COUNTPGS Ver. 2.00
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Purpose: A printer utility. Before you print out a file or set of
files, find out how many pages it contains and whether there
are any ragged ends or oversize pages in it.

Format: COUNTPGS [[d:][path]filename.ext ...] [/P] [/Lnn] [/V] [/F]

__ ____ ____________
d: is the drive letter, path is the DOS path, and filename.ext
may contain DOS's usual wildcards (* and ?). If COUNTPGS is
entered bare, without filenames, COUNTPGS will ask for them.

/Lnn specifies paper size: that the printer puts nn lines
on a page (default is 66).

/V ("verbose") causes COUNTPGS to list every page (counting
by form-feeds) and show the number of lines on each.

/P makes COUNTPGS echo its output to the printer.

/F makes COUNTPGS echo its output to a file, COUNTPGS.LST,
on the default drive/directory.

Remarks: To find out how much paper to lay out, I once looked at the
end of a file and found page 1105. Refusing to believe it, I
wrote COUNTPGS. That page turned out to be p. 5 of Chap. 11,
of course, and the whole thing ran about 100 pages. Whew!

COUNTPGS can handle up to 25 filenames at a time, which may
contain wildcards. Each must have its own drive and path des-
ignations. Examples:

COUNTPGS b:xyz.txt

COUNTPGS b:\*.doc /V

COUNTPGS b:abcd.txt c:\xyz*.doc c:\foo\ab??.* /P /L55

If you prefer to give the file specs interactively, enter just
COUNTPGS, and you'll be asked for the filenames. (/P, /V and
/L can go in like filenames.) When you've entered as many as
you want, a bare tells COUNTPGS to take it away.

Most printers will feed out the rest of the page when they en-
counter a "form-feed" character, ASCII #12. (On the screen,
it shows up as either ^L or the Venus (female) sign. If you
have this file on the screen, you can see a form-feed charac-
ter at the end, after the address below.) Some files use
form-feed characters to divide pages; some just feed out the
proper number of lines per page. If it finds any form-feeds
at all, COUNTPGS expects the number form-feeds to be the num-
ber of pages. When there are no form-feeds, COUNTPGS calcu-
lates the number of pages from the line count.
COUNTPGS (cont'd) Page 2
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On The Pathology of Text Files
(and what COUNTPGS can do about it)

Though I originally meant CountPgs just to find out how much
paper to lay out for a printer run, it turns out to be a use-
ful check on pagination. I've seen any number of DOC files
with bungled pagination, and CountPgs can point you to making
repairs before wasting paper. Files meant for a printer can
be bungled in three ways:

1. COUNTPGS will indicate files with ragged ends --that end
in the middle of a page. This happens when there are
lines after the last FF. A file without FF's has a ragged
end if the pages don't come out even. If you want to COPY
PRN a bunch of files like that, you'll have to do some-
thing clever.

A file with a ragged end and no FF's may not be paged at
all. It may be meant for the screen; it may be a thought-
less scrawl. If the look of your printout matters, look
at the file before you print. You may want to run it
through a word-processor to page it properly.

2. FF's may be wrongly placed. Occasionally, a page will
have more than a pageful of lines between FF's. COUNTPGS
will say something like "4? 5? pages." That means the
printout will actually take 5 pages, but possibly only 4
were intended. You may want to go in and fix up the file
before printing. The /V option will tell you where the
oversize pages are.

If COUNTPGS comes up with something like "1? 5? pages,
most likely a file without FF's, meant to be paged by
counting lines, has a stray FF at the end. Occasionally,
an otherwise harmless librarian will leave a lone FF at
the end of his little addendum.

3. Finally, some files begin with a FF to clear the printer
or make a "guard sheet." COUNTPGS will point this out.
If you're also irritated by terminal FF's, use the Verbose
option and watch for a last page of 0 lines.


---R. N. Wisan, May, 1988
37 Clinton St, Oneonta, NY 13820



----------------end-of-author's-documentation---------------

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