Printer's Apprentice 7.5 FAQ
Important!
Printer's Apprentice 8.1 for Windows 7, Vista & XP was released on January 8, 2010.
Printer's Apprentice 7.5 is no longer supported. This document is kept for historical
purposes only.
Please visit these pages for the latest info.
Printer's Apprentice 8.1 Product Information
Upgrade Offer
If this FAQ does not answer your question, you can send a Technical Support request
using our email form.
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When will Printer's Apprentice 7.5 be released?
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How much will the upgrade for Printer's Apprentice cost?
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What changes are included in Printer's Apprentice 7.5?
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Does Printer's Apprentice support Adobe Type 1 and OpenType fonts?
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Does Printer's Apprentice include an uninstall utility?
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How can I manually uninstall Printer's Apprentice?
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How can I submit an idea for Printer's Apprentice?
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Is there a version of Printer's Apprentice for the Macintosh?
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How do I report a problem I problem with Printer's Apprentice?
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When loading Printer's Apprentice, it crashes with this error message: un-time error '453': Can't find DLL entry point InitCommonControlsEx in Comctl32.dll.
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Printer's Apprentice hangs or crashes when I start it. What can I do?
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I am having difficulty printing catalogs and sample sheets on my laser printer. What can I do?
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Why does the number of fonts being read by Printer's Apprentice differ from the number of fonts Windows tell me are in my Fonts folder?
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While reading a font CD-ROM Windows displayed an "Invalid TrueType font encountered" message, and then crashed. What does this mean?
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Why does my printer take so long to print catalogs and sample sheets? Why are the print jobs so large?
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Why do some fonts display with jagged or "stair step" text?
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How do I confirm all Printer's Apprentice support files are correctly installed?
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What fonts should I not delete when cleaning out my system?
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Why are some fonts listed with an "unknown" filename?
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How can I fix the "file not found" error when I try to start Adobe Type Manager from Printer's Apprentice?
1. When will Printer's Apprentice 7.5 be released?
If you are a registered user of Printer's Apprentice 6.5 or 7.0, the upgrade will be free.
You can get the software from our download page.
However, your registration key from PA 6.5/7.0 will not work with 7.5. We will be
emailing new registration keys to users in our database during Fall 2002. If you have not
received your key, you can use our Request Form to get one.
If you are a registered user of PA 6.1, 6.0 or earlier, the upgrade will cost $12. We will
deliver via email a registration key so you can "unlock" the downloaded copy of
Printer's Apprentice. To get your registration key, send a check payable to Lose Your
Mind Development, P.O. Box 184, Berwyn, PA 19312-0184. If you have questions about the
upgrade, send email to salesinfo@loseyourmind.com.
2. How much will the upgrade for Printer's Apprentice cost?
If you are a registered user of Printer's Apprentice 6.5 or 7.0, the upgrade will be free.
You can get the software from our download page.
However, your registration key from PA 6.5/7.0 will not work with 7.5. We will be
emailing new registration keys to users in our database during Fall 2002. If you have not
received your key, you can use our Request Form to get one.
If you are a registered user of PA 6.1, 6.0 or earlier, the upgrade will cost $12. We will
deliver via email a registration key so you can "unlock" the downloaded copy of
Printer's Apprentice. To get your registration key, send a check payable to Lose Your
Mind Development, P.O. Box 184, Berwyn, PA 19312-0184. If you have questions about the
upgrade, send email to salesinfo@loseyourmind.com.
3. What changes are included in Printer's Apprentice 7.5?
4. Does Printer's Apprentice support Adobe Type 1 and OpenType fonts?
Printer's Apprentice does support Type 1 (T1) and OpenType (OTF) fonts. However,
that support is based on the operating system. Use the chart below to determine what
features are available based on your OS.
| Windows 2000/XP | | Windows 95/98/Me |
View installed Type 1/OpenType fonts | Yes | | Yes |
Print installed Type 1/OpenType fonts | Yes | | Yes |
View uninstalled Type 1/OpenType fonts | Yes | | No |
Print uninstalled Type 1/OpenType fonts | Yes | | No |
Install Type 1/OpenType fonts | Yes | | No |
Uninstall Type 1/OpenType fonts | Yes | | No |
Why are most Type 1 and OpenType functions not available on Windows 95/98/Me?
