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NEW PRINTER WORLDS TO CONQUER

NEW PRINTER WORLDS TO CONQUER TH E MICRO EDGE PHILIP M . CLARK NEW (PRINTER) WORLDS TO CONQUER Acquiring a major new piece of equipment is usually control over the graphs. The desktop publishing features exciting. You have great expectations of all the ne w things I'm talking about here deal with the spreadsheet presen­ you can accomplish. But the experienced computer per­ tation itself. Combined, they bring a whole new element son also expects some difficulties, especially when that into the world of spreadsheeting (i.e., presentation design) ne w piece of equipment is a printer. In my experience — and a group of artistic talents that probably are not the confirmed by articles in the computer press — perhap s 90 forte of financial managers. percent of the most common problems in microcomputing STATE-OF-THE-ART SPREADSHEETS involve the printer. The problems range from poor ribbons to the incompatibility of your favorite piece of software As you or, most probably, a staff member, get into the with your new WhizBang 1300 Print Machine. Conse­ desktop publishing aspects of spreadsheets, you might want quently, it's nice to be able to say that I've been delighted to refer to the following. First, take a look at Roger C. with my new Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III printer. It was Parker's Looking Good in Print: A Guide to Basic Design a cinch to install, the print quality is as good as its press for Desktop Publishing (Chapel Hill, NC: Ventana Press, notices, and it's quiet. Generally speaking, my software has 1988). It covers the basic elements of graphic design, gives even been able to make use of all its features. lots of illustrations of bad design and how it could be im­ proved, and then attacks specific kinds of presentations The exception has been older software that I acquired such as newletters, ads, brochures, and the like. Next look before the introduction of the LaserJet III. That software at Walt Crawford's Desktop Publishing for Librarians (WordStar 5.0, for example) recognizes the older LaserJet (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1990). While it is not specifically re­ II but not the newer model III. What I need are printer lated to the presentation of financial data, the examples drivers that update this older software. Hewlett-Packard are from the library world and the advice is excellent. sent me drivers for WordPerfect, Lotus, and Windows, but Finally, and again not limited to spreadsheet users, is Rita I forgot to get one for WordStar. So I'm forced to use my Belserene's Desktop Publishing with WordPerfect 5-1 (San fancy LaserJet III as a plain old II. Francisco: Sybex, 1990). It's not inconceivable that you NIFTY FONT OPTIONS might want to do all your desktop publishing (including the results of your spreadsheet activities) on a word pro­ What I've really enjoyed most are the built-in scalable cessor. You can haul the data over to WordPerfect and fonts that allow m e to experiment with desktop publishing. play with it there instead of learning Lotus' approach. I can print a single letter or number in any size from 6pt to 900pt — o r from bare readability to full page. MOVE UP TO LASER The two scalable fonts (CS Times and Univers) come in regular, bold, italic, and bold italic. Also built-in are Cour­ But, if you contemplate getting into the visual enhance­ ier in 10- and 12-point sizes (regular, bold, and italic) and ment of your spreadsheets with desktop publishing, know the LinePrinter font that prints condensed type, good for now that you must, for all practical purposes, get a laser larger spreadsheets. The scalable fonts are proportional fonts, printer (and probably a 386 computer with lots of hard Courier and LinePrinter are fixed-width fonts. disk space). Consider as well the time and talents you will What this all boils down to is that the current crop of have to devote to a pursuit that is not inherently analytical top-end popular spreadsheet programs such as Excel, Lotus but rather artistic. Once again, new features give a broad­ 1-2-3, Release 3.1, and Quattro Pro, Version 2.0, all incor­ ened opportunity to make more effective presentations but at a necessary cost in time and effort. Have fun. porate extensive desktop publishing features. That means you can create table headings, draw lines and boxes with P.S.: I can't help mentioning Avery LabelPro which can various shadings, use special symbols such as numbers en­ be used to make really nice looking labels in all the sizes closed in circles; in essence, you can embellish your that are available from Avery. There are ten different styles spreadsheets as much as your heart desires with, I might incorporating clip art graphics and various lines and shad­ add, both good and bad results. ings. Included is a database manager that does its job com­ petently. You can access dBASE, WordPerfect, and comma In my review of Quattro Pro Version 2.0, I mentioned the graph annotation feature that gives you all kinds of separated values files. But best of all is the ease of learning the program. It's really simple. The cost is about $85 dis­ counted at places like Egghead Software. If you do labels, Philip M. Clark is Associate Professor, Division of library and that is something to look at. Information Science, St. John's University, Jamaica, N.Y. 40 The Bottom lin e Volume 5, Number 1 http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png The Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances Emerald Publishing

