*** This is beta software *** This is beta software *** This is beta software 

Probehouse PDF driver beta
27-Nov-2015

PH PDF driver beta is a GDOS printer driver that outputs a PDF file instead 
of printing to a hardware printing device. Current beta implementation only 
works with NVDI and produce output for text only. No other VDI functions are 
implemented yet. If you need to draw any VDI GDP such as boxes circles and 
hatching, this will produce nothing. Please see limitation.

As usual this is freeware. 


ENVIRONMENT
1. Mint 1.19
2. NVDI 5.03
3. U:/ram 

Other version of Mint may work but as usual not tested. Other version of NVDI
may work but again not tested. Other implementation of GDOS such as SpeedoGDOS, 
has not been tested at all, and may not work. Normal TOS is also not tested and 
may not work. 
U:/ram is needed as it is the tempporary work space for the driver.
(explains why normal TOS does not work.)


INSTALLATION
1. Copy PHPDF.SYS into the C:\GEMSYS folder. It must be in this folder else it 
   will fail.
2. Copy PHPDF.PRG into any folder of your choice.
3. Run PHPDF.PRG, to configure LOW or HIGH dot per inch (DPI). There is a huge 
   limitation on HIGH DPI. You may change the DPI selection at any time.
4. Edit your ASSIGN.SYS file to include PHPDF.SYS, so that your GDOS engine is 
   able to load & run it. You may set it to any device number from 21 to 31, as
   these are reserved as printers in GDOS.  

You may want to read "The Joy of GDOS" for more information. 
No, the NVDI printer CPX will not know about this PHPDF.SYS.
Low DPI equates to 60 DPI while high is 200 DPI in this case.
There is no Coldfire nor 68000 version, only 68030-60 version. Sorry.


USAGE
1. Use your word processor such as Atari Works. You may use any fonts and use 
   bold face, underline, italic. 
2. Select the printer setup and select the printer device number (the one you 
   added in ASSIGN.SYS).
3. Select the paper size from the device to ensure the correct paper dimension.
4. Print out the normal way via the print function.... it will take some time 
   and uses tons of memory. So please wait.
5. WAIT... WAIT... WAIT and WAIT.
6. Eventually, the file selector will pop-up and you can select the folder and 
   filename to save the PDF file.
7. For QED, you may need to use the print device #21 as it seems you cannot 
   change the printer device in the program.


PHPDF PROGRAMMING API
Normally programming API shows you what and how to make the API calls, but for 
this case, it is which API NOT to use to create full high quality PDF. See the
test folder for the example.


LIMITATION
1. No boxes, no circles, no ellipse of any sort, no colours, no hatching, no 
   graphics, no bitmaps.
2. Biggest limitation is probably not able to render the entire page... the last
   few lines are clipped off. You need to add extra <return> on your doc to get 
   the entire page. It is trial & error based.
3. The LOW dot per inch looks like sh*t.... no choice, something information 
   needed about NVDI that I cannot get.
4. The HIGH dot per inch looks fantastic but text are clipped to a small square 
   area only. Again some information is needed from NVDI.   

If anyone know how to fix this issue, do let me know. Anyone know how to contact 
Behn & Behn, let me know. All email contacts on NVDI.DE bounced. 
	 
	 
FUTURE PLANS
1. Plenty... like encryption, password protection, colour and those stuff on 
   line#1 of limitation above.
2. However, due to the limitation #3 & #4, there is no point in continuing the
   effort. Hence also this release as a beta software.... better than it goes
	 in to the forgotten corner of my HDD.

	 
THANKS
Special thanks to Mike Fulton for his great blog and writings on VDI and other
good stuff (past and present articles). You can visit his blog at www.fultonsoft.com

The guys at www.Atari-forum.com - Dal, mfro, gstoll, Faucon2001 and other who chip 
in on this topic.

*** This is beta software *** This is beta software *** This is beta software 