Epson Printer Utilities NOTE: Other printer sections (PRNT_GEN, PRNT_LAS) have utilities which also work on Epson printers. Some programs in this section will work on non-Epson printers, especially since many dot matrix printers are Epson compatible. Contents: -----Sideways Printing -----Label & Sign Printing -----File Printing -----Printer Control -----Fonts -----Banners/Signs -----BarCode ====================== -----Sideways Printing [LUM] LUM (LCS; $45) is an 81k pop-up, sideways-printing utility for spreadsheet and text files for Epson compatible printers. LUM supports reverse high-lighting, superscript, subscript, up to eight types of underlining types or overstrikings, and extended ASCII characters. LUM comes with a 10x6 dot font and a 40x24 dot uppercase ASCII font. LUM invokes a secondary copy of COMMAND.COM, which it requires to be on drive A:. [ONSIDE] On-Side (Expressware Corporation ASP; $20) is a sideways printing program you can use to print reports down the page instead of across, and in a variety of character font styles. All the font styles provided with ON-SIDE can be enlarged or magnified to stretch themselves vertically or horizontally, or both. By magnifying the fonts in all their various sizes and shapes, you have 175 different style/size combinations to choose from. With the accompanying font editor, you can modify any of the character's dot patterns or make your own fonts. Epson/IBM-Graphics compatible printer required. [PRINTUP] PrintUp (DPI Services; $20) is a utility that can be used to intermix regular text with text that is printed 90 degrees to the left of normal. PRINT-UP will give you the ability to print the turned text to the left, right or in the middle of regular text. PRINTUP has the ability to prescan the data file (what you see on your monitor is what will go to your printer) that has PRINT-UP areas marked in the file. The use of the prescan feature along with the ability to chose the lines of the file that you want to prescan can save you a large amount of time. The other timesaver of Print-up is that you can create a disk-file of the output data and print it at your convenience. [SIDEPRN] is a sideways printing utility. Pascal source code is included. [SW] Sidewrite (DEA Software; $?) prints text files sideways to allow very long lines. For example, it will print a spreadsheet (which has been printed to a disk file) that has too many columns to fit across a page horizontally. Works on the IBM, Epson and HP ThinkJet printers. -----Label & Sign Printing [CLM] CLM (Updyke, Merwin; $?) prints fancy labels on Star NX-10, Epson and IBM printers for various uses such as labeling disks and books and making address labels. [LPAINT] Label Paint 1.0 (XPoint Systems; $15) prints custom labels using several different font styles, drawing tools, and features the ability to import Print Master graphic icons. Requires 512K RAM, a mouse, EGA/VGA or monographics monitor, and an Epson or compatible printer. [LBL_JX] LBL_JX (Ford, Nelson ASP; $0) prints color labels on the JX color printer. Can also be used on non-color Epson printers. Allows mixing different print sizes, printing 5, 6 or 7 lines per label, auto-centering, serial numbering, saving label layouts. [RUBOT] Rubot Labels (Botbyl, Dick; $10) is a terrific set of utilities for making disk directory labels. "3x3" lets you store an 18-line label header on disk that can optionally be printed above the sorted list of file names. The volume name of the disk (which you can override) appears on the very edge of the disk in small print and on the back of the disk in expanded print when the label is attached to the disk. You can make up to 99 copies of a label. "4x1.5" makes labels for 5.25" disks. POCKET prints the directory information on an 8.5" by 11" piece of paper in such a way that the paper can be folded to neatly hold a 3.5" disk. This allows you to identify the contents of a 3.5" disk without having to attach a label to it. [PTShare] Picture This (Picture This Software, Inc.; $?) is a graphics and text label printing program for Epson/IBM compatible printers. Six fonts and several dozen graphics come with the program. It prints on standard 1" by 3.5" labels. -----File Printing [BRADFORD] Bradford (Contorer, Aaron; $40) prints files in very high quality in a large variety of fonts using the printer's graphics. It also allows you to give commands, either on the system command line or within your document, to control how your document will be printed. Bradford works with printers compatible with Epson MX and FX, IBM Graphics and Proprinter, and Star Gemini-10x printers. In addition to the large number of fonts that come on the disk, a utility is included with which you can create your own fonts. [COLRVIEW] ColrView prints text