About Matricial Printers (Example: LX300)

rbuser

Hi...

Why in Report Builder a report is slowly to printer in LX300 than a DOS
Software. I am using the Draft10cpi font. It should be the same speed, it
isn't ?
Some times I think the DOS aplicative printers continuos line and Report
Builder printers word by word or somethink like that.
I cannot finding the right word in english to describe that.I hope you
understand me.
If you not understand me send me email.

azevedomt@bol.com.br

Regards

Marco

rbuser

Marco,
well i suppose that the Draft10cpi is a printer font (little printer at the
left of the font when you select it in word for example)
if so then you schould first try out word with this font and printer and
print the same kind of report in word to see how the speed is
it could be that the printer in windows is just slow
otherwise try another printer font to see if this works
do you use a lot of lines in the report cause that will defenately slow down
the output cause lines will be generated as bitmaps
also in normal dos printing you print a line and the next line is positioned
by the printer hadware
if your report does not respect this (you can ask for the font height to
know where the top for the next character is) the report will be printed in
windows way
the same applies for the left
i found out that no matter what you do the fastest way for matrix printers
and pos printers is to directly print to the printer and not through any
report generator at all
now this whole explanation is what i learned through experience with pos
printers but i expect it to be the same with matrix printers...
my 2c
cu
marc

rbuser

RB uses printer driver to generate output, and not direct line printing. LX
300 is a graphical matrix printer and a graphical output is generated, so
every char is created dot by dot, skipping printer internal character
generator. As result the printing is slow but high quality, and you can
print any size font, bitmaps, and so on. For plain text output, just like
old dos, try installing and directing output on a generic text printer,
which uses a no-graphic driver. If u wanna use compressed, underlined, and
so on special escape char, forget RB and go with a hand written procedure,
it's faster.

Ciao, Sandro

"Marco Antonio" ha scritto nel messaggio

rbuser

I try to print using WORD PAD for windows and the speed is the same than
Report Builder. The printer head go to end and to begin of the each word
until the end of line. The DOS printing does not do that. It begin in the
begin of line go to the end of line without interrupt.
Understand me ?

rbuser

I am trailing ReportBuilder and have struck an immediate problem.

When trying to place a Label in the Header Band I get the Error Dialog
"Canvas does not allow drawing".

I can however place a RichEdit on the detail band with no errors.

(I do not have a data pipeline as this is a simple report)

What do I need to do to get a simple Label on the report?

Where in the manual are the errors listed with their explanations?

Regards, Peter Evans

digitalmetaphors

What version of RB are you using? This was a problem in 6.01, which was
fixed in 6.02. Download 6.02. Registered users can contact
info@digital-metaphors.com with your registration information to receive the
download link. Otherwise, the 6.02 demo is available from our website
www.digital-metaphors.com.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

Marco,
if the speed is the same with wordpad then there's nothing you can do on the
RB side, it is simply the printer driver wich gives you the nightmare
looking at the name LX300 i assume that it is an epson printer
and then i say aaahhh!!
on the risk of being flamed, epson drivers are not that good in
windows...the only decent ones i've seen are for certain laserprinters and
inkjet printers
we have all sorts of epson pos printers in the field and let me assure you
that you can't trust 'a version' of driver to work on all windows platforms
the same

cu
marc

rbuser

the

Jim,
I have just, whilst online, brought up Delphi (Delphi 4) and checked what
version of RB I installed. It states "Demo Copy - Version 6.02".

When I tried to place a label on the header, this time, I got the same error
message, but, the label did appear on the header band.

I am using Windows 95.

Please advise how I can resolve this problem and evaluate your product.

Regards, Peter Evans

digitalmetaphors

Ok, then most likely it is your printer driver. Try this as a test to
verify that it is the driver. Switch your installed printer driver to an HP
LaserJet 4 (we know that this one works) and relaunch the Delphi application
and create a report. If the problem goes away, then download the latest
driver that is available from your printer's manufacturer.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

HP
application
Thanks, I will look into that now.

