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Windows 95/98/NT/ME, Pentium 100 or faster, 5.5 MB disk space, and a printer

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Blue Squirrel ClickBook 5.0

by Mort Bernstein, LACS

I first used ClickBook (CB) in 1995 and can testify it has saved me a ton of paper. The program's primary function is to allow you to print the output of any application in a large number of layouts. For instance, you can print a multi-page report as a folded, two-sided booklet measuring 5.5 X 8.5 inches using about one fourth the paper the same report would use if printed one-sided, full-sized.

Installation was easy and simple, both times! You select the self-extracting executable file from the CD, and run it from the start menu. I had to do this twice, with a removal step in between, as the instructions in the User's Guide on the CD didn't specify the correct folder. The second installation was easier than the first, because even though I had removed it, CB remembered my V.I.P key and the printer's setup.

During installation you may set up your printer to work with ClickBook. This informs the program about the path that paper follows through your printer, prepares the instructions about how to restack the printing from the first side before printing the second side when you select a two-sided layout, and installs a new driver for that printer. The new driver's name is the original printer driver with the letters "CB" or the word "ClickBook" prefixed to it.

There are two methods for setting up a printer. Easy printer setup provides you with a list of printers that ClickBook already knows about. The list is quite extensive, more than 200 printers, most of which are HP's. Your particular printer may not be on the list, but if a printer whose paper path is the same as yours is on the list, you can select it.

The Custom printer setup wizard takes you through a multi-step process that provides the program with the needed paper path information. Your printer should be on line and the Windows driver for it installed. It prints two sheets of paper, and instructs you how to place these two sheets back in your printer for printing the second side, depending on what you see on the top sheet. It then prints the second side, and asks you the same questions twice more. When and if you register on line, CB requests permission to add your custom setup result to the Blue Squirrel database.

The CD came with a printed 32-page User's Guide. There are two new versions of the ClickBook 5.0 User's Guide on the CD: a .PDF (Acrobat) version runs 37 pages, and the .DOC (Microsoft Word) version runs 36 pages.

There is an intriguing statement in the CB 5.0 manual on the CD:

"At this time, ClickBook Version 5 under Windows 2000 cannot accomplish the following tasks:

* Insert a blank page.... "

The implication is that one should be able to do this in the 95/98/ME/NT versions of the program. I couldn't find any reference to this task or option in the Guide or the Help file. I sent an email to support@bluesquirrel.com requesting enlightenment. I haven't heard back yet, so how one inserts a blank page remains a mystery.

When you decide to print from an application, you select the CB printer from the Printer Setup function of your application. Instead of sending the output directly to your printer, the CB driver sends the output to CB. It takes a while for all of the pages of a large document to be processed. When this step is done, you select the layout you want to print.

Over 80 layouts come with the program. A wizard allows you to modify and add even more layouts. I had neither the time nor inclination to try each and every one of them. When you send output to CB, you can view the various ways that it will be printed before committing to a particular layout. I've found that minor changes in the page setup in my word processor often lead to significant paper savings without sacrificing readability. One of the nice things about this preview function is that if you select a layout that is inappropriate for the material you are printing, the program will warn you. The warning can be turned off.

Among the many Options available in CB is the ability to have it print instructions for returning the first side printing for printing the second side. In addition, you can print instructions for cutting and assembling your document. I strongly recommend that these options be turned on the first time you use CB, and each time you use a different layout. Save the instructions for future use, and don't waste the paper on subsequent uses.

A caution is in order. When printing multiple sheet documents with more than one page per side, any paper misfeed will result in an unusable document. Almost every printer that I've used will occasionally feed two sheets instead of one. Using a two-sided layout makes this unfortunate event even more likely because printing the first side can result in a small static charge build up from the initial printing. Fanning the paper before putting it back in the printer minimizes this problem.