files in color on the Epson JX-80. [FONTASTK] Fontastic (IHS Systems; $?) uses dot graphics on Epson and compatible printers to print text in numerous fonts and print sizes. For example, among the font files on the disk are Roman, Helvetica, caligraph, script, rotated, dark bold and others in sizes from 8 point to 24 point. (Authors no longer at the address listed in the docs.) [IMAGE_PR] ImagePrint (Image Computer Systems; $46) allows controlling the printer by embedding controls in the file to be printed. Features include a menu from which fonts can be selected, the ability to print only selected pages, support for wide carriages, 25 fonts up to 34 points in size, 24-pin Epson (and compatible) printer support, and a screen preview mode. A text editor is included. [JUST_LQ] Just_LQ (Ford, Nelson ASP; $0) prints files using proportional print and micro-justification for a near typeset appearance on the Epson LQ printers. [LQPRINT] LQ-Print letter-quality file printer for FX-series printers. [MP_KW] Micro Print (Whitney, Kenneth D.; $?) prints text files at 17 characters per inch and 12 lines per inch on IBM and compatible printers. Options allow you to format the printout to fit into IBM-sized binders and to skip every other page so that you can turn the paper over and print on the other side. [PPS3] PPS3 (Cox, Doug; $0) reformats and prints a file in proportional spacing on an Epson LQ printer. [PRWIDE] PRWide is designed for printing files on wide paper on Epson compatible printers. PRWIDE automatically determines which of three formats to use. Files with long lines (greater than 135) will print single file. Files with medium size lines (between 88 - 135) will print two pages on each sheet side by side. Files with short lines (less than 88) will print three pages per sheet. [SIMPRIN] SimPrint 1.0 (Lujanac, Paul; $17) is a file printing utility. It will optionally strip high bits to help convert files to straight text. It lets you control codes in the file to signal it to invoke different printing features, such as expanded print. [TL] TL prints files using compressed, subscripted print. [WEDFNT] lets you change the printer's fonts, styles, sizes and colors when printing an ASCII text file from the DOS prompt. -----Printer Control [BUZOFF] BuzOff turns off the paper-out alarm. [CONVEPS] Convert 1.1 (Root, John; $15) converts files from 9-pin double density to 24-pin hex density. Also included is a utility for use with Mirage and a utility to print graphics files which have been output to a disk file rather than to a printer. [EGAEPSON] EGAEpson (Van Horn, Dr. R. Brooks Jr.; $?) lets you do a graphics PrtSc from an EGA monitor to an Epson printer. [EZEPSON] EZ Epson 1.09 (Celista Software; $5) allows access to some of your printer's capabilities that are not available through use of the front panel switches. One option available is the "feed paper". It feeds the paper ahead just enough to remove the document, and then reverses the paper so printing can resume on the next empty page. This avoids wasting a lot of paper. It works with many Epson and Epson-mode printers. [EPSET] EPset 3.1 (Monroe, Gerald A.; $15) is an Epson printer set-up and control program. [EPSONSE] EpsonSet is a memory-resident set-up utility for Epson compatibles. [FXMASTER] FXMaster 3.31E (Raub, Brian; $15) uses one menu (or command line parameters) to let you select all 160+ Epson FX-series fonts from your keyboard or batch files. The program can issue a reset, linefeed, or form-feed, and can variably set margins, skip-over-perf, line spacing and form length, and initial character sets. It also toggles on/off: sheet-feeder, paper-out sensor, typewriter mode, and quiet (half-speed) mode. [LQ_1500] LQ-1500 is the same as EpsonSet, but for the Epson LQ-1500. [LQ800] LQ800 is a memory resident program which is designed to allow the user to select from among 30 different fonts and options for Epson LQ800 printers. [LQ8PRNT] LQ8Prnt 1.5 (Forrest, Rob; $5) is a printer setup program for Epson LQ800 printers. It should also work with others in the LQ series. [LQMATRIX] LQMatrix 4.41 (Jimmy Paris Software ASP; $20 each) allows you to create, store, and download fonts on the Epson LQ family of 24-pin dot matrix printers. It also includes over fifty ready made and ready to use fonts including Script, Italics, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Large Type, Math symbols, OCR-A & B, and more. [LQSERIES] LQSeries (Grimmer, Dave; $10) will allow you to get any of the 224 different print styles from your Epson LQ series printer. [MARGIN] Margin is a menu-driven utility for setting printer margins. [NU_EPSON] NU-Epson is a pop-up printer set-up utility for Epson-compatible printers. [P_EPSON] P is a menu-driven printer set-up