Printing to PDF files & switching printers

rbuser

Hello Digital Metaphors

Using D6 Pro, RBEnterprise 6.03 I am printing reports to PDF files.
There is some interest in printing RB Reports to PDF files, so I'd like to
make a note about printing to PDF files.

Ther are four ways I know of to print reports to PDF files:

PsRBExportDevices at http://www.pragnaan.com
The Amyuni PDF printer at www.amyuni.com
The Adobe Acrobat PDF Printer from www.adobe.com
Textra Devices from http://www.waler.com/textradevices.htm

The Pragnann device, when printing to PDF files, prints RTF to images and
printed and screen presentations of RTF parts of a report are grainy and
unacceptable.

Textra Devices, last time I looked, did not handles RTF formatted text
printing.

Only the Adobe and Amyuni printers print everything well. However, as far as
I know, the Adobe printer cannot be embedded in a program, one must have
Adobe Acrobat (writer) installed to use it.

So that leaves one option for me.

I am having a problem, I believe caused by my use of RB. If I allow a user
to print preview on screen using the default printer (say an HP laser 6P)
and then switch to one of the PDF printers listed in the printer list
(either Adobe PDF Printer or Amyuni PDF printer) the resulting PDF sometimes
misses lines at the bottom or top of pages. This does not happen if users
print directly to the PDF printer, without using PrintPreview.Nor does this
happen if one of the PDF printers is the default printer and a Preview on
screen is done before printing to the PDF.

Perhaps I am missing something. After selecting to PrintPreview to screen
doesn't MyReport.Print RB takes over and if the user selects another printer
shouldn't RB handle the new printer correctly?

Here is the code I am using:


if printto = indexPrinter then rbReport.DeviceType := 'Printer';
if printto = indexScreen then rbReport.DeviceType := 'Screen';

rbReport.Print;
if printto=indexScreen then rbReport.PreviewForm.SetFocus;

If printto is Printer all the lines in the PDF are present and correct. If
Screen and the user changes to a PDF printer from the default HP printer
then sometimes one or two lines are missed at the bottom or top of a page.
If no printer change is made during screen preview there is no problem.

I'd appreciate your help.

Best regards,

Russell Belding

rbuser

Hello Russell,

Thank you for trying out our product.

There's one property in particular (in our PDF device) that affects image
export quality. That is ImageDPI. Have you tried increasing it to something
like 200?

I've also just mailed you the link to a new trial (sorry I had to do this;
it was not yet publicly released) with some enhancements to image rendering.
Please try it out.

--
Girish Patil
Pragnaan Software

digitalmetaphors

This may be related to a bug in RB 6.03, if the printer is changed, in the
print dialog, after the report is previewd, that the report isn't
regenerated for the new printer. Send you current email address to
support@digital-metaphors.com and we'll send you the patch. Include the
patch in your RBuilder\Source and recompile using that directory, instead of
RBuilder\Lib.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors