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FreeCheck v0.1 July 16, 2000
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Eric Sandeen, <eric_sandeen@bigfoot.com>
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WHY?
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---
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MIPS/VersaCheck ticked me off with their (IMHO) shoddy check-printing
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application, and their dismal customer service.  So here you go.
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REQUIREMENTS
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------------
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The first thing that you MUST have to be able to use FreeCheck is a
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good Type 1 MICR font.  I have created one, called "GnuMICR" that I think
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is pretty excellent - but it has not been tested.  :)  There are also
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commercial fonts you can buy, if that floats your boat.  See
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www.bizfonts.com, for example.
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You must also have either a PostScript printer, or a recent version
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of GhostScript.  FreeCheck generates the check as a PostScript file.
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CONFIGURATION
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-------------
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Edit the file freecheck.cfg to add your account information, and define
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any new check blanks or styles you want.   Take a look at the [Global]
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section, too, to set things up for your system.
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USAGE
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-----
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FreeCheck just prints a PostScript file to STDOUT.  That means that you
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must either redirect it to a file, a printer, or a viewer (ggv accepts
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a file on STDIN - I don't think gv does).
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So, to print (assuming a PostScript printer, or GhostView filter):
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freecheck.pl <options> | lpr
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To view:
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freecheck.pl <options> | ggv
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To save a file:
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freecheck.pl <options> > mycheckfile.ps
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OPTIONS
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-------
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freecheck doesn't require any options, unless you want it to do something
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useful.  By itself, it will print a couple sheets of standard checks
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with a dummy account.
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Type "freecheck --help" to see what options are available
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For now, if you get tired of typing all those command line options, just
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edit the defaults at the top of the main script.
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HOW DOES IT WORK?
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-----------------
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FreeCheck is a Frankenstein-like combination of PostScript and Perl,
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at this point.  The guts of the check layout are in PostScript, which
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is embedded at the end of the Perl script.  This PostScript depends on
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lots of variable definitions to decide what it should actually print.
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That's where the Perl comes in - reading a config file, and generating
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lots of lines of the type
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	/foo {bar} def
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which define what's shown on the page.
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The file "example_check.ps" is a fairly well commented example of the
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PostScript that is output by freecheck.  If you want to add something
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to the layout, it may be easier to work with that file, get it going,
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and then add the changes to the perl script.  And send them to me,
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of course!  :-)
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