CB provides the ability to print only part of a document by permitting you to select sets of contiguous sheets and print either their fronts only, backs only, or both sides. This can be useful if a paper misfeed has occurred. If you want to print a noncontiguous set of sheets, you can return to CB after each set prints to make further selections. If you forget to choose that option on the window that displays printing progress, you must start over again from the application program's print function. Thus, you can print only those sections of interest from a very large document.

CB can save you a ton of paper. I printed the User's Guide from the MS Word version. Had I printed it from Word in the usual manner, it would have used 36 sheets of paper. Using ClickBook's double-sided portrait layout would have used 18 sheets. Side-by-side (folded) would have taken 9 sheets. As an exercise in frugality and as an eye test, I chose 4-up book (folded), which took 5 sheets of paper. At 300-dpi the result is readable, but I suggest that if you use this layout, either make sure the document is created in a relatively large typeface or have a magnifying glass handy when you read it.

Any incorporated graphics are properly handled. When you choose a layout that requires size reduction of the material, the graphic is reduced and printed in the same place that it would appear had the page been printed directly from the application program.

I printed a manual that was in Adobe's Acrobat .PDF format using Acrobat Reader 4. The copyright and related information on the back of the cover page, and the index, were useless because the required PostScript font wasn't available. The correction is to print such pages as graphics. I learned two things. CB takes forever to process a page of high resolution graphics. On my 333 MHz Celeron processor, it takes many minutes per page. Even worse, it took almost as long to display the pages in the 4-up (folded) layout on the monitor. Selecting to view the back of the single sheet meant another interminable wait.

CB 5.0, unlike the original version, accepts input for more than one document before it prints. When I initially passed CB the four pages of the index, the 4-up (folded) layout positioned the pages on the top half, front and back. When I added the two pages of the cover and copyright information, instead of putting those two pages on the bottom half, it appended them to the first document creating a six-page document. At first I thought this was an error. But had I passed CB one six-page document, the positioning would have been correct once the sheet had been cut, folded, and assembled. Is this where inserting a blank page may be used?

One of the suggestions on using the multiple file capability was to create a "contact sheet" from multiple images. I passed CB four images. Each was slightly different in size. I used the 4-up portrait layout. On the initial attempt, it was clear that CB is unaware of the quarter inch unprintable margin on the left and right of each page. Each picture was trimmed on an edge, depending on where it was placed on the page, cutting off a small but necessary part of two of them. I reoriented the pictures so that this didn't happen, and that solved the problem. Printing this page of graphics took nowhere near as long as the graphics pages from Acrobat.

I decided to create some business cards. CB will print a single "card" or it can be "repeated" to fill the page. The repeat function can be turned off and multiple "cards" can be used. I did a single card. The result was quite good except for the lack of cut marks between each row of cards. The full set of cut marks appear only for the first card in each column.

Windows 95/98/NT/ME, Pentium 100 or faster, 5.5 MB disk space, and a printer.

I found the earlier version of ClickBook a very useful utility. It not only saved me a lot of paper, but the ability to preview the output saved me from printing things that would have later been thrown away. Version 5.0 has a new GUI (which adheres more closely to the standard MS Windows view of how things should look and work) that took a bit of time to get used to. I still like the original GUI better. I do appreciate the added functionality of the program, but I haven't figured out how to use the Layout Wizard to create useful new layouts. Nor did I take advantage of the ability to obtain new layouts from the web site, to which any user can submit new layouts for access by others.

Price: A 30-day free trial can be downloaded from Blue Squirrel web site, or purchased for $50 plus $7 S&H. Amazon.com lists it for $50 either by download (a 3.6 MB file), or shipped for an additional $4. At Programmer's Paradise: ClickBook 5.0 is $15 plus $10 S&H 1-800-445-7899

Free web support: www.bluesquirrel.com/support/. Telephone support: $20 per year at 1-801-523-1065. Toll free Customer Service: 1-800-403-0925, and telephone support, Blue Squirrel, 170 Electron Drive, Suite #125, Draper, Utah 84020, Voice: 1-801-523-1063, Fax: 1-801-523-1064 www.bluesquirrel.com.