Making Laser Printer Overlays

[fp at casabellagallery.com]

Mike posted:

> Howie [howiewz at beonthenet.com]Said:
> 
> >A number of people have expressed interest in the MSDOS freeware Make
> Overlay program that I mentioned.
> 
> >Here is a link to download it:
> http://www.photobuff.com/attachments/mkovl.zip
> 
> > It converts files that you generate using an HP laser printer and a "print
> to disk" operation into printer overlay files.
> 
>     A customer has asked me if I could change some info on their letterheads
> and then make new laser printer overlays for them.  I'm just starting to dig
> into this.  I have Jim Asman's mkpcl program, and I found some emails from
> Howie and others from several years ago that explain how to make and use
> overlays.  I have used Jim's code to create PCL images, but I've never
> converted them to overlays.
> 
>     A quick web search located some other tools, such as:
> http://www.hamil.org/pcl/ but everything I could find either was an old DOS
> tool or required compiling "C" code on a Unix system.  
> 
>      Maybe these old DOS EXE's will work OK, and I suppose I could find a
> Unix box where I could compile Kevin Smith's "C" code, but before I go
> through a lot of work, I would appreciate any suggestions I could get from
> those of you who create laser overlays on a regular basis.  (I am starting
> to understand what needs to be done, but I want to make sure I'm not
> overlooking any tools that could make this job a lot easier to do.)
> 
>      Apparently the guy who created the original letterheads made about a
> dozen of forms that are loaded as different macros in the printers.  I was
> hoping there was some kind of visual tool that would easily allow me to
> manage all the macros/forms inside a laser printer (typically HP 4200's).
> 

Stick to what works, use Jim Asman's MkPCL tool to create the PCL document
which you can then load to your filePro forms by using printer codes.

This is well detailed in Jim's documentation.  Here is a link to Jim's site
where you can find his docs  http://www.spectracolorservices.com/

As an alternative, you can use HPGL to design your forms and load it to your
filePro forms using printer codes.

Quick and easy?  MkPCL
Robust and added control?  HPGL

Regards,


Jose Lerebours