Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1998 23:06:19 +0100

To: classic-post@hitznet.com

From: cadams@edprint.demon.co.uk (Christopher Adams)

Subject: Re: Color off an Imagewriter 2

Manuel Mejia <sfkee@scfn.thpl.lib.fl.us> wrote:

> How does one get an Imagewriter 2 to recognize

> and use a 4 color ribbon ?

Here are some text clippings I've collected from the Net over the years.

Beware that phone numbers and URLs may be old and no longer valid. Try

<http://www.filez.com/> if software URLs are broken.

------------------

"The Imagewriter II fully supports the use of the four-color ribbon in

hardware. The problem is that Apple never wrote a driver (extension) that

takes advantage of those capabilities. I think the Imagewriter extension

only supports the original implementation of Quickdraw which only supported

8 colors.

"Some applications will let you take advantage of this and print those 8

colors to the Imagewriter II. Excel 4 for example.

"A company called Microspot wrote a driver (extension) that supports color

printing. The driver is called MacPalette II and it supports full 24 bit

color by dithering the colors available on the ribbon to obtain the tones

in your document. Microspot can be reached at (408) 253-2000."

------------------

"If you generate a test page with the color ribbon installed, you can

determine if the printer is printing color properly. The test page will

print multi-color letters on the page.

1. Turn the ImageWriter II printer off

2. Hold down the power and form feed buttons

3. Turn the ImageWriter II on, then release the buttons."

------------------

"Applications such as SuperPaint 2.0 and MacWrite II that support the

original eight-color model for QuickDraw graphics only need a color ribbon

to print in color.

"The shareware GIFConverter can open and print a variety of graphics file

types in excellent dithered color.

"Jeff Skaitsis's $1 shareware CheapColor can also dither PixelPaint and

PICT2 files on an ImageWriter II.

<http://www.kamit.com/gifconverter.html>

<ftp://ftp.macfaq.com/pub/GIFConverter.sit.bin>

<ftp://ftp.macfaq.com/pub/CheapColor.sit.bin>

"If you have a Macintosh with a 68020 or better CPU, the payware MacPalette

II provides general purpose color printing from any application that prints

on a QuickDraw printer (e.g. NOT Illustrator). MacPalette II is about $45

street. If you need more information the publisher, Microspot, can be

contacted at

(800) 622-7568.

"QuickDraw GX can also provide general purpose color printing from any

application that prints on a QuickDraw printer (though with a much larger

memory footprint). "

------------------

Chris Adams, Birmingham, UK. cadams@edprint.demon.co.uk

The Mac SE Support Pages http://www.edprint.demon.co.uk/se/