cmacfarl@crimee.ICS.UCI.EDU (Craig) (04/18/91)
I need to be able to print data on a preprinted, continuous feed, 11 x 8 1/2 inch form. The only paper type in the Page Setup dialog box that handles printing wider than 8 1/2 inches is Computer Paper. Unfortunately, the size of the Computer Paper setting is 14 x 11 inches. Therefore whenever a form feed is sent to the printer, it forms feeds halfway down the next page. Is there any way, from 4D, to control the size of the page being printed? Or control how much paper is passed through the printer on a form feed? I need an answer, because if this problem is not fixed by Monday, my boss said that we will have to switch back to FoxBase+/Mac! Horrors!! 4th Dimension; for all it's potential, really comes up short in some areas. Are there any C library routines that handle report generation from 4D on a more procedural level? Would there be a market for such a beast? Any help at all is greatly appreciated. Craig MacFarlane Office of Academic Affairs University of California, Irvine cmacfarl@paris.ics.uci.edu
STREATER@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (415) (04/18/91)
In article <9104171436.aa28855@PARIS.ICS.UCI.EDU>, cmacfarl@crimee.ICS.UCI.EDU (Craig) says: > >I need to be able to print data on a preprinted, continuous feed, 11 x 8 1/2 >inch form. The only paper type in the Page Setup dialog box that handles >printing wider than 8 1/2 inches is Computer Paper. Unfortunately, the >size of the Computer Paper setting is 14 x 11 inches. Therefore whenever >a form feed is sent to the printer, it forms feeds halfway down the next >page. > >Is there any way, from 4D, to control the size of the page being printed? > I am curious about this too. In my case, I would like, when printing labels, to be able to tell the printer (Imagewriter), that the paper has *no* size, so it ceases to skip one label every 10. Tim.
francis@wolfman.cis.ohio-state.edu (RD Francis) (04/18/91)
You want to contact ACIUS; I recall that they have an external that lets you set your own PRECs (basically, the page sizes that can be selected in the printer dialog boxes). I always used to used PREC Manager, part of Quick and Dirty Utilities Vol. 2 from Dreams of the Phoenix, which did the same thing; however, I think this puppy's been off the market for years. I no longer have a copy; it belonged to my former employer. -- R David Francis francis@cis.ohio-state.edu
awessels@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Allen Wessels) (04/19/91)
In article <91107.222724STREATER@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> STREATER@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU (415) writes: >I am curious about this too. In my case, I would like, when printing labels, to >be able to tell the printer (Imagewriter), that the paper has *no* size, so >it ceases to skip one label every 10. There are a number of ImageWriter driver utilities that will let you set custom page sizes. One of them is called PREC Manager, I think. I think Sumex has at least one, but I forget which one.
flowers@csrd.uiuc.edu (Craig Flowers) (04/19/91)
There is a forms printing package by Adobe called TrueForm. It comes with a module that can be loaded into 4D thus allowing 4D to print its data in ways described by TrueForm templates. It works very nice, although a tad slow. TrueForm allows many different printing sizes and areas and can probably better handle odd sized forms. To create a TrueForm template, you need to scan a form into TrueForm. Then, set up where you want your fields to print on the form. It's very easy and fast to set up a decent form. To get a PERFECT form takes double the effort. (One of those diminishing returns things.) TrueForm can display the scanned form on the screen and allow data entry. It even has some database capabilities. Many times, depending on the dpi of the scanning, the form will look messy on the screen and be hard to read. It creates a perfect duplication hard copy though. TrueForm can also import and export data. We use 4D to enter the data and print via the TrueForm add-in module to save the step of tranferring data from TrueForm to 4D. We get it all done (save data to db and print form) in one step. I think these two packages make a very nice setup. -Craig Flowers (flowers@csrd.uiuc.edu)