Title: LaserMerge Electronic Paper - Reviewed
Author: H J Silverstone
Equipment: Mac only
Needs: Word Processor / MS Word 5.1
Word Count: 660
Interest Level: All
Description: A review of LaserMerge Electronic Paper, a program which gets between
an application and the printer and permits all sorts of enhancements of the printed
output: letterhead printed at the same time as the letter; simple distortions such
as translations, rotations, and scalings; addition of page numbers; time and date
stamping; on-the-fly comments or identifying remarks; multiple page layouts for pamphlets,
address books, and appointment books; and so forth - and much more!
Review of
LaserMerge Electronic Paper
by H. J. Silverstone
LaserMerge gets between an application and the printer and permits all sorts of enhancements
of the printed output: letterhead printed at the same time as the letter; simple
distortions such as translations, rotations, and scalings; addition of page numbers;
time and date stamping; on-the-fly comments or identifying remarks; multiple page
layouts for pamphlets, address books, and appointment books; and so forth. It also
permits use of Post Script Level 2 features such as Forms Caching and fast printing.
All the work in using LaserMerge is in setting up the templates. There is a large
number of canned templates, but to create your own you need the 342-page manual.
Once the templates are fixed, using LaserMerge is as simple as clicking the LaserMerge
button that appears in the print dialog box.
While not an unfriendly program, LaserMerge is so powerful that you cannot sit down
and use it with the benefit of only your own intuition. Conceptually it attacks the
printed output at three points: the "page tier," by which is meant modifications
to each page as it is produced by an application; the "view tier," by which
is meant how the pages escaping from the page tier are placed on the printer's sheets
of paper; and "print-time control tier," by which is meant such things
as last-minute multiple-page stacking as in 2-up, 3-up, …, 16-up, and "toner
saving" by printing in less than 100% gray scale.
To LaserMerge a page is a sandwich of up to 255 layers. A layer can be the application's
output page, a text layer with time or date stamp, a graphic layer with PICT or EPS
graphic; a layer can even have text information that is supplied via a dialog at
print time.
Perhaps the best way to indicate what LaserMerge can do is to list the table of contents
for its examples chapter:
Simple text watermarks
Variable text watermarks
Graphic watermarks
Simple letterhead
Full letterhead
Linked letterhead
Envelopes
Postal bar codes
Signature bar codes
Fax cover page
Fax cover and letterhead
View charts
Business cards
Business cards a la carte
Name plates
Disk label sheets
Disk label- pin fed
Serialized badges
UPC bar codes
Address labels
Multi-copy invoices
Faster invoices
Limited distribution documents
Form letters
Faster form letters
Dynamic form letters
Stacks of pages
Duplex pamphlets
Simplex pamphlets
Pamphlets by imposition
Newsletters and Zines
Day Runner Planner
Franklin Planner
Franklin Planner (scaled)
Tri-fold brochure
Crazy-Ups and clipping
Legal redlines
Background grid and boiler plate
Special covers and shifting output
Invitations and splitting output
Greeting cards
Certificates and awards
There is a chapter of 107 pages on the details of using the Designer, which has numerous
tools. To give an idea of the control LaserMerge offers, different templates can
be associated with different trays or manual feed of a printer. First page from one,
transparencies from another, or good paper from one and ordinary from another, and
so forth.
There is functional overlap with ClickBook, which is designed primarily for printing
booklets. LaserMerge can do much more than ClickBook, but this is both an advantage
and a disadvantage, depending on what you the user want to do.
LaserMerge is currently in version 2.01f. It can be purchased from MacWarehouse for
$59.95. The list price is $95. It can be purchased directly from Mindgate at either
the list price or at a competitive upgrade price of $40 (www.mindgate.com).
The current list of qualified products, for which no proof of purchase is required
("currently"), is
Working WaterMarker
Toner Tuner
Peirce Print Tools
PrintShop
CardShop
ClickBook
DynoPage
Bar Code Pro
three-by-five
Site licenses up to 1024 are available on a decreasing scale. The individual version
is in fact a two-user site license. Updaters are free via Mindgate's web page. There
is also a fully functional demo version downloadable from the web site whose only
fault is that it overprints "LaserMerge Demo" on the output.
My opinion: well worth the $40.
First published in the March/April 1997 issue of Seeds & Stems, bi-monthly publication
of the Maryland Apple Corps, PO Box 668, Riderwood, MD 21139-0668. Please credit
the Maryland Apple Corps. when reprinting this article, and please forward a copy
of your newsletter (including this article) to us. - Thank you. Mical Wilmoth, editor.
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