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Hints: Managing memory
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Piintingfancystuffcanbe quitecumbersomefor yourprinter.You trade
off fancinessagainstspeed:if youoptfor fewerflourishes,yougiveyour
printer breathing room in memory. And that rewards you with faster
output.Any of the followingwill slowdown yourlaser printer:
- text over 20 points,
- lots of linesor patterns,
- graphics,
- macros,
- justifiedtext.
Youmaychooseto addanoptionalRAMboardto yourStarLaserPnnler
8 if you need to downloadmany fonts.
Altcmatively,considereither a softwareor hardware print
spooler
if
printingholdsup yourcomputermorcthanyou'dlike.Aspoolerprovides
a separate temporary mcmory space that holds the documents10 bc
pnntcd, and is particularlyhandyin a multi-usersystem.
Some page makeup programs automaticallydownload each font as
needed,then flushthat font from printermemoryto make room for the
next font. This approachcan make good sense if you're sharing your
printer with other peoplein a computernetwork.It keeps the pnntcr's
RAM from becomingoverloaded.However,the downloadingtime can
sigriificantly slow down yourprinter'sthroughput.
Moretypically,youwilldownloada fontinthemorning(perhapswiththe
MS-DOSCOPYcommand)beforeyou print your first document,and
that font will then stay in the printer's memory. If you use a single
downloadedfont (or macro) throughoutthe day, you will find it most
efficientto keepit in the laserprinter'smemory.You definitelyshould
downloadfontsthiswayif youuse a printspooler.If you'rein a nc[work,
however,make sure you don'tdownloadduplicatefonts.
Howmanydownloadable fontscanyouhaveinonedocument? That'snot
so easy to answer.Mostof yourlaser printer'smemoryis not available
for storingfonts,becauseit has to storeeach pagebeforeprintingit, as
WC1l as any macrosor overlaysyou are using.
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