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GEOS Paint Drivers - cheap DTP plus more!
by Bruce Thomas

GEOS is an amazing, integrated software package for the C-64 and C-128. When Version 2.0 first appeared Berkeley Softworks advertised that they had something 7 times better than GEOS.

The ads and upgrade notices made a lot of noise about the improvements to geoWrite plus the addition of geoSpell, geoMerge and Text Grabber. All of the new features of geoPaint were trumpeted loudly. The Desk Accessories sported new cut and paste features and the Desktop was pumped up too. Lastly, the low upgrade price made the whole package a deal too hard to pass up.

Of course, if you had been using a previous version of GEOS you know what a big difference all of these features made. It was great to be able to get things done easier and to do things you previously couldn't, but BSW shortchanged one of the new applications it was including.

When you think of GEOS applications you probably think of geoWrite and geoPaint, ones that you run all of the time. How often do you consider the DeskTop? You don't have to run it, so it is likely that you forget it is an application also. There is another application on the GEOS V2.0 System Disk (64 or 128) that you should only have to run once and may, quite likely, have never run at all. This application is the Paint Drivers.

The Paint DRIVERS application was not mentioned by name in the upgrade notice, in the ads or on the box. The box simply states 'special feature to create multiple columns, add headlines and borders' along with all of the other geoWrite news. Since geoWrite doesn't allow placing text beside graphics these drivers are great for spicing up your geoWrite files. But, while this plainly states some of what you can accomplish via the Paint Drivers application, it also leaves a lot to your imagination as to the creative power you gain as a user. The integrated nature of the system is enhanced greatly by using these drivers.

When I first e-mailed Jeff about writing this article his response was that he didn't understand what I meant by the PP drivers and he wondered what they were. This response is typical of many GEOS users who have missed out on a cheap method to do Desktop Publishing and/or spice up all kinds of output.

Now, we know that geoPublish is the best Desktop Publishing program for Commodore 8-bit users and will provide top quality output when used with a Laser Printer. GeoLaser gives geoWrite users with access to a Laser Printer the ability to create overlaid pages for columnar output. With geoWrite, geoPaint and the drivers created by the Paint Drivers application, you can create some pretty neat printouts using just your dot-matrix printer and everything that comes with the basic GEOS V2.0 package.

To start with, you must run the Paint Drivers application. Copy it and the printer driver you use to a work disk or your REU. Double Click on Paint Drivers and you will be presented with a dialog box prompting you to 'Choose real printer type'. Highlight the printer driver you use and click OK. When the Desktop returns you will find that two new printer drivers, called Paint OVERLAY and Paint PAGES, have been created. In the info boxes they will identify the printer driver they were created from. This is a useful feature if you were to upgrade from a 60 DPI printer to an 80 DPI printer and needed to make sure you used the proper Paint Driver (multi-pass/strike drivers don't make a difference to the geoPaint file).

The two drivers operate in different ways and have absolutely nothing to do with your printer. Paint OVERLAY will take consecutive pages of your geoWrite file and create one geoPaint file. By setting your page margins at the appropriate places you can get multiple column output (see Figure A). Paint PAGES will take your geoWrite document and create a geoPaint file for each separate geoWrite page. Either way, you can now spruce up your documents with all of the geoPaint tools.

There are many things that you must be careful with when using the Paint Drivers. For starters, the files created are called OVERLAY and PAGE 1, PAGE 2, etc. If you have a file of that name on your disk it will be overwritten, although there is an exception to this with Paint OVERLAY. Original reviews stated the system would lock up if a similarly named file existed but, fortunately for us, that is not true. You must also make sure the disk you are using has enough room (up to 40K) to hold the Paint file(s) that will be created. There is also the chance that you will have to use Page Breaks in your geoWrite document or the bottom lines on your pages could be lost in the process. All of these things are easier to figure out with practice. Once you have 'printed' your file to disk be sure to rename the file and then reselect your regular printer driver to avoid overwriting your file the next time you print.

The Paint Drivers application first appeared on the GeoWrite Workshop disk with Version 2.0 of geoWrite. At this time geoPaint had not been upgraded and had no transparent paste feature. This shortcoming of geoPaint was quickly overcome by creative users who put the Paint OVERLAY driver to work to create some stunning graphics. Two articles were written on this method of filling graphics regions with patterns and laying text over graphics (see Figure B) in GeoWorld magazine Vol. 2 #2 (Feb '88) and Issue #17. This process works wonderfully but was superceded with the release of GEOS v2.0 and the upgraded geoPaint.

It was also in the Feb '88 issue that George H. Wells made note of the one exception to the process I mentioned previously. If you are using Paint OVERLAY you can have a geoPaint file called OVERLAY on the disk and it will not be overwritten but will be written to. Anything in the original OVERLAY file is retained in the new file even if the text 'prints' to the same part of the page. This works great but you would be better off to insert graphics after 'printing' your geoWrite file.

Mention is made in the manual of the possibility to print from geoPublish with these drivers. It is noted that the process could take longer than a geoWrite file but no mention of why you would want to do this. The obvious reason is to have access to the pixel edit and drawing features available in geoPaint. This is a great way to touch up geoPublish files you intend to print with a dot matrix printer but you will lose the ability to print the file and get Laser quality (geoPaint files will print at 80 DPI on a Laser instead of 300).

GeoWrite and geoPublish aren't the only applications you can use these drivers with either. Special versions of the drivers were created and uploaded to Genie that will print geoCalc files to geoPaint images (see article #9 – GKLAND). This comes in real handy if you want to have landscape (sideways) printouts of your spreadsheets. By using Spike Dethman's Paint Rotate program on the resulting geoPaint file you can rotate your geoCalc output 90 degrees prior to printing.

Another great improvement can be had when designing cards or posters with Roger Lawhorn's geoPrint program. This program adds all of the features of the venerable Print Shop and PrintMaster programs to the GEOS environment, but with more design flexibility. When creating cards or posters you are working in geoPaint on a reduced size template. GeoPrint takes this template and jumps through the necessary hoops to expand and rotate the images where necessary to create the printed output.

The biggest drawback to the geoPrint process is the reduced area you are working on. By printing to a geoPaint file with the Paint Pages driver your creation is expanded and you have a large area in which to add text and more graphics if you please. This process works great and permits you to fit more on a card than would otherwise be possible with just the template. Again, Spike's Paint Rotate will let you flip the geoPaint file to work upright on all four sides of the card.

If you get a chance to pick up the issues of GeoWorld I mentioned you should do so. Although the process is now quicker with geoPaint it is a handy trick to have at your disposal and shows you what some very creative people have done with GEOS.

I hope that this article has enlightened you to some of the possibilities that exist when using the special Paint Drivers printer drivers. As with all things in the GEOS universe a little experimentation and a willingness to try to use different programs with each other can highlight the integrated nature of this Operating System. The Paint Drivers enforces the fact that, even at only 4K in size, every GEOS application can be an important one.