
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The best case possible is an A4 page, perhaps a letter head
that has your logo and name at the top, and your address and phone
number at the bottom, for example. Normally this would take 8
minutes. A similar page to this would take about 2:30 minutes, a
69% saving.
The worst case is an A4 page surrounded by a border of some
sort. This page has no blank lines to eliminate and printing it
with FastPrint on will actually be slower than printing it
normally, because FastPrint wastes time looking for blank lines
that don't exist.
On an average page containing text and the odd graphic, the
savings will vary between 10 and 50 percent, depending on the
amount of white space that can be elimated.
Caveats
-------
FastPrint is a very reliable accelerator: I use it
consistently, and it has never interfered with anything I do. The
only time you should avoid having FastPrint active is during the
downloading of soft fonts to the printer, luckily this is not
something the average ST owner does often, if at all.
The Catch
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FastPrint is shareware. That means that you may copy and
distribute it freely and without charge. However, if you find it
useful then you should register your support to the author by
sending a registration fee of œ10 to the address below. This will
earn you a copy of the latest version of FastPrint on an original
disk, together with these instructions on a laser printed sheet.
The address to send your registration fee to:
Andrew Brown
2 Ullswater Drive
Wetherby
West Yorkshire
LS22 4YF