PICLET .91 is in beta release, your comments and suggestions would
be appreciated. Leave your comments to WILLIAM RICHARDSON in the
NANET GRAPHICS conference or you can call me (416) 896-9874
I plan on making PICLET shareware ($20) when I release a more featurefull
and bulletproof version. This beta version has very little error checking
and although works I would like some user feedback before I release it.

PICLET was designed to create booklet style catalogues of all your
.EPS (encapsulated PostScript) art files. These files can be
created with ADOBE ILLUSTRATOR, ARTS&LETTERS, CORELDRAW or most
vector based drawing programs. It will cram 60 pictures onto both sides
of an 8 x 11 sheet of paper that's 600 pictures on only 10 sheets of
paper! Try it, the results are worth it.

PICLET will scale to fit all the EPS files you specify in the
MASTER.CAT file. It also can create title pages and headers. It
will calculate all the need pages and layout all the pages in
Landscape format at 2 pages per side (5 x 8 IBM booklet style).

You can cut or simply fold & staple the finished booklet for neat
professional style catalogues similar to those with CORELDRAW or
ARTRIGHT. Read the MASTER section for instructions on optional
formatting.

You must have a Postscript compatible printer, I used a PacificPage
Postscript cartridge on my HPLJ II for testing.

An excellent program HIJAAK can create EPS files from almost any
graphics format ie: PCX, DXF, TIF, GEM ... For any serious clip-art
collector HIJAAK is a must have.

A comment on creating EPS files from CORELDRAW. When exporting use
the Adobe Illustrator (you must rename the .AI to .EPS) export
filter for speed and size. CORELs own EPS filter does work but will
take your printer longer if fountain fills are in the clipart, also
the SIDExxx.PS files get much larger. One feature I've not tested
but believe may work is the finished pages may print in COLOUR! I'd
be very interested in finding this out.

MASTER.CAT is a text file created by MAKECAT.EXE
It is a standard DOS text file, and can be edited with any simple
DOS editor. The format is currently pretty strict but simple, and
with a little effort you can get some excellent results.
the syntax is simply

' = a comment, it must be the first character on the line

& = Header title, this will start a new section and title all the
following pages with the string directly following the "&" symbol
it too must be the first character on the line. The default is
PICLET (of course you'll want to change it)

$ = Cover sheet, this prints a separate cover sheet with optional
title and picture. The format is {EPS} file {TITLE}
you must include the full path for the EPS file and if omitted will
print just the {Title}. No spaces between the "$" and filename.

Headers and/or Covers can be inserted in the picture list and will
start new Headers/Covers.

x:\ = drive and directory path, the ":\" is necessary and must be
included with every EPS file. DO NOT put .EPS extensions on the
filenames.

EXAMPLE MASTER.CAT entries

' This is just a remark
' The header will be set to AIRPLANES
&AIRPLANES
' The cover page will print JETS and a large AIRPLAN2.EPS
$C:\ART\AIRPLAN2 JETS
C:\ART\AIRPLAN1
C:\ART\AIRPLAN2
C:\ART\AIRPLAN3
'you can insert covers and headers anywhere
$C:\ART\PROP1 PROPS
C:\ART\AIRPLAN4


note PICLET does not sort these and will print them in the order
they are found in MASTER.CAT

Files included with PICLET

DOCAT.BAT {eps path} will create the MASTER.CAT file for piclet, if
MASTER.CAT already exists then it will add the new files to the end
of MASTER.CAT

DOPIC.BAT this runs PICLET and deletes any SIDE*.PS files before
creating new SIDE*.PS files.

MAKECAT.EXE {eps path} reads the path specified, sorts & creates
the .EPS file list into PICLET.CAT to be copied into MASTER.CAT

PICLET.EXE creates a visual catalog of all your .EPS files as
specified in MASTER.CAT. For use with POSTSCRIPT compatible
printers or interpreters only.