On Mon, 20 Jan 1997 [log in to unmask] wrote:

> This problem has become more apparent due to an increased use of newer lasers
> that don't have flash simms or hard discs for loading soft fonts.
> We would like to send the soft fonts before each file that will need them. HP

I think that is a very time-consuming process if you download the soft
fonts again and again. You'd rather give a hotkey to the user to stop the
printing and a menu before each printing "Download soft fonts (Y/N)?"
I recomment to have a menu point "Repeat printing previous file again",
too.

In our system the PC rules the printing, and the following menus appear:

The menu#1 is before the first printing:
"What kind of Printer you have?
"Laser Epson None"
Selecting None stops the program. Other selection invoke the menu
"Download fonts? Yes No"
This message appears on the bottom line during printing:
"Hit S to stop".
The following menu appears after collecting the data for first printout:
"Download Continue Stop"
This menu changes so after collecting the data for second printout:
"Download Continue Stop Repeat"
If the program catches a No Printer error condition, this menu pops up;
"Printer is not receiving? Try again?
"Yes No with Other wait time: ___ s".

                                Regards
                                             Frank

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There are 3 kinds of programming errors:  syntactical, semantical and mystical.
The programmers have to suck up the users just as much as absolutely necessary.