Ikon MS-DOS Freedom of Press Spooler Model IVFD1014

Version 1.20 June 12, 1996
Manual Revised June 12, 1996

Copyright 1992,1993 Interface Consultants Inc., Houston, TX
Interface Consultants, Inc. 3375 Westpark Drive #143, Houston, TX 77005-4262

713/529-3706

1. Introduction

The Interface Consultants Model IVFD1014 Ikon MS-DOS Freedom of Press Spooler program is a DOS application program (exe file) that plots an 'output.nnn' raster file generated in ColorAge Freedom of Press PostScript Language Interpreter (FOP) to a Versatec Greensheet compatible plotter. Version 1.01 supports 5 pass color and 1 pass monochrome plot modes.

The IVFD1014 Spooler program requires the IVBD1013 TSR driver to be loaded and initialized. See the IVBD1013 documentation for details.

The IVFD1014 Spooler program can plot color or monochrome Freedom of Press raster files. Freedom of Press must be configured to generate a binary raster output file by selecting 'file output', and 'cmyk 1-bit sep' for color plotters or 'BW-1bit' for monochrome plotters. FOP then creates an info.001 file and an output.001 raster file for the first plot created. The next plot will be .002 if .001 files exist in the output directory. The IVFD spooler does not delete the raster files after plotting. If deletion is desired it needs to be put into a batch file that does the plot spooling.

2. Installation of the software

Copy all the files on the distribution diskette into a working directory, e.g.:
C:\>mkdir drivers
C:\>copy a:\*.* drivers

Set the PATH to the installation directory, or alternatively, use the full path with the program name, e.g.:
C:\drivers\ivfd

The Spooler is executed by typing 'ivfd' at the DOS prompt. The IVBD1013 TSR driver must be already loaded and initialized. See the IVBD1013 documentation for details.

A sample color output plot file (info.001, output.001) is provided for testing compressed into file 'color.zip'. A sample monochrome output plot file (info.001, output.001) is provided for testing compressed into file 'mono.zip'. It is a 8.5" by 11.0" monochrome plot rasterized at 300 DPI generated from the Ventura Publisher generated PostScript file, 'scoop.ps'. To extract the raster file use pkunzip:
pkunzip color.zip
or
pkunzip mono.zip

The color output.001 raster file is 5,155,200 bytes, and the info.001 file is 233 bytes.

The monochrome output.001 raster file is 1,288,800 bytes, and the info.001 file is 227 bytes.

3. Configuring Freedom of Press

Freedom of Press must be configured to generate a raster file at the correct size, resolution, and colors for your plotter. Before you start, you need to know the resolution (dots per inch or DPI) of your plotter, and the width of your plotter (in inches). In general, make the width you specify for your PostScript output is smaller than the actual plotter bytes per scan. The IVFD spooler automatically pads the scans with blank data to the width of the plotter's bytes per scan. Making the plot dimensions larger than required makes the plot take more time to rasterize in Freedom of Press and increases the memory (RAM and disk) requirements.

Trouble shooting tip: If you are having problems with Freedom of Press creating a raster file, configure your PostScript generation software and FOP for a smaller plot size and test that configuration, working your way up in size to find the limit within FOP.

The steps to configure Freedom of Press are:

Run FOP configuration program: FPCHANGE /enter/
When prompted for: What manufacturer's printer will you be using with Freedom-of- Press?
Select - 4 File Format: 4 /enter/
When prompted for: What File Format printer will you be using with Freedom-of-Press?
For COLOR plotters Select - 8 Raster CMYK - 1bit-sep: 8 /enter/
For MONOCHROME plotters Select - 5 Raster BW - 1bit: 5 /enter/

Answer the other configuration items as required, and save the configuration.

