Another print problem

rbuser

Delphi 7 Enterprise
RB 7.04

I got an application when do a printing came up an error:
"Invalid floating point error"

I happened when a new printer is installed: HP Laserjet 2600.

All other program in the client's machine are printing fine but our
application. Our application is distributed to many clients and this problem
occurs in some clients when a new printer is installed.

What actually is happened ?
As I need to say I cannot reproduct this problem as I don't have so many
different print models in our office to test.

And as Jason suggested before to see if the machine login has the full
access right to the printer driver, what does that mean ? And how do I
know/make the machine login has full access to the printer driver?

What sort of error that caused this error ?
Like "Access violation", it is most likely that the object is not
instantaited in Delphi. So in this case, what generic problem is?
Is RB 7.04 does not support the latest printer driver ?

What I guess is the RB7.04 does not support new printer model.

nardmoseley

- try downloading the latest printer driver from the manufacturer's web
site - the drivers often have bugs. Uninstall the existing driver, then
reboot the machine and isntall th enew driver.

- if the issue persists, try downloading RB 10.03 for D7 and create a small
test application that your users can use.

- RB uses standard Windows API commands. The drivers implement support for
the Windows API

ReportBuilder <---> Windows API <----> Printer Driver <--> Printer

rbuser

I am not quite understand what you mean ?

Some of my clients encountered this same problem, they have installed the
new printer model, so I think they should have the latest driver.
So according to flow:


Is the problem of WindowsAPI or ReportBuilder ?

nardmoseley

The problem is the printer driver.

You absolutely can NOT assume the client has installed the latest driver.
The latest driver can be downloaded from the manufacturers web site.

Printer drivers are just another piece of software, often poorly written -
containing bugs and memory leaks.

We have thousands of customers, many of whom have thousands of customers
themselves successfully using hundreds of different printers.

rbuser

Can you suggest a reason why they are able to print through other
applications(eg. MS Office) without problem but with RB Print Preview ?

nardmoseley

- The Windows API is large and it is unprecise. There are often functions
that overlap in functionality (i.e. multiple ways to do same thing). The
printer driver manufacturers often incorrectly implement the support for the
functions or do it in a non-standard manner. The RB source code contains
special code to work around common errors that exists - and suspect MS
Office does the same. We try to use the simplest, most basic common
functions that should work in all printer drivers. Some applications may be
using other functions.

- I have experienced printer drivers that AV in MS Word/Excel and work
properly with ReportBuilder.

- The same is true for Video drivers. In the past, I had Delphi behave
strangely and when I updated my video driver and everything started working
great. The Delphi VCL contains code to work around Video driver errors as
well.

- I do not have the source code to MS Office. Some in the development world
claim that MS uses secret undocumented API functions. (However I have doubts
that is really the case.)