Printer settings

rbuser

We are having an unexpected problem with the printer settings.
We have an application that needs to print reports with the maximum
printing area of the printer. We do that, in every computer running the
application, by changing the printer settings. That always worked with the
Epson 900 printers, but is not working with the Epson C80. We do change the
settings on the computers, but everytime the users try to print the reports,
the printer settings are unchanged. It will only work if the user, when
printing each report, changes the printing area manually by going to the
printer properties, wich is not acceptable.
Is there a way to "capture" the printer settings that are stored in each
computer, so that the application can respect them?

Thanks in advance.

Filipe Torrado

digitalmetaphors

Where are you changing the printer settings, on the report or via the
WinAPI? If you want to get information about the printer, then you'll have
to make WinAPI call to get information about the printer from the printer
driver. See the MS help. Printer drivers are flaky at best, so the first
thing to try is to download an install the latest printer driver for the
Epson C80 and see if that helps.

Check out DeviceCapabilites and read the DC_MaxExtent and DC_MinExtent
settings. See the Win API help on this function.

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

I just found out what the problem was. It was really a driver issue.
First I would go to the printer settings by right clicking the printer
and choosing properties. Then I would go to the "printer preferences" (sorry
for the translation, but I have the portuguese version) and change what I
had to change. That settings I change were not "accepted" when I printed the
report. It was like I didn't change a thing.
I recently found out that the "printer preferences" where also available
in the first menu, when I right clicked the printer, without going to the
properties menu. When I changed the settings there, they remained. Which led
me to the conclusion that I have to go by the "shortcut" so that the changes
really take efect.
Thanks for the driver tip...

digitalmetaphors

Yes, the report only saves the printer setup defined in our dialog. The
printer specific information is set in the properties dialog, which points
to the DevMode structure. You can access the DevMode structure in code and
save it for the next print as shown in this demo:

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

Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors