Printing from Final Writer for the Amiga in 2023

In this video, the second in my Final Writer for the Amiga series, I look at how I could print a document from the software, despite not having a printer attached to my Amiga.
How do I get on with that challenge? Watch the video to find out. 😅
Links mentioned in the video are:
PS top PDF for Mac: mendelson.org/postscripttopdf...
PS to PDF for Windows: mendelson.org/winpostscriptto...
Credit to Edward Mendelson.
For more of my retro computing world, follow the links below.
See my small retro website here: www.ya-retro.co.uk
... and you can follow me on X/Twitter at: @yawning_angel
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Thanks for watching, and I hope this video is of some use to you.
YA. 😎

[@Lbf5677]

Ey not bad! A very high quality print. It seems like you've actually read the manual as you were able to combine images and text etc.

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Thank you, and thanks for your original comment that sparked this video. 😁 To be honest I did all that from memory from when I had FW ‘back in the day’. I do need to re-read the manual as I’m sure there are features I am missing. 😅

[@chrisearl2217]

There`s a device called a retro printer that connects the amiga and other machines to a modern printer with the help of a raspberry pi thats pretty good.

[@YawningAngelRetro]

That is good to know, thanks for sharing. I’ll look that up. 👍

[@chrisearl2217]

​@YawningAngelRetro I did put the web site address here but think maybe you tube removed it 🤔

[@YawningAngelRetro]

@@chrisearl2217 It does that. Not to worry, I found it online okay. 👍

[@10MARC]

I looked into that device, but it seemed pricey for what I was trying to do.

[@chrisearl2217]

​@10MARC yes definitely a little over priced for what it is, especially as a pi is also needed but does a reliable job...strange how the prints come out resembling dot matrix.... but kind o cool.

[@dallesamllhals9161]

Parallel port...why i kept my good ol' Epson from '01 ;-)

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Sadly I got rid of my faithful Canon BJ10 inkjet printer from back in the day... 🤦‍♂️

[@patchso]

Hi YAR, cool method you’ve got going there. Don’t worry about “cheating” that’s all part of the fun. I like to think of it as ‘puzzle solving’. I tried saving out as Postscript but with no success. You mention Postscript drivers on your Amiga, so maybe that’s my problem. I guess I don’t have the required drivers. Must have another go now.

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Yes, having the Postscript drivers was key to getting this to work. Good luck. 😎

[@frankowalker4662]

Awesome. Do you write your articles for Amiga Addict on Final Writer ?

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Not yet, but that has been the plan, to have a decent word processor on the Amiga I can draft articles on while coding. 😎

[@frankowalker4662]

@@YawningAngelRetro Cool.

[@MathieuBurgerhout]

Would love to see if your printer is supported by TurboPrint. Excellent piece of software for the Amiga. Made printing easy and waaay more high quality (and got me through college with a regular HP printer since it was supported)

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Sounds interesting. I have a Canon printer, so will take a look at TurboPrint and see if it is supported. Thanks for the suggestion. :)

[@brynjarborgersen8131]

So. How does FW hold up against Word and LibreOffice of today? Is FW "good enough" for daily usage? What, if any, features from modern programmes are missing you think?

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Basic core functionality of a WP from 30 years ago compared to what today's WPs offer. Word is bloated beyond belief so sometimes it's nice to get back to something a little simpler. 🙂 Wouldn't use it for daily use as it's not fast enough when you're used to what a modern WP can offer. It's good enough for those 'one offs'.

[@roberthazelby4424]

Another great video. I’m interested in understanding how you printed to pdf via the Mac GUI. I use PS2PDF via the terminal on osx.

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Many thanks Rob. 👍 Strangely I can use PS2PDF from Finder. Not shown in the video is an actual app in the dock that I double click on to run it. It’s very basic/no frills but does the job. 😎

[@roberthazelby4424]

Fantastic. I've just installed the version you were using. Being able to generate PDFs from OSX rather the command line is fantastic. Thank you.

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Glad I could help. :)

[@ladislavpanko]

Yes, it makes sense, at least to me, yes. Without a printer, the Amiga is just a gaming console, at most music can be created or programmed. After about 1 year, I managed to fix it (the printer printed nonsense characters and the paper kept coming out in circles) on my A500+ print (defective CIA chip at first glance OK), so only now I am happy and can print on any of my 3 printers. I use CygnusEd, FinalWriter, Wordworth 😃👍

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Many thanks for the comment. I always wanted my Amiga to be a practical machine, not just for games, so creating things on it that can be used on other machines/media etc. is really important to me.

[@10MARC]

Oh even without a printer my Amiga is MUCH more than a gaming console, and always has been. That being said... I do have printers for my Amiga's.

[@ladislavpanko]

@@10MARC I didn't mean it in any bad way :-) Of course, I'm a passionate gamer and not just for the Amiga. But mainly I work on the Amiga and when my printer didn't work it was a disaster for me, I felt like I was without one arm. I had problems transferring files and printing on the PC. That's what I wanted to say :-D I'm into renovation and I want to bring old computers back to life.

[@10MARC]

It seems like it would be easier to bring .PS postscript files into a PC or Mac and use them - but it's not. I have had to try various conversion utilities, too. I have no idea why Adobe Acrobat cannot just open .PS files, since PDF files are pretty much just Postscript. Very strange.

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Maybe it’s because Adobe want to sell you a product that can open them? Maybe. 🤔😉

[@judgewest2000]

It's probably far fetched but would you be able to print using LPR over TCP if your mac is set up as an LPR server?

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Probably a step too far for me... also my Amiga is not networked. 😎

[@judgewest2000]

@@YawningAngelRetro Oh go on LOL (only joking - thank you for doing what you're doing, it is nice to watch my favourite computer being put through its paces)

[@patchso]

So, here’s what I did, you might call it cheating, but I print from an Amiga, so… Amiga 1200 emulated on a Mac via FS-USE. Make a new folder on my Mac’s desktop and set up ‘Folder Actions’ so that anything dropped into said folder is sent automatically to the printer. In FS/UAE, add the ‘Print’ folder as a hard drive to my emulated A1200. On my Amiga word processor, save the file to be printed, as plain text, or RTF, to the ‘Print’ hard drive Hey presto, out it pops from the printer. So, I just need to somehow adapt that for my real Amiga…

[@YawningAngelRetro]

Your FS-UAE method is sound, but I wanted to get this to work on a real Amiga, because I’m fussy like that. 😁

[@AlexEvans1]

Doesn't the Mac use CUPS which can directly handle PostSctript?

[@YawningAngelRetro]

That is another way to do it, but I opted for ‘layman’s terms’ way of dealing with the issue, and not everyone uses a Mac. 😎