Solution to a Pedigree/Draw Printing Problem
One of the more irritating limits of using a standard laser
printer to display Pedigree/Draw output is the need to align
and glue multiple sheets of 8.5x11 paper so that large
pedigrees (particularly those consisting of more than 100
individuals) can be displayed in their entirety with fully
legible text.
The appearance of advertisements for wide-carriage bubble jet
printers during this past year was very encouraging, and we
began an evaluation. Unfortunately, advertisements were all
that several vendors could supply until we actually got a loan
a of a Canon BJ-330 printer. This printer comes with a
parallel connection, and thus is not Macintosh-ready.
However, Canon gave me the names of three vendors who
supposedly could supply a serial-to-parallel adapter and the
appropriate driver software. We tried all three, and have come
to the enthusiastic choice of one: PowerPrint from GDT Softworks
Inc., 4664 Lougheed Highway, Suite 188, Burnaby, B.C. V5C 6B7.
This package consists of well-documented, Chooser-selectable
QuickDraw drivers for the Canon and a number of other printers,
and an adapter cable that gets its power from the Mac.
The Canon provides no means of scaling fonts so that they will
print smoothly at irregular sizes, as is the case with a
PostScript-based printer. These features can be provided by
using Adobe Type Manager under System, 6.07, or the TrueType
fonts under System 7.0.
The printer accepts 14-inch perforated fanfold paper and will
print across page breaks so that it is possible to print a
pedigree 5-6 generations deep that extends laterally on a
continuous sheet as long as is required. Highest resolution
is 360 dpi, although we have found 180 dpi to be acceptable.
The current version (4.3B3) of Pedigree/Draw uses the printer
without modification, although we continue to experiment.
Another nice feature of this solution is the price: the BJ-330
costs about $700, PowerPrint about $150.
No doubt other printers and software will be available in the
future, but this combination is the best we've found to date.
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| Bennett Dyke |
| Department of Genetics Internet: bdyke at darwin.sfbr.org |
| Southwest Foundation Phone: (512) 674-1410 Ext 281 |
| P.O. Box 28147 Fax: (512) 674-2126 |
| San Antonio, TX 78228, USA |
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