All right, so Apple has introduced the ImageWriter Il and it has wonderful color printing capabilities, but how about the “rest of us" who own the Classic—the original ImageWriter? Well, the solution has actually been around for awhile now. It's called CoforPrint.
ColorPrint is a program that reads MacPaint files and prints them out using color ribbrons on a standard ImageWriter. A group of Paint files is prepared beforehand by splitting an image up into different layers. Each layer, or separaticn, relates to a specific color..
This is a painstaking task, but once it's done, ColorPrint lets the user assign each separation to a specific ribbon color.
Prompts appear to insert different ribbons as each separation is printed, with lighter colors printed before darker shades (in order to avoid dark ink splotches on the lighter ribbons). The program automatically rewinds the paper in the printer to control precise registration.
ColorPrint has a variety of print options, Graphics can be printed in either Standard or High resolution, and images can be scaled to sizes including quarter page, half height and half width. A mirror option flips the image horizontally on printout.
The program supports yellow, green, red, brown, blue, purple and black ribbons, Interesting effects can be achieved by experimenting with multiple layers of different fill patterns to get intermediate tones, and by mixing the same pattermns with different colors to create nonstandard hues,
It takes a good measure of preparation and practice to use ColorPrint effectively, but it does breathe some new life into the old, but faithful, ImageWriter.
Biedny, David. (March 1986). ColorPrint. MacUser. (pg. 33).