If Adobe Type Manager is installed, Printer's Apprentice uses its published
Application Programing Interface (API) to handle the previewing and font management functions
for Type 1 and OpenType fonts. Under Windows 9x, Adobe Type Manager is implemented
as a 16 bit application. Printer's Apprentice is a 32 bit application. A 32 bit
application cannot call a 16 bit application without a complex translation layer.
This is also called a thunking layer. We are investigating ways to add 16 bit
support in a future version.
5. Does Printer's Apprentice include an uninstall utility?
Printer's Apprentice includes an uninstaller that can remove the software from your
computer. This includes deleting both application and system files, INI files, removing
directories and Start menu items. To run the uninstaller, select "Uninstall
Printer's Apprentice" from the PA group on your Start menu. The uninstaller will
ask you if you wish to use Automatic or Custom modes. We suggest using the Custom mode so
you can review files and other items that will be deleted.
6. How can I manually uninstall Printer's Apprentice?
Follow the instructions below to manually uninstall Printer's Apprentice -
- Delete the Printer's Apprentice folder.
- Delete the Printer's Apprentice group in your Start Menu.
If needed, Printer's Apprentice does install the VB 6.0 (SP5) runtime libraries. We
recommend leaving these files installed as other applications may be using them.
7. How can I submit an idea for Printer's Apprentice?
If you have an idea for Printer's Apprentice, please feel free to forward it to one of the
addresses in the Technical Support section. All requests are carefully
evaluated for possible use in upcoming versions. If more information is needed, we will get in touch
with you, so please include your contact information.
8. Is there a version of Printer's Apprentice for the Macintosh?
There is currently no version of Printer's Apprentice for the Macintosh. You might want to take a look at Suitcase from Extensis.
9. How do I report a problem I problem with Printer's Apprentice?
We strive to produce the best software possible. However, problems can and do occur. In order to
help you quickly, you need to provide as much information
about the situation as possible. Otherwise we will not be able to help you.
Please use our web based information form when contacting us
bout a problem with Printer's Apprentice.
Again, we can't stress how important it is to include as much information as possible. Thank you!
10. When loading Printer's Apprentice, it crashes with this error message: un-time error '453': Can't find DLL entry point InitCommonControlsEx in Comctl32.dll.
To fix this error, you need to download an updated version of the Windows Common
Controls. Download and install
COM32UPD.EXE
from Microsoft. Then restart Printer's Apprentice.
11. Printer's Apprentice hangs or crashes when I start it. What can I do?
If the software hangs or crashes on startup, please try the following
- Shut down your computer, then reinstall Printer's Apprentice.
- Make sure the Arial Truetype font is installed. If Arial is not installed, PA 7.11 and earlier will
crash on startup with an "Invalid Page Fault" error. With PA 7.12 and later, you need to have
either Arial, Verdana or MS Sans Serif installed.
- If the software still does not run, you need to enable a special "logging"
features of Printer's Apprentice. This will create a log file to send to our Technical
Support people. This log file will help us determine the source of the problem.
To enable the startup log
- Open the Printer's Apprentice folder with Windows Explorer. This is usually c:\program files\printers apprentice
- Locate the PA.INI file and double click it. The file will be opened in Notepad.
- Find the line that reads LOGGING = 0.
- Edit the line so it reads LOGGING = 1.
- Save and close the file.
- Start Printer's Apprentice.
- After it crashes, locate the PALOG.TXT file in your Printer's Apprentice folder.
- Send this file to helpdesk@loseyourmind.com.
Also, please detail the contents of any messages that are displayed when you try to run Printer's Apprentice.
12. I am having difficulty printing catalogs and sample sheets on my laser printer. What can I do?
One printer used in development was a Hewlett Packard LaserJet 5L. Like many low end printers,
this model only has 1MB of memory. Because Printer's Apprentice often builds complex
pages made up of many different fonts, it is easy to send too much data to the printer and
get a Memory Overflow error. Changing the printer settings will often get around this
problem. Listed below are settings for an HP 5L or similar printer that can affect
printing.
Resolution - Printing at 600 DPI takes much more memory
than 300 DPI. Lower your resolution to use less memory when printing.
