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Installation requirements
What you must have
- A Windows Computer, with Windows XP2, or Windows Vista installed and operating
- At least 2 GB and possible 4 GB of spare space on the C:\ drive
- A CD or DVD writer able to read and write CDs or DVDs
- A monitor capable of at least 1024 x 768 pixels displays
- MS Office 2000 or better with Word and Excel fully installed and validated. The Access database program is NOT required
- A browser (e.g. MS Internet Explorer or Mozilla Firefox installed to access the Help Files
- Access to a fast printer.
If the printer is not directly connected to the computer, you will need to have a pseudo printer. Office 2007 has an add-in "Save as PDF or XPS" which when installed creates a pseudo printer called Adobe PDF. This can be downloaded from Microsoft's download site.
If you have an older version of MS Office you need to download a utility called CutePDF, which does the same thing, from the CutePDF website. Download and install it, it is free. It creates a pseudo printer called CutePDF Writer. - You will need Adobe Reader, needed to read and print PDF files. If you don't have it already (most people have), download it from the Adobe website now and install it.
- ShowMan has been tested on an Intel based Mac running Mac OS X, Parallels Desktop 3.0 and all the Microsoft software needed to run ShowMan on a Windows machine. The test was NOT exhaustive, but there is no reason to suspect that there will be any more problems on a Mac than on a Windows machine.
ShowMan assumes that you could be running ShowMan on a portable or laptop computer that does NOT have a printer attached. It sends all printed output to the screen, from where it can be sent to a printer (if you have one attached) or to a pseudo-printer. This is a utility that will act like a printer, and will be shown in your list of printers, but is actually a program that converts what is shown on the screen to a PDF file. This file can then be copied to something like a USB-key to be taken elsewhere for printing.
With Office 2007, Microsoft provides such a pseudo-printer, named Adobe PDF. If you do not have Office 2007, you can download an equivalent utility. Search the internet for such a utility, there are several free ones. One useful one is CutePDF.
If you want to produce high quality output using PDF files, you should click the Properties button on the Print window. This shows a window on which you can set the Layout and Paper/Quality parameters of the PDF file. That window also has an Advanced button. When you click this the window below appears:
The important quality factors are:
- Paper Size must be set to A4
- Print Quality should be set at 1200 dpi
- Scaling should be 100%, but you could try 67% if you want to print on A5 paper
- TrueType Font should be set to Download as Softfont
The remaining parameters are of less importance, and their defaults should suffice.
How ShowMan is distributed
The APF provides ShowMan on a CD, on request, for a specific Show only.
When you load this CD into your CD drive, the Setup for ShowMan should start automatically. If it does not, open the CD with Windows Explorer and double-click Setup.
Either way, setup will guide you through the process, which is a very simple one and does not require any special knowledge or actions other than accepting the choices put before you.
If you have ANY problems, contact:
Hans Karman
Phone: 02 6292 6227 (or 041 041 6227 in emergencies only)
FAX: 02 6161 7894
E-Mail: hans@karman.id.au