Making Laser Printer Overlays

[Wally Turnbull]

Mike Schwartz asked:

>     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

I will be glad to walk you through one if you want but you may not need that
with the following recipe.

1. Make or change the letterhead in whatever program works for you.

2. If you use a graphics program like Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Photoshop
save it as a PCX file.  If you use a program like MS Word then print a good
clean copy on nice white paper and scan just the image part as a PCX file.

3.  Use Jim's mkpcl.exe program with a command something like this:

        MKPCL -c 3 -l -m 1 -r 300 image1.pcx logo1.mac

    Explanation:

     Convert image1.pcx to logo1.mac macro
       (putting the macro number 1 in the name is convenient)
     Use compression level 3
     Assign the macro the number 1
     Create the macro at 300 dpi

4. Set the filePro PFDLDIR variable to path           
(This sets the path to the directory where a file to downloaded to a printer
resides. PFDLDIR is used with %"filename" print code.)

5. Put the file logo101.mac in pfdldir directory

6. Add the following 3 codes to your laser printer table.  Use whatever code
numbers work for you.  I list them as 200-202 for demo purposes.

     200::  $1b &f0S      :Push/Save laser cursor
     201::  $1b &f1S      :Pop/Restorelaser cursor
     211::  %"logo1.mac"  :load file logo1.mac

7.  On your filePro form insert the codes in this order (200 211  201) where
you want the image to appear.  (Save your place. Insert the image. Move back
to where you were)

The reason you move back to where you were is that you may want to print
something else on one of the same lines to the left or to the right of the
image.

8.  Print your filePro form.

Note that you can use several macros on the same page.  For example a macro
for the top of the page, a macro of a signature, and a macro for the bottom
of the page.  Simply call each one at the place on the page where you want
it to go.

There are ways to call several macros from the same place on the form and
position each one where you want it to go relative to where you are using
the mkpcl.exe -x and -y options or filePro printer codes to move the cursor
but the above is perhaps the most straightforward and easy to understand.

Let me know if I can help.

Peace,
Wally Turnbull