ClickBook 2000

By William LaMartin, Editor, Tampa PC Users Group
lamartin@tampabay.rr.com

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ClickBook from BlueSquirrel is a handy little printer utility that you really need, but you never knew it. Only a few programs allow double side printing. For such a program you have to reinsert the pages into the printer when it is time to print the second side—unless you have a duplex printer—but the program handles the chore of printing all the pages in the correct order. Microsoft Word is such a program. It allows you to first print even pages in reverse order, then turn the pages over and put them in the printer again and tell the program to print odd pages in regular order. Most programs don’t do this. Enter ClickBook.

ClickBook enables double sided printing and more from any Windows program and on almost every printer. The more is also printing your document in many different booklet formats. Here is how the ClickBook people themselves describe the program:

….ClickBook 2000 is a program that will allow users to create and print normal documents into booklets of any size, as well as greetings cards, CD jewel case covers, day planner pages, etc. ……… ClickBook 2000 ….. [is compatible] with 99% of the PCL printers out there, and some PS printers. In addition to that, it offers a flexible range of what you want to create to make booklets so small (and legible) as it would require a magnifying glass to read, all by simply printing out a regular document to one of our custom ClickBook drivers.

ClickBook works by intercepting standard-size pages on the way to your printer from virtually any Windows program that prints. ClickBook takes the pages, shrinks them down, and rearranges them to print out as a double-sided booklet. Create your documents as you usually do in whatever Windows programs you normally use. When you’re ready to print, select the "CB" printer driver that was installed during ClickBook’s setup, just as you would choose another printer.

I plan to use the program to print out a 40 page neighborhood directory on 8 x 11 paper with two 4.25 x 5.5 pages on each side of the paper (with no reduction in size). As a test, I took our newsletter, which consists of 12, 8.5 x 11 single sided pages in Microsoft Publisher, and printed to the ClickBook Printer driver for my HP 4 plus printer in the format described above for the neighborhood directory. The result was a reduced size version of the newsletter printed on both sides of three 8.5 x 11 sheets of paper instead of the usual three 11 x 17 double sided sheets you get in the mail.

The program is simple to install, and at the end of the installation it offers for each of your installed printers to add a ClickBook version of the printer to your Printers Folder.

To read more about the program, to download a free demonstration program or to purchase the program go to http://www.bluesquirrel.com. The program costs $49. u