From dlm@shivafs.cac.washington.edu Wed Aug 24 09:26:18 1994
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 95 15:40:48 -0800
From: The Pine Development Team <pine-faq@docserver.cac.washington.edu>
Subject:  Why doesn't "attached-to-ansi" printing work?
Status: RO
X-Status: 

So-called "attached-to-ansi" printing relies on the communication software
you are using to interpret certain special characater sequences that tell
it to divert the incoming stream of characters to your printer, and then
back to your screen.  Perhaps 99% of "pine printing problems" are either
due to PC or Mac communications software that doesn't understand ANSI
escape sequences for printing, *or* (in the dialin case) softare flow-
control problems. 

We didn't understand how big a problem software flow control was 
until 3.90 came out... we changed pine to intercept flow control 
characters so that users would not see Pine "wedge" mysteriously if a 
mis-type or noise generated a control-S, but that did bad things when 
printers, modems, or comm software was depending on s/w flow control.

So in 3.91 we added the "preserve-start-stop-characters" feature, so that
Pine could be configured to respect s/w flow control characters (if the
operating system did) for those folks who needed them.  Enabling this feature
should make Pine 3.91 behave the same way as earlier versions. 

Then we discovered that some operating systems don't enable software flow
control by default.  So in 3.92, the "preserve-start-stop-characters" 
feature will do more than simply "not ignoring" them, it will try to force
the OS to pay attention to them.

So here's the sequence of things to try if you have pine printing 
problems:

 1. CHECK FOR SOFTWARE FLOW-CONTROL PROBLEMS:
    A. Try enabling "preserve-start-stop-characters"  <- requires 3.91
    B. If that doesn't help, verify that the OS is enabling s/w flow
       control; if it isn't, you can either change that in a global 
       .login script, or as a worst case, wrap pine in a script that does 
       it.  By the way, on our AIX systems, we had to execute "stty -ixon"
       followed by "stty ixon" --no one here knows why the first stty
       is needed.  (Note that explicitly enabling s/w flow control in the OS 
       will not be needed in 3.92).
    C. If neither of the above apply, double-check that you actually have
       *some* kind of flow control enabled on your system, either hardware
       or software.
 2. CHECK YOUR COMM SOFTWARE FOR ANSI PRINTING CAPABILITY
    A. After ruling out s/w flow control problems, if printing still 
       doesn't work, the odds are that the PC or Mac comm s/w is at fault.
       I don't know how to determine this other than via trial-and-error
       and word-of-mouth.  
    B. The "ansiprt" utility included in the pine distribution can also 
       be used for testing.  It simply sends the specified text file to 
       user's terminal device, bracketed with the ANSI escape sequences 
       for print diversion.  This is just what Pine does as well (although
       some versions of ansiprt offer a few options not available via Pine.)
 3. POSSIBLE OTHER PRINTING PROBLEMS
    A. Printing via Pine's "attached-to-ansi" facility to a postscript-only
       printer.  Pine does not yet have the ability to encapsulate text
       into postscript, ala "enscript", so the custom print option using 
       enscript and ansiprt will be needed in that case.
    B. Other printer-specific configuration problems.  For example, 
       whether or not the printer needs a trailing formfeed to eject the 
       last page, or a control-D, or non-Unix newline conventions, etc.
       Many of these problem will also require using the custom print 
       command option and "ansiprt".


From dlm@shivafs.cac.washington.edu Wed Aug 24 09:26:18 1994
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 95 15:40:48 -0800
From: The Pine Development Team <pine-faq@docserver.cac.washington.edu>
Subject: What PC comm software works with the "Print to ANSI" print option?
Status: RO
X-Status: 

The attached-to-ansi option works on most PC communication packages. In
particular, Kermit, NCSA Telnet, and WinQVT have been tested. 
   
Brent Blumenstein <brentb@orca.fhcrc.org> reports "It works in under OS/2
using IBM's TCP/IP for OS/2 telnet capabilities (provided you have updated
to the latest corrective service diskettes - readily available). I do this
using both a token ring network connection and SLIP from home."
   
Ryan <draziw@netcom.com> reports "Works great with QmodemPro for DOS."
   
Ben Cacace <benc@pipeline.com> reports "I'm using ProComm Plus for Windows
ver 1.02: I can print E-Mail if it is *not* a large memo (memos of 48K or
larger give me a ProComm error message)."
   
Nancy McGough <nancym@ii.com> reports "It works with Delrina's WinComm. 

Other packages will be listed as reports come in.  Please send reports to
pine@cac.washington.edu. 

IMPORTANT NOTE
==============
If you have a postscript printer and you are printing from a MS Windows 
Comm program you need to use a non-postscript printer driver.


From dlm@shivafs.cac.washington.edu Wed Aug 24 09:26:18 1994
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 95 15:40:48 -0800
From: The Pine Development Team <pine-faq@docserver.cac.washington.edu>
Subject: What Mac comm software works with the "Print to ANSI" print option?
Status: RO
X-Status: 

The UW modified versions of Kermit and NCSA Telnet are known to work with
the attached-to-ansi print option. Versaterm Pro is also reported to work. 
   
Other packages will be listed as reports come in.  Please send reports to
pine@cac.washington.edu. 

From dlm@shivafs.cac.washington.edu Wed Aug 24 09:26:18 1994
Date: Tue, 10 Feb 95 15:40:48 -0800
From: David Miller <dlm@cac.washington.edu>
Subject: What Amiga comm software works with the "Print to ANSI" print option?
Status: RO
X-Status: 

David Miller <dlm@cac.washington.edu> reports "Term 3.2 starts printing,
but misses the sequence to stop printing.  Term 4.1 printing is garbled."

Other packages will be listed as reports come in.  Please send reports to
pine@cac.washington.edu. 