As to the second part to my question "Where in the manual are the errors
listed with their explanations?". Please let me know the answer to that, or
where on website is the answer.
This would certainly save a lot of wasted time.

Regards, Peter Evans

rbuser

I checked up on my printer driver, that is installed on my test machine.
The printer is a HP LaserJet 6MP. The latest "HP LaserJet 6P/6MP Printing
System (American English)" is version 1.02 of 28 Feb98.
I have that installed already.

If I went to the trouble of checking a printer driver for the LaserJet4,
that you claim works for Windows 95, and with Delphi 4, then I have not
proven anything. That is because, I already have the latest driver installed
for the printer on this machine.

So I need some other advise on how to correct the problem.

I should repeat that the problem occurs at the design stage. I am interested
as to how a printer driver could affect the design stage. Surely your
product will work, at the design stage, even if the design computer has no
printer installed?

Regards, Peter Evans

digitalmetaphors

ReportBuilder can work if there is no printer installed on a machine by
setting the Report.PrinterSetup.PrinterName to Screen. RB needs a canvas in
order to determine text widths and text heights of the text controls as they
are placed in the report, which are set to Autosize = True, at design time.
RB tries to use the printer canvas if possible. All we are saying that by
testing with the Laserjet 4 driver is to say that the installed
Laserjet6P/6MP driver may or may not work the same. Drivers have a tendency
to be poorly written.


Cheers,

Jim Bennett
Digital Metaphors

rbuser

in
they
time.
tendency

Thank you for that explanation. The following is my experiences since your
previous reply.

31 Oct.
------

I did not alter any printer drivers decided to have another try at getting a
Label on a form.

No luck. I noticed that TppReport property Units was set to Inches. I
changed it to Millimeters.
Success.

1 Nov.
-----

1. Boot machine
2. run Delphi
3. open Project
4. open unit which has on it TppReport
5. double click on icon
6. click in Detail Band
7. click on Label icon
8. click on Detail Band
9. Success
10. exit Delphi

11. run Delphi
12. on Project1, Form1 drop component TppReport
13. double click on icon
14. click in Detail Band. Success.
(ppReport1.Units = utInches)
15. click on Label icon
16. click in Detail Band. Get Label 1 appearing; dialog
Error "Canvas..."
17. click OK on Error dialog
18. in Object Inspector display ppReport1 (Units = utInches)
19. change Units to utMillimeters
20. click on Label icon; click on Label icon
21. click on Detail Band. Get Error. Click OK
22. unable to get rid of Error situation
23. Delete component TppReport
24. repeat lines 12-15. Except firstly change Units to Millimeters.
....
Tried doing in ReportBuilder screeen File | Page Setup changing Printer
to different printer. (Initially was "Default"). This didn't halp.
In desperation changed to "Screen". Success

However when I repeated this process on another project (repeating steps
11+) it didn't work.
I tried changing between Units = Millimeters and Units = Inches and changing
printer and by happenstance got it to work!

So it seems my printer driver does work as my experience of 31 Oct
demonstrates. And,
eventually as my experiences of 1 Nov demonstrate, it can be made to work.

However ... please advise how a "hit and miss" approach can be changed to a
"sure fire" approach.

Regards, Peter Evans

rbuser

Really ??? Are you kidding ? RB does not work with compressed ?

rbuser

> Really ??? Are you kidding ? RB does not work with compressed ?

Once more: RB uses windows printer drivers, which, in case of graphical
matrix printers, means GRAPHIC (dot by dot) printing. Compressed, underlined
and so on in the age of old-dos were rendered using printer built-in
character generator circuitry, because there was no driver. To obtain the
same result under Win you must directly send characters to the printer,
skipping driver, or directing the RB printer output on a generic/text only
printer driver, which does not support, obviously, any variant to the
standard font (80 cols or printer control panel selected one).

Ciao, Sandro