To all that purchased the FW 1 – 201 Arcive DVD and can not print from the FW Archive using a not Postcript printer.

 The Solution

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The Fine Woodworking Archive Collection is a great reference for me, a novice woodworker.  When I found out that I needed a Postscript printer to print the pages I selected, I was very surprised and disappointed.  In the help file there is a note that the printer driver needed to be upgraded to the newest Postscript drivers.   This meant a high end office inkjet or midlevel laser printer with PCL5, PCL6, or Postscript  3 capabilities.   These machines would add  $300 to $600 expense just to print from the archive.  <!—-> <!—-><!—->NO WAY<!—-> <!—->!!  All I had was  two inkjets:  Epson R380 and a HP 4280.  Please note the published system requirement did identify the need for a Postscript  printer.

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I called customer service and talked to Betty and she had little information or knowledge about my printer problem.   We exchanged contact information and I was off to search  the internet for reasons why I could not print directly from the archive to either of my desk jets.

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In two days I found a shareware program from <!—-><!—->Australia <!—-><!—-> named  “pdf machine. “  This program was available in demo form for free ( a licensed copy is $29 US per machine)                and in minutes I had a printout from the archive.  The URL follows:  

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http://broadgun.com/index.html

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It works just like a printer that you chose other than your default printer.  The Postscript stream is converted it into a PDF file to be named and saved.  Then you print from Acrobat Reader 9 (free from Adobe). 

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This program pdfmachine has many more features. And the above website can describe them better than I.

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This $29 program saved me $600 that could be better spent for woodworking projects.

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