[NTLK] Partial Success going from Notes to PDF

Hey Folks,

I've been stubbornly trying to get ink text written notes off my emate
and onto my computer. Ideally, I would have these documents as a pdf
and it seems that I have partially achieved that. Here's how:

0. You need an internet enabled newton. I was able to get this work on
an emate with a 3COM 3CXE589ET ethernet card hooked up to my Airport
Extreme (802.11g) base station's LAN port. This will probably all work
with a wireless newton. Just get all the requisite connectivity
software installed before trying this.

0.a Oh and you need a mac - but I think it wouldn't be hard to find
the equivalent PC software.

1. Install LPRDriver on the newton. (http://www.kallisys.com/newton/lpr/)

2. Install CUPS-PDF on OS X
(http://www.codepoetry.net/projects/cups-pdf-for-mosx)
   2a. CUPS-PDF is a nice piece of software that lets you create a
"virtual printer" that simply exports the printed file as a pdf into a
preset location. This is not a terribly impressive feature on OS X as
the print dialog box offers this option without any add-on software.
The purpose of CUPS-PDF is to let the newton print to this "virutal
printer" rather than a real printer.
   2b. Make a folder on the desktop called "cups-pdf". This is case sensitive!
   2c. You can change this default location by editing
/etc/cups/cups-pdf.conf - if you want
   2d. You'll find instructions on this webpage regarding how to set
up this software. Go and follow this and give the software a try with
some document on your mac.

3. Go to the Sharing System Pref and turn on printer sharing
   3a. Allow sharing on the CUPS-PDF printer

4. On the newton, go pick a document you want to print.
   4a. Under the printer selection pull-down click on Choose LPR Printer
   4b. Click Add
   4c. Add any name you want
   4d. Give the local IP address that your mac is assigned to by the
router - you might be able to get away with Computername.local
   4e. Under queue put "CUPS_PDF" - case sensitive and notice the underscore.
       BTW, the queue name for any other printer can be easily found
by going to the Print & Fax Sys Prefs, clicking on a printer then
clicking the "Open Print Queue..." button, and then clicking the info
button the window that pops up. The queue name can be read off from
here.
   4f. Make sure "Spool job before sending it" is selected

Close the necessary windows in the newton and click print using this printer.

Success: I have been able to print very small documents containing
about a line of text and a line of handwritten notes. - So this
works!!! - At least in principle...

Failure: Any document with handwriting larger than this and the emate
just hangs indefinitely. And I mean that... I left my emate on all
night until the battery died and still no luck.

In any case, I'd love to know if anyone has had more success using a
MessagePad 2100 or an emate with the upgraded RAM.

Can anyone postulate as to what is causing the emate to hang with
large documents?

I would take it is a RAM issue. Any idea how to fix this?

Is it possible this is something the developer can correct or are we
talking about a physical limitation of the emate?

Cheers,

Ed

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Received on Sun Jul 20 23:31:30 2008