NEW PRINTER WORLDS TO CONQUER

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Abstract

TH E MICRO EDGE PHILIP M . CLARK NEW (PRINTER) WORLDS TO CONQUER Acquiring a major new piece of equipment is usually control over the graphs. The desktop publishing features exciting. You have great expectations of all the ne w things I'm talking about here deal with the spreadsheet presen­ you can accomplish. But the experienced computer per­ tation itself. Combined, they bring a whole new element son also expects some difficulties, especially when that into the world of spreadsheeting (i.e., presentation design) ne w piece of equipment is a printer. In my experience — and a group of artistic talents that probably are not the confirmed by articles in the computer press — perhap s 90 forte of financial managers. percent of the most common problems in microcomputing STATE-OF-THE-ART SPREADSHEETS involve the printer. The problems range from poor ribbons to the incompatibility of your favorite piece of software As you or, most probably, a staff member, get into the with your new WhizBang 1300 Print Machine. Conse­ desktop publishing aspects of spreadsheets, you might want quently, it's nice to be able to say that I've been delighted to refer to the following. First, take a look at Roger C. with my new Hewlett-Packard LaserJet III printer. It was Parker's Looking Good in Print: A Guide to Basic Design a cinch to install, the print quality is as good as its press for Desktop Publishing (Chapel Hill, NC: Ventana Press, notices, and it's quiet. Generally speaking, my software has 1988). It covers the basic elements of graphic design, gives even been able to make use of all its features. lots of illustrations of bad design and how it could be im­ proved, and then attacks specific kinds of presentations The exception has been older software that I acquired such as newletters, ads, brochures, and the like. Next look before the introduction of the LaserJet III. That software at Walt Crawford's Desktop Publishing for Librarians (WordStar 5.0, for example) recognizes the older LaserJet (Boston: G.K. Hall, 1990). While it is not specifically re­ II but not the newer model III. What I need are printer lated to the presentation of financial data, the examples drivers that update this older software. Hewlett-Packard are from the library world and the advice is excellent. sent me drivers for WordPerfect, Lotus, and Windows, but Finally, and again not limited to spreadsheet users, is Rita I forgot to get one for WordStar. So I'm forced to use my Belserene's Desktop Publishing with WordPerfect 5-1 (San fancy LaserJet III as a plain old II. Francisco: Sybex, 1990). It's not inconceivable that you NIFTY FONT OPTIONS might want to do all your desktop publishing (including the results of your spreadsheet activities) on a word pro­ What I've really enjoyed most are the built-in scalable cessor. You can haul the data over to WordPerfect and fonts that allow m e to experiment with desktop publishing. play with it there instead of learning Lotus' approach. I can print a single letter or number in any size from 6pt to 900pt — o r from bare readability to full page. MOVE UP TO LASER The two scalable fonts (CS Times and Univers) come in regular, bold, italic, and bold italic. Also built-in are Cour­ But, if you contemplate getting into the visual enhance­ ier in 10- and 12-point sizes (regular, bold, and italic) and ment of your spreadsheets with desktop publishing, know the LinePrinter font that prints condensed type, good for now that you must, for all practical purposes, get a laser larger spreadsheets. The scalable fonts are proportional fonts, printer (and probably a 386 computer with lots of hard Courier and LinePrinter are fixed-width fonts. disk space). Consider as well the time and talents you will What this all boils down to is that the current crop of have to devote to a pursuit that is not inherently analytical top-end popular spreadsheet programs such as Excel, Lotus but rather artistic. Once again, new features give a broad­ 1-2-3, Release 3.1, and Quattro Pro, Version 2.0, all incor­ ened opportunity to make more effective presentations but at a necessary cost in time and effort. Have fun. porate extensive desktop publishing features. That means you can create table headings, draw lines and boxes with P.S.: I can't help mentioning Avery LabelPro which can various shadings, use special symbols such as numbers en­ be used to make really nice looking labels in all the sizes closed in circles; in essence, you can embellish your that are available from Avery. There are ten different styles spreadsheets as much as your heart desires with, I might incorporating clip art graphics and various lines and shad­ add, both good and bad results. ings. Included is a database manager that does its job com­ petently. You can access dBASE, WordPerfect, and comma In my review of Quattro Pro Version 2.0, I mentioned the graph annotation feature that gives you all kinds of separated values files. But best of all is the ease of learning the program. It's really simple. The cost is about $85 dis­ counted at places like Egghead Software. If you do labels, Philip M. Clark is Associate Professor, Division of library and that is something to look at. Information Science, St. John's University, Jamaica, N.Y. 40 The Bottom lin e Volume 5, Number 1

Journal

The Bottom Line: Managing Library Finances – Emerald Publishing

Published: Jan 1, 1992

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