Graphics Mode - On many HP printers, you can send graphics as Raster
images. According to the HP help files, complex pages will print faster in graphics mode.
Text Mode - Most HP drivers give you the option of sending text as a
bitmapped soft font or as a graphic. It is our experience that sending Text as Graphics
greatly enhances the ability of Printer's Apprentice to send multiple pages of fonts to
the printer.
You can find these settings by opening the Printers folder from the
Windows Control Panel. Right click on your HP icons and select Properties. Click the Print Quality
tab. Click "Manual Settings", then the Settings button. Your driver may have the
settings located differently then the HP 5L driver. Please note, these instructions are
for the HP 5L and other HP printers. If you have an HP compatible printer, there is a
"Print TrueType as Graphics" option buried in the various printer settings
dialog boxes.
Printer's Apprentice also has an option to reset the printer every few pages.
Basically, Printer's Apprentice will break a large print job into several smaller
jobs. Each smaller job is made of a user definable number of pages. To change the default,
open the Font Catalogs tab in the Options dialog. If you are having difficulties printing
more than a few pages with the software, please contact us for technical support.
13. Why does the number of fonts being read by Printer's Apprentice differ from the number of fonts Windows tell me are in my Fonts folder?
The number of fonts reported by Windows in the status bar of the Fonts folder is the number of font
families installed. This includes TrueType, Adobe Type 1 and selected "device"
fonts. A font family defined as a group of similar fonts. For example, "Arial"
is a font family. This family might include four individual fonts, such as Arial Roman,
Arial Bold, Arial Italic and Arial Bold. Depending on the print driver installed, the
number reported by Printer's Apprentice may or may not include device fonts such as MS
Sans Serif, MS Serif, fixedsys, etc.
14. While reading a font CD-ROM Windows displayed an "Invalid TrueType font encountered" message, and then crashed. What does this mean?
Not all fonts found online and on CD-ROM collections are valid font files. Fonts can get corrupted by
being run through conversion utilities, being transferred from other operating systems,
etc. Invalid fonts can crash the Windows TrueType font engine. If you get this error,
you should reboot Windows and delete or avoid using this font. For more information, see
Known Issues.
15. Why does my printer take so long to print catalogs and sample sheets? Why are the print jobs so large?
Depending on how you have your printer driver setup, fonts can go
to the printer as downloaded softfonts, bitmapped fonts or plain bitmaps. Either way,
fonts take up lots of space. Newer Windows print drivers have memory compression built in,
causing less data to be sent to the printer.
The print drivers are also smart enough to send only the font characters used by the
document. But the sample sheets sent by Printer's Apprentice frequently use all
characters in the font, so there is a great deal of information being sent to the printer.
We strongly recommend lowering your resolution from 600 dpi to 300 dpi. This cuts the
amount of data being sent to the printer while retaining the detail in the fonts.
16. Why do some fonts display with jagged or "stair step" text?
If a font displays incorrectly or with big, blocky pixels, you
might have a entry in the Registry for the font, but the physical font TTF file is missing.
This could happen for any number of reasons. To fix the problem, you can do a few things.
Reinstall the font
- Using the Windows Explorer, locate a backup copy of the font.
- Drag it into the Windows Fonts folder. This will force Windows to recopy the TTF file
to the fonts folder.
-- or --
Remove the Registry entries for the font
- Select Font Registry from the Tools menu.
- Registry entries that point to non-existent font files are marked with a red symbol.
- Open the Windows Registry editor (regedit.exe) and navigate to one of the following
keys "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Fonts" under
Windows 98/98 or HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts
under Windows NT.
- Use the Registry editor to remove any entries that point to TTF files that don't exist.
17. How do I confirm all Printer's Apprentice support files are correctly installed?
Printer's Apprentice requires several OCX and DLL files to be installed in the
windows\system (Win95/98) or winnt\system32 (NT) folder. The Printer's Apprentice
setup program copies these files for you. All of our support files are produced
by Microsoft. We always include the most recent version of these files when our
software is compiled and shipped.
