Heromaker

**Cildarye** · Feb 4th, '04, 07:35 PM

After many years away from Champions I finally managed to snag my current groups interest in it. Dusted off all my old manuals and found my long lost copy of the Heromaker software decided to install it and give it a shot.

It works find on Win2K but I'm having problems getting it to print. (I've tried the postscript, print to disk options, and tried to print to every HP driver in there. (currently using a HPdeskjet 5550.)

Anyone have any suggestions on how to get this to print off some of my old premade goons? I would love any help on this.
(I've looked into the new hero software and if I had the 40 bucks I'd invest in that but that's going to be way too long and I fear their interest might fail if I wait too much longer to run a game. *sigh* fickle gamers)

Anyway Thank you if you can offer a suggestion!

Cildarye

***Derek Hiemforth*** · Feb 5th, '04, 01:36 AM

Do a Google search for a software item called "Ghostscript" and poke around with it. It is an app (freeware or shareware, I think) that essentially translates postscript documents so that non-postscript printers can understand them. If you can find and set up a version of ghostscript that has a driver for your printer, you might be able to have HeroMaker print to a postscript file, then feed that file through Ghostscript to your printer.

I have to be honest, though, and say you may face a struggle. Getting HeroMaker to print on various printers was the most common problem with it, even in the days long long ago when it was an active, supported piece of software. Now, 10 years later, it's just terribly out-of-date.

Plus, if you're playing by 5th Edition HERO System rules, HeroMaker won't be giving you the right costs and values for everything, and many many options will be missing. So if you're playing 5th, you might actually be better off using pencil and paper until you can get Hero Designer than you would be trying to use HeroMaker.

**lemming** · Feb 5th, '04, 11:11 AM

Heh. I'll have to tell Steve Barnes that people still use it occasionly.

Derek makes good points. The only other option is to print text files and import into the word processor of your choice. Which is what I used to do back in the day.

***Derek Hiemforth*** · Feb 5th, '04, 11:20 AM

Originally posted by lemming
Heh. I'll have to tell Steve Barnes that people still use it occasionly.

Actually, I still use it occasionally too (mostly to print out some really old character that I don't have in any other form). I'm fortunate enough to have a postscript-savvy printer, so printing isn't a problem for me.

Derek makes good points. The only other option is to print text files and import into the word processor of your choice. Which is what I used to do back in the day.

D'oh! I should have thought of that! (Shows you how long it's been since I used HeroMaker regularly... I forgot it could do text saves.)

**Cildarye** · Feb 5th, '04, 04:04 PM

OOH hurrah for KOTDT! I've tried to find this ghostscript thing but the only file I can find is back from 95 or so and being the uncomputer savvy clod I am, seem to make my computer hurl chunks on trying to get it to work.

However, this text file idea does intrigue me. However I've been trying to get it to print to a file for a bit now (using the extensions rtx, rtf and doc but can't seem to make it show up in *shudder* ms word, notepad or wordpad with any success. Any tips on that perhaps?

(As a side note, I forgot how nice people can be when banded together in the love of gaming!)

**lemming** · Feb 5th, '04, 04:12 PM

Save it with .txt as the extension. You should be able to open that from MS Word.

**starblaze** · Feb 5th, '04, 05:37 PM

I tried saving it to text within the program but it keeps reverting back to .cha file save. Am I doing something wrong?

**ChaosDrgn** · Feb 5th, '04, 08:44 PM

I'll need to do doublecheck and make sure it works. There are several PDFconvertors that are freeware.

Also If you go to the Champion's links and find Thelandra's page she has info and links on how to use Ghostscript with Heromaker.

**lemming** · Feb 5th, '04, 09:52 PM

Originally posted by starblaze
I tried saving it to text within the program but it keeps reverting back to .cha file save. Am I doing something wrong?

Sorry, forgot. Try printing to file. There should be an option to print a text version to file.
I wonder if I have that manual anywhere around here?

**Cildarye** · Feb 5th, '04, 10:54 PM

Hurray. Thank you all for your help I got it to at least print to a text file and can get it into wordpad without too much editing of the format!! Thank you for you're help! You all deserve lots of hugs and handshakes for this. I thank you, my group thanks you and my newly created speedster thanks you for all your wonderful advice!!

Cildarye

**lemming** · Feb 6th, '04, 08:51 AM

You're welcome.

**SayerSong** · Jun 10th, '04, 07:06 PM

Hi. I didn't see any other threads that were about heromaker, so I thought I would give this one a try. I know it isn't exactly the same as what you were talking about back in Feb. but hopefully someone will notice this post and help me.

I too, have just recently finally been able to convince some people to in my gaming group to give Champions a try after nearly 7 years of not playing it. I went to install my HeroMaker (which I use to make custom villians for some of my campaigns) but I cannot find my old HEROMAKER MANUAL and the Champions book that had come with the disk orginally feel apart years ago (I had to buy a new one on eBay).

Now I can't install it because I can't answer any of the questions they ask to ensure it isn't a pirated copy.

Any idea where I can get a copy of the manual or download one? Preferably cheap?

I would by a whole new disk, but I just can't afford it right now.....

Thanks.
SayerSong