Making Laser Printer Overlays

Thu Aug 16 09:17:41 PDT 2007

I think the shortest and easiest path for you is actually to just know a 
little basic pcl yourself.

In fact in my opinion it's not not merely the easiest but simply the only 
way to do this is only 2 possible choices

a) learn some pcl, it's actually not that crazy.
or
b) pay someone who does.

The reason is I dont think there can be any easy program to do much for you, 
because how can a program decide which of the 50 ways to do it is the best 
suited to integrate in with the rest of your operation?

The way I do overlays is probably the ultimate best way for me to do 
overlays for all kinds of reasons. Yet it is probably not the best answer 
for you, because the way I do it happens to fit in well with, and depend 
upon, take advantage of, the way I happen to do everything else. Change 
anything about the everything else and it probably changes what would be the 
best way to do pcl overlays.

I'm not just talking about what kinds of codes to put in the print file. 
Those are few and simple. I'm also talking about the numberless possible 
ways of assembling that print file.

A person, be it you or someone you contract, can make that decision. A 
program can't. You would have to contort yourself around any particular 
program and it might be completely unnecessary.

For reference, just to provide one of many answers, what I do isn't properly 
overlays, they just look and smell like overlays from the users point of 
view. A real overly sends the graphic to the printer once and a few small 
codes to tell the printer to store the image and associate it with an id 
number, and maybe another code to tell the printer to "run this macro on 
every page from now on" and you don't have to send either the graphic or any 
more codes to the printer after that (until next reset). Or you might omit 
that so that your report can choose among several overlays, (or none) to 
invoke on a per-sheet or per-report, or per @wb basis even.

Thats the most efficient but not reliable enough for the environment I 
happen to support, random internet connected end users, not nice controlled 
offices with printers I set up myself and instructed the users about special 
handling and special instructions about "if the pages are blank then do this 
to re-load the form..." that kind of thing is completely un-possible for me. 
So I send a code that saves the current cursor position, moves the cursor to 
home, draw the graphic (maybe a big raster, maybe a nice efficient vector 
drawn form hand crafted by Mr Asman), then a final code to restore the cusor 
to teh saved position.
This whole process can be prepended, appended, or inserted anywhere in the 
middle of a regular print job (as long as certain types of pcl codes are 
accounted for, like the esc-e printer reset that commonly occurs at the 
beginnings and ends of jobs, and any job & page control codes which have to 
happen once-only at the beginning, or rather, only the first ones have any 
effect. ie; you can't very well switch which bin to draw the paper from once 
the job has begun for example, etc..

So I'm sending the entire form graphic with each page. Less efficient, but 
very least-common-denominator.
Always works because it's simple and does not depend on any kind of setup on 
the client side or in the printer, not even client pc software, just any 
terminal emulator that can do passthru print. And I have developed schemes 
that make it convenient for me to deal with the pcl image data from filepro 
without making my code into a pretzel. And it works exactly the same for 
local printers hooked to teh server or on the servers lan, or remote 
internet users. Also I'm willing to live with certain limits like, the 
printer must be pcl capable. Also it happens that this way works on even low 
end barely-pcl-capable ink-jets and off-brand lasers and emulators like 
ghostpcl and vsifax, whereas real macro commands (what "real" overlays use) 
require pcl4 or 5 but plain graphics like I use works on pcl3 inkets etc...

When you know even just the basics of pcl you can see for yourself how to 
make use of it and where & how you could work it into your existing 
procedures, and where & how you may want to avoid it because it would make a 
problem somewhere else..  Like, we have forms that print with logos and 
overlays in them, but we also have a print-to-screen option that puts the 
print job into less (unix text file viewer), or into an html file and pops 
up in the web browser. In both of those cases, if the temp file included the 
pcl image data it would be a mess, so some of the possible ways of inserting 
the data I know I don't want to do even though they would be hands-down the 
simplest way to make a printer print. So, not only can't a program do much 
for you, not even a person such as myself can unless they also know a lot 
about your particular code and related IT arrangements. You are the best 
qualified, next is somebody working for you, 3rd is people like us who at 
least know the subject matter in general.

When I say learn a little pcl, I really do mean a little. I think we are 
talking maybe a dozen codes and a little basic theory about the way pcl 
works in general which ends up describing to you a few basic rules that lets 
you actually read and interpret any pcl code you see. You still have to look 
up unfamilir codes, but at least you know how to read the "sentences". You 
could actually write the equivalent of the Kevin Smith overlay program in a 
few to a few dozen lines of fp processing table, or shell script.

Hope this non-answer answer doesn't annoy you too much :)

Brian K. White    brian at aljex.com    http://www.myspace.com/KEYofR
+++++[>+++[>+++++>+++++++<<-]<-]>>+.>.+++++.+++++++.-.[>+<---]>++.
filePro  BBx    Linux  SCO  FreeBSD    #callahans  Satriani  Filk!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Mike Schwartz" <mschw at athenet.net>
To: "'filepro mailing-list'" <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:30 AM
Subject: Making Laser Printer Overlays

> 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).
>
> Thanks!
>
> Mike Schwartz
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Filepro-list mailing list
> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
> 