When our setup program runs, it will not overwrite any newer files that
already exist on your machine. It is important to note that "newer" does not
mean date. Most DLL, OCX, VDX, EXE and other Windows binary files contain an
internal version stamp. We use the version stamps to determine if an
existing file is older than a file to be installed. Using Windows, you can view the
version stamp for a binary file:
To view internal version information
- In Windows Explorer, right click an EXE, DLL or OCX file.
- Select "Properties" from the pop up menu.
- In the Properties dialog, click the Version tab. The internal version
information is listed here.
However, other applications may overwrite
existing DLL and OCX files with older versions. If Printer's Apprentice fails to start or
crashes, this may be the cause of the problem. The best idea is to reinstall the software.
If this does not work, you should manually check that all support files are installed.
However, duplicate OCX/DLL files can also cause problems. Follow these steps to confirm
all support files are correctly installed if Printer's Apprentice won't start.
- Close all applications and reboot your computer.
- Open the readme.txt file located in the Printer's Apprentice folder.
- At the bottom of the file is a list of support DLL and OCX files used by our software.
These files are all shipped with our software. The version number for each DLL/OCX file is
also noted.
- Using Windows Explorer, locate the first file in the windows\system folder. Make sure
the internal version stamp is the same or newer than what is listed in the PA readme.txt
file.
- If the file does not exist, reinstall Printer's Apprentice.
- If the file does exist, make sure there is not a copy in your Windows folder as well.
- If the file is located in both the windows and windows\system folders, keep the one
with most recent version number and store it in the windows\system folder.
- Follow steps 3 through 7 for each DLL/OCX listed in the readme.txt file.
The rule of thumb is as follows - You should have only one copy of each DLL
and OCX on your system. These files need to be stored in the windows\system
folder. The version of each file needs to be the same as or later than
the version number listed in our readme.txt file.
If you need any help with this, don't hesitate to drop us an email at
helpdesk@loseyourmind.com.
18. What fonts should I not delete when cleaning out my system?
Reducing the number of fonts installed can increase your startup speed. If you want to clean out all fonts
on your system, here is a list of fonts you generally should not remove.
- Marlette - This is the font used for the minimize, maximize and close
buttons on your window borders. Don't remove this!
- Arial (TrueType)
- Times New Roman (TrueType)
- Courier New (TrueType)
- Any .FON files. These are fixed size fonts used for MS-DOS windows and some dialog boxes.
Microsoft has an excellent page at
http://www.microsoft.com/typography
that lists what fonts ship with various projects from the company.
19. Why are some fonts listed with an "unknown" filename?
In some cases, Printer's Apprentice does show "unknown" for fonts.
This usually happens when a software setup program installs fonts and enters
the incorrect entry in the Registry. PA reads installed fonts from memory
using a Windows API call. It then tries to make a connection with the
registry entry to determine the font name.
For example, "Arial" is installed. The registry entry is "Arial (TrueType)".
Sometimes a software setup program will make the registry entry "Arial (True
Type)" - note the space in "TrueType". Our software allows for this, but often
the difference is significant.
For example the font name might be "Arial MT" but the Registry entry is
"Arial (TrueType)" - without the MT. The error happens when there is
miscommunication between the developers and setup program writers. If the
developers give the setup program writers an incorrect list of font registry
entries to make, then we get problems.
There is a solution:
- Open the Fonts window in Windows Controls Panel.
- Select two or three of the 47 fonts that list as "unknown" in
PA. Drag them from the window to the Desktop. This essentially uninstalls
them.
- Wait a few moments.
- Drag the fonts from the Desktop back into the Fonts window. This
reinstalls the fonts. Windows will write the correct Registry entries
for the fonts.
- Start Printer's Apprentice and see if the font file names are now listed
correctly.
20. How can I fix the "file not found" error when I try to start Adobe Type Manager from Printer's Apprentice?
By default, Printer's Apprentice launches the Adobe Type Manager 4.x program
file. If you a different version installed, you need to point Printer's
Apprentice your Adobe Type Manager program file. To do this, follow
these steps -
- Launch Printer's Apprentice.
- From the Tools menu, select Options.
- On the "General" tab, click the "..." button next
to the ATM Path field.
- Locate the Adobe Type Manager program file installed on your computer.
- Save your changes by clicking the "OK" button on the Options
screen.