Printer preferences and report design resulting in endless printing

rbuser

Hi,
i have the following problem
for some reason the printer preferences of a printer driver get reset or
modified
i do not now what process is responsable for this
anyway when loading the rtm from a database and after setting the printer to
use in the report component the paper size of the design gets screwed
so the report prints but since the data to be printed doesn't match the
heigth of the paper dimensions, RB keeps printing
after all this happens i can see that the printer driver preferences are
changed
does RB change the driver settings?
does RB change it's paper settings according to the driver preferences?
i'm completely in the dark on what is happening here...
this is with RB9.03

tia,
Marc Antheunis

nardmoseley

When you run a report, the Report.PrinterSetup properties are used to print
the report. The properties are applied to the printer driver's DevMode
structure. (The DevMode is a Windows structure used to configure the printer
driver).

Report.PrinterSetup --> windows DevMode structure ---> printer driver

The Report.PrinterSetup properties are saved as part of the report
definition (.rtm). The idea is the you design a report for a specific paper
size, margins, etc.

At design-time you can use the File | PageSetup dialog to specify the
PrinterSetup properties. Or you can use the object inspector to specify the
Report.PrinterSetup properties.

At runtime you can programmatically set the Report.PrinterSetup properties -
prior to calling Report.Print.

rbuser

hi Nard,
hmmm
am i correct in concluding that setting the printer in a ppreport can not
change the printer document prefence settings?

this is what happens:
* we have specific designed reports with specific document length and width
saved in the database
* we set the printer preferences according to this designed report (it's an
epson label printer)
* when the report gets streamed in we set the printer driver name (cause
this changes sometimes) in the printername property
* report.print

for some reason the document width and heigth get altered and strangely the
printer preferences reflect these changes
furthermore in the event log there are events 20 logged saying that the
printer drivers are changed
i didn't see this behaviour with 9.01
i tend to believe these problems started when switching to 9.03, but then
again some windows updates were introduced at the same time
does all this makes sence or not?
tia,
marc

nardmoseley

Nothing related to the printer changed with RB 9.x. The printer unit is
stable and works as designed. It has been stable for many releases now.

On the other hand, printer drivers are often quite buggy. Always update to
the latest printer driver and try testing with different printers.

When you load a report, the PrinterSetup properties that are saved as part
of the report definition are going to be used to configure the DevMode for
the print job. (Note that this will not permanently alter the windows
default printer settings for the printer. Each print job has its copy of the
DevMode structure).

I might not be explaining this correctly but I think it makes sense. Lets
say you have designed 2 reports.

1. Report 1 is designed to always print on A4 paper, Landscape, Duplexed.
2. Report 2 is designed to print on Legal paper, Portrait, no duplex.
3. I have an Epson driver installed and configure the default settings to be
Letter, Portrait, no duplexing

When I print these reports, the print job configures the DevMode to print
the report to using the settings that I specified when I designed it.

But after printing the above reports, I can goto to my windows printer panel
and see that the default settings are still the same: Letter, Portrait, no
duplex.




The report printersetup properties are used to configure the printer DevMode
as I described before. This does not permanently alter the default settings
for the printer. It more like when you print, you have your own copy of the
DevMode. The Printer thread of the Tech Tips newsgroup contains an article
titled Windows Default Printer Settings that explains how to use RB to get
the default printer properties.

rbuser

Hi Nard,

that is exactly what i expect that the behaviour is...
we never had any problems up till now, so neither the design of the report
nor the drivers are changed in the problematic environments

now what i discovered at this time is that apparently the design of the
report swithes measurement units, it changes from the designed mm to inches
what results in a paper size that the printer does not recognises and thus
the printing is wrong
at this point i have no idea why mm is changed in inches
so the battle continuous
thx,
marc

rbuser

Nard,
it pops to my mind that maybe Multilizer is the culprit
are there any known issues between ML and RB, since ML changes the locale
settings and tries to translate reports?
tia,
marc

nardmoseley

We do not have info or experience with using Multilizer. I would create a
test with and without it and compare the results.

Internally RB stores measurements in mm thousandths (microns). You can see
this if you peform a view as text on the report form or save the .rtm as
ascii text. Based upon the Report.Units value, RB converts the measurements.
I think the Windows API requires the paper size to be specified in mm tenths
(open ppPrintr.pas and search for MMTenths).

rbuser

Hi Nard,

is there a way that by assigning a rtm file to a report component that the
paper size gets altered
cause this is what i see happening with the client
or can it be that the report changes paper size according to the driver
settings?
still stuck here
anyway i do see some windows event loggings stating that the driver settings
are changed (event 20)
i find multiple entries of that, does this rings a bell??

tia,
marc

nardmoseley

When a report definition is saved to .rtm or database, all of the TppReport
published properties are saved as part of the report definition - this
includes the Report.PrinterSetup properties.

Example:

1. I create a TppReport, set paper size to A4 and save to .rtm file.

2. I set TppReport paper size to Letter.

3. I load the .rtm file defined in number 1.

4. TppReport paper size is now A4

rbuser

hi Nard,

that's how it is supposed to be yes...
and that's how it is except in the offending report
the reason is totally unclear
problem is that the page setting that is being taken is less in height then
the design of the report
when you have this situation then the report gets printed over and over
again, it just keeps on printing
that is one scenario that isn't described in the tech-tips to solve
continuous printing
this behaviour can be triggered
it must be something i don't see right now, in the case i find the problem
i'll certainly keep you posted
cu
marc

rbuser

Nard,

the streamed in rtm file when printed changes its page layout settings
it is in fact the width of the papersize that gets smaller (also the length
but that was lang enough to deal with the memo placed on the report)
but since the width wasn't sufficient i got the endless printing thingy
after killing the app and then opening the rtm file and switching back and
forth between designer and preview i saw that the page layout settings were
getting altered...
so the question is how this is possible?
tia,
marc

nardmoseley

- Check whether you have any code associated with the report that might be
modifying the layout.

- If you have subreports, check the subreport.report printeterseup props.
From the report designer you can check this by selecting the workspace for
the subreport - this will select the childreport in the object inspector.

rbuser

negative on both questions
the design gets streamed in and the printer name is being set in the report
component, thats all...
it is though not a normal printer, it's an epson label printer
so maybe the driver used is being faulty
problem is that this issue isn't reproducable, not even on the sites where
it occurs...
i'll have to keep digging...
tia,
marc