Very SLOW image printing

rbuser

Hello,

We have a fax application that receives faxes and streams the image to a
BLOB field in a database. We are using RB to print the images using a
TppDBImage component.
We have reports from a few users that printing is very slow - 2 to 3 minutes
per page.

Here is the code frag where we create the RB form containing the ppReport
and do the printing...

procedure TFmSF2Main.PrintImageTable(Preview : boolean;ShowPrinterDialog :
boolean;const Printername : string);
var
lPrinter : TppPrinter;{3.2.1.4}
begin
FmRBPrintImages := TFmRbPrintImages.Create(nil);
lPrinter := TppPrinter.Create;
try

FmRBPrintImages.ppReport1.PrinterSetup.papername :=
lPrinter.PrinterSetup.papername;
if Preview then
FmRBPrintImages.ppReport1.DeviceType := 'Screen'
else
begin
if Printername <> '' then
FmRBPrintImages.ppReport1.PrinterSetup.PrinterName := PrinterName
else
FmRBPrintImages.ppReport1.PrinterSetup.PrinterName :=
dm.OptTableGENERAL_DEFAULTPRINTER.value;
FmRBPrintImages.ppReport1.DeviceType := 'Printer';
end;
FmRBPrintImages.ppReport1.ShowPrintDialog := ShowPrinterDialog;
FmRBPrintImages.ppReport1.Print;
finally
FmRBPrintImages.Free;
lPrinter.Free;
end;
end;

We have the CachedPages property setting of TppReport set to false.

Is there some way to speed things up ?

rbuser

> Here is the code frag where we create the RB form containing the ppReport

I didn't look at your code, but could it be the printer driver? ie will the
same report print okay with one printer and not another?

Ed Dressel
Team DM

rbuser

The "report" is just simply a bitmap from a dbimage. There is nothing else
in the report except for the tppdbimage component. It prints fine it just
takes 2 - 3 minutes per page to print.

rbuser

John:

Is it only with certain drivers/printers, or is every printer slow?

Ed Dressel
Team DM

digitalmetaphors

Can you print one of these images using some other application (Paint or
Paintshop...)? Is there a noticable difference in speed when printing to
these printers?

Try updating to the latest printer driver that you can.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

It is only happening with a few (and a very few at that) users, I have asked
him what printer he is using, he hasn't replied yet. We have a lot of users
and I only occassionally have any complaint about this, so it very well
could be a driver issue, I'm not sure what to suggest to the user. The last
one I had to deal with swore he had the latest driver, I belive it was an HP
printer.

digitalmetaphors

Let us know when you get some more specific info on your customer's printer
specifications.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

It was a HP DeskJet 940 (cse?). I recommended he get the latest drivers and
haven't heard back from him. I always hate recommending that because they
think it is a cop-out on my part :-(

We have always had a problem printing images from Delphi. From Delphi you
absolutely cannot print to some printers - most notably the Xerox XD
workcentre line of printers. The only way we ever had any success was to
use RB. It prints fine to these printers where QR and others fail to
produce any output at all. So what's the deal with TPrinter anyway ? Joe
Hecht says it is seriously flawed.