Receipt Printing

rbuser

Hi All

I am using Report Builder 6.03 and Delphi Pro 6 to print out to an Epson
TM 88 - III Thermal Receipt Printer.

As this printer uses thermal paper on a roll similar to fax machines I
don't want to use an arbitrary Page size and I was wondering if there
was a way to calculate the Page size at runtime? The current solution
that I have is to add up the size of the Title, Header, Footer Bands and
then add the Height of the Detail Band x Number of Lines. However I am
planing to make the Detail Band Height dynamic and I would like it if
the receipt had as little white space as possible. So is there a
CalculateReportHeight (or function to that effect) than I can use?

Thanks in Advance

Peter Magor

digitalmetaphors

Here is a way to generate the report in memory to calculate a page height
even when the detail band is dynamic height:

http://www.digital-metaphors.com/tips/CalculateReceiptPageHeight.zip


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

digitalmetaphors

I used Delphi 6 and RB 7.02 to create this example. If by chance you cannot
open it in RB 6.03, then use this class to do the work for you:

unit ReportHeightCalculator;

interface

uses
ppReport;

type

TppReportHeightCalculator = class
private
FDetailStopPosition: Integer;
FUsedHeight: Integer;
FReport: TppReport;

procedure SetVisibleBands(aReport: TppReport; aVisible: Boolean);
function SumTheHeights: Double;
procedure DetailBandAfterPrintHandler(Sender: TObject);
procedure ReportEndPageHandler(Sender: TObject);

public
constructor Create;

function CalculatePageHeight(aReport: TppReport): Double;

end;

implementation

uses
ppDevice,
ppTypes,
ppUtils;

constructor TppReportHeightCalculator.Create;
begin
FDetailStopPosition := 0;
FUsedHeight := 0;
FReport := nil;
end;

function TppReportHeightCalculator.CalculatePageHeight(aReport: TppReport):
Double;
var
lDevice: TppDevice;
begin

lDevice := TppDevice.Create(nil);

try

FReport := aReport;

FUsedHeight := 0;

{connect calc events}
SetVisibleBands(FReport, False);

FReport.OnEndPage := ReportEndPageHandler;
FReport.DetailBand.AfterPrint := DetailBandAfterPrintHandler;

lDevice.PageSetting := psAll;
lDevice.Publisher := FReport.Publisher;

FReport.PrintToDevices;
FReport.Reset;

finally
SetVisibleBands(FReport, True);

FReport.OnEndPage := nil;
FReport.DetailBand.AfterPrint := nil;

lDevice.Free;
end;

Result := SumTheHeights;

end;


function TppReportHeightCalculator.SumTheHeights: Double;
begin

Result := ppFromMMThousandths(FUsedHeight, FReport.Units, pprtVertical,
FReport.Printer);

if (FReport.TitleBand <> nil) then
Result := Result + FReport.TitleBand.Height;

if (FReport.SummaryBand <> nil) then
Result := Result + FReport.SummaryBand.Height;

if (FReport.HeaderBand <> nil) then
Result := Result + FReport.HeaderBand.Height;

if (FReport.Footerband <> nil) then
Result := Result + FReport.FooterBand.Height;

end;

procedure TppReportHeightCalculator.SetVisibleBands(aReport: TppReport;
aVisible: Boolean);
begin

if (aReport.TitleBand <> nil) then
aReport.TitleBand.Visible := aVisible;

if (aReport.SummaryBand <> nil) then
aReport.SummaryBand.Visible := aVisible;

if (aReport.HeaderBand <> nil) then
aReport.HeaderBand.Visible := aVisible;

if (aReport.Footerband <> nil) then
aReport.Footerband.Visible := aVisible;

end;

procedure TppReportHeightCalculator.ReportEndPageHandler(Sender: TObject);
begin
FUsedHeight := FUsedHeight + FDetailStopPosition;
end;

procedure TppReportHeightCalculator.DetailBandAfterPrintHandler(Sender:
TObject);
begin
FDetailStopPosition := FReport.Engine.PrintPosRect.Top;
end;

end.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Jim

Thanks for the Help

Peter

rbuser

Jim

The example you sent worked under RB 6.03 after I ignored all of the
missing properties and I have successfully integrated it into my own code.

Thanks again

Peter