Microsoft KB Archive/133163

= How to control printer attributes for a report at run time =

Article ID: 133163

Article Last Modified on 2/24/2005

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APPLIES TO


 * Microsoft Visual FoxPro 3.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual FoxPro 5.0 Standard Edition
 * Microsoft Visual FoxPro 6.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual FoxPro 7.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual FoxPro 8.0 Professional Edition
 * Microsoft Visual FoxPro 9.0 Professional Edition

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This article was previously published under Q133163



SUMMARY
When designing a report, a developer does not always know which printer will be used. As a result, the developer needs to give the user a way to change the printer and printer attributes at run time. This article shows by example how to write code that does this.



MORE INFORMATION
Visual FoxPro has enhanced and added commands and functions for controlling and getting printer information. Please see the Help menu for more information on these commands:   SET PRINTER TO   APRINTER PRTINFO GETPRINTER The following example shows that a report can be sent to an HP LaserJet IIID on LPT2 with print duplex and landscape selected, and then the same report can be sent to a Panasonic KX-P1180 on LPT1 using a custom paper size.

To run the example code, you must have the printers installed in Windows. If you don't, you need to install them, and set up a user-defined paper size under printer setup in Windows for the Panasonic. Set the user-defined size using Millimeters (MM) as the measuring unit with the Width at 2159 and the Length at 1778.

For testing purposes, you may connect the printers to FILE instead of LPT1 or LPT2. If you do connect to FILE, make sure that you also substitute FILE for LPT1 or LPT2 in the following example code.

For more information on installing or changing Printer settings in Windows, please see Windows' Help menu.

Step-by-step example
This example works on the following platforms:

Windows 3.1

Windows for Workgroups 3.11

Windows 95

Windows NT 3.5 or 3.51

Windows NT 4.0

Windows 95

Windows 98

Windows 98SE

Windows 2000

Windows XP

Windows 2003 Server

Note Visual FoxPro 5.0 and later run only under 32-bit operating systems such as Windows 95, Windows NT 3.5 and later. See the product documentation for your specific version of Visual FoxPro to determine the supported operating systems.

If you have trouble setting custom paper sizes or other printer attributes, verify that you have the latest printer driver for your specific platform, and check the printer documentation or contact the manufacturer to find out more about your printer's capabilities.  Open Testdata.dbc in Visual FoxPro 6.0.. Create a new report by using Quick Report. Choose the Customer table and add the Cust_id and Company fields to the report. Save the report as Myreport, and then close the report. Create a text file called Panprint.txt that contains these lines:

DEVICE=Panasonic KX-P1180 OUTPUT=LPT1: ORIENTATION=0 PAPERSIZE=256 PAPERLENGTH=1778 PAPERWIDTH=2159 DEFAULTSOURCE=8

Note Most dot-matrix printers use PAPERSIZE=256 to define a custom paper size. If you use a custom paper size, you must include PAPERLENGTH and PAPERWIDTH. Create a second text file called Hpprint.txt that contains these lines:

DEVICE=HP LaserJet IIID OUTPUT=LPT2: ORIENTATION=1 PAPERSIZE=1 DEFAULTSOURCE=7 DUPLEX=2

Note For more information about the different printer settings, see PRTINFO in Visual FoxPro Help menu. Create a program that is named Runrpt.prg, and enter the following code:

USE Myreport.frx && Open the FRX as a table LOCATE FOR Objtype = 1 AND Objcode = 53 && find the record that holds ** the printer information. For more information on the Table Structure ** of an .FRX file, see 'Table Structures of Table Files' in Help.

REPLACE Tag WITH "" && Remove