4. Creating a raster file in Freedom of Press

The steps to create a raster file are:

Run Freedom of Press giving the postscript file name : FP! -R300 scoop.ps /enter/

This rasterizes PostScript file 'scoop.ps' and creates files 'info.nnn' and 'output.nnn'. The 'nnn' will be 001, 002, 003, ... depending on what files are already in the output directory. The color 'output.001' file is a raster file that contains all four color passes and has one bit per each plotter pixel for each color pass. The monochrome 'output.001' file is a raster file that contains one color pass and has one bit per each plotter pixel for the single color pass. The 'info.001' contains information about how the plot was rasterized that the IVFD spooler uses.

The -R300 (-R /dpi/) switch forces FOP to rasterize the plot at the selected DPI value. This example assumes the output plotter has a resolution of 300 DPI. It is important that the rasterization density match the plotter for the plot to come out the correct size on the plotter. You can effectively scale the plot by rasterizing at different DPI in FOP. If the plotter is actually 200 DPI, a -R400 will produce a plot at 2X scale (x and y dimensions are twice what they should be), and a -R100 will produce a plot at 1/2X scale (x and y dimensions are one half what they should be).

The color sample 'info.001' file contains:
Information about output.001 for device Raster-CMYK-1bit-sep
300.000000 : X resolution
300.000000 : Y resolution
1 : bits per color
4 : colors per pixel
0358 : bytes per scan line
00001 : First scanline
03600 : Last scanline

The monochrome sample 'info.001' file contains:
Information about output.001 for device Raster-BW-1bit
300.000000 : X resolution
300.000000 : Y resolution
1 : bits per color
1 : colors per pixel
0358 : bytes per scan line
00001 : First scanline
03600 : Last scanline

5. IVFD - plotting a FOP raster file

The IVFD program is named 'IVFD' and sends a FOP 'output.nnn' file to the plotter. Typical usage is:

C:\>ivfd -b2104 -p400 -n2 -fc:\xxx\info.001

Where -b2104 is the bytes per scan of the plotter (2104 bytes per scan), -n2 requests 2 copies across the plotter page (if they will fit, otherwise it stacks them), and -fc:\xxx\info.001 is the FOP raster file info file name and directory (info.001).

The following is the screen output from the IVFD program if the required parameters are not entered:

C:\>IVFD
IVFD - Ikon MS-DOS driver FOP output spooler - version 1.01 Sep-23-1993
Copyright Interface Consultants 1992,1993 Usage: ivfd -b<> [-d<>] [-p<>] [-l<>] [-n<>] [-r{1|2}] [-f<>] [-c<>] [-i] [-v]
-b /plotter bytes per scan/ required(e.g.2104 for color 8944-4r)
-d /dma_size in Kb/ (optional - default=16 max=128)
-p /plotter nib density/ (optional - default=same as plot) (required with -r<> option)
-l /max plot length/ (optional - default = 84 inches)
-n /number of copies/ (optional - default=1)
-r1 replicate dots in software (optional - default=no, )
-r2 replicate dots in plotter (optional - default=no) (requires -p<> option)
-f /filename/ info file to dma to port
-c /command/ Remote command to plotter, can be:
VRST - Versatec Remote Reset
VCLR - Versatec Remote Clear
VTFF - Versatec Remote Form Feed
VEOT - Versatec End or Terminate
VRLT - Versatec Remote Line Terminate
-i inhibit automatic form feed at end of plot
-v verbose mode

Note: args are executed left to right as found, multiple files in different modes can be sent in a single command. e.g. ivfd -b2104 -d32 -f info.001 reads file 'info.001' and plots 'output.001'

6. IVFD - demo version

The IVFD program is available as a demo.

This version of IVFD has all of the full features of the licensed version. However, it overlays the plot with the words "Interface Consultants" when it generates the plot.

If you would like to purchase this product, please feel free to contact us here at Interface Consultants for more information.

7. Revision History

0.94 12/15/92
- Initial full release

1.01 09/23/93
- ivfd
- change exe file name to ivfd from ikonout.
- add support for 'Raster BW-1bit' monochrome plots.

1.20 06/12/96
- updated for release on Internet as a demo.