program. [PERFSKI] PerfSkip skips designated number of lines over perforation. [PMENU3] PMenu3 is a resident printer setting utility. [RDPRINT] RDPrint (Brookwell, Denny; $15) is a pair of menu driven programs for controlling Epson dot matrix printers and the Canon Bubble Jet. [TINY] Tiny sets the printer to 17 cpi and 14 lines-per-inch. -----Fonts [FONTGEN] FontGen lets you design character fonts to be downloaded into your Epson FX-compatible printer. [LQCHAR] LQChar 1.23 (Meyer, Eric; $0) is a small, efficient utility for designing downloadable character fonts for Epson LQ-compatible 24-pin dot matrix printers. It has LQ to Draft conversion; the ability to copy characters from another font; to preview fonts on EGA. [LQFONT] LQ-Font (Hardy, Dr. James K.; $?) consists of a font editor, 7 sample fonts for use with Epson compatible printers, and a program to upload the fonts to the printer. [LQ_FONTS] LQ Fonts is a collection of over 60 fonts for Epson compatible printers. All you have to do to load a font into the printer is type COPY PRN. From then on, the printer will print everything in the requested font until you reset the printer, turn it off, or load a different font. Ron Hockemeier, Flemington, NJ, passes along the following tip: the LQ-1000 has a dipswitch in the back (switch #1-4) which controls buffer size. In the On position, you get a larger print buffer, but cannot download fonts to the machine, so to use LQ-FONTS, turn that switch off. [PRNCHR] Prnchr 1.3 (WyNiWyG Group; $5) lets you redefine fonts on an Epson 9 or 24-pin printer. After you edit the characters, the program automatically creates a file for you to send to your printer. This is very easy and powerful system for designing your own fonts, or creating special characters. English and French instructions are provided. [GFX] Gfx (MacLean, Randy ASP; $?) simplifies the generation of graphics on Epson compatible printers. It allows you to quickly create a small graphic image which GFX will store in a small disk file which will reproduce the graphic when dumped to the printer. A mouse is required. [LETRHEAD] Letrhead lets you create letterheads for your stationary. In testing at 6 lines per inch, gaps in the graphics were left between lines. After setting the printer to 8 lines per inch, the problem was minimized. [SCRNDUMP] ScrnDump (graphics screen dump utility for Herc, CGA, EGA.;) -----Banners/Signs [CARSIGN] CarSign (Mutant Software; $?) lets you create your own variant of the "Kid on Board" sign to stick on your car's rear window. It displays a template to guide you in entering text, then prints it. The Epson MX/FX, IBM ProPrinter and HP ThinkJet printers are supported. [SIGNSMIF] SignSmif (Smith, Bryan B.; $?) is a sign-printing program primarily designed to make single-page signs, transparencies, etc, using up to four fonts and dot graphics on Epson and compatible printers. Pascal source code is on the disk. -----BarCode [BRCD_ET] Barcode 2.0 (Electronic Technologies; $10) prints a barcode on an Epson compatible dot matrix printer from command line input. UPC, Interleave 2-of-5, and Code 39 barcodes are supported. [CODE3OF9] Code3of9 (Wood, Bill; $0) is BASIC source code for a program that will print standard 3-of-9 bar codes on IBM or Epson graphics printers. [DJR_BAR] DJR BarCode Database 2.5cl (Ramsey, David J.; $40) prints Code 39 barcodes on Epson compatible printers for a customer or parts database maintained by the program. Requires 540k RAM and 500+K disk space. [LQUTIL1, LQUTIL2] Epson LQ Printer Utilities (Argonaut Systems; $25) is a set of utilities for Epson LQ 24-pin printers. LQGraph allows you to create a graphic logo. LQChar allows you to create font sets and/or single special characters. PrnLQ prints IBM extended ASCII characters. ENV prints addresses on business size envelopes. Requires EGA/VGA and a mouse. (The authors are no longer at the address listed in the documentation.) This program requires that your printer be turned on and your mouse loaded prior to executing the program or it will lock up. [QUIKZIP] Quikzip 1.2 (Westcoast Software; $49) prints the new Postnet Barcode and address on any size envelope, postcard or label. Not only will this help your mail get delivered faster, it can save you money on postage. Quikzip will read names and addresses from an ASCII file and translate the zip code to a bar code. Requires an Epson compatible printer. [UPC] UPC-A Label Printer 1.4 (Matter, Robert J.; $0) enables 9-pin Epson compatible printers to print UPC version A barcodes on standard mailing labels. You can scan input from an existing label, and double density printing is supported. [ZIPCODE] ZipCode4 (Unikey Systems; $15) prints zip and zip+4 postal codes on 24 pin printers that have Epson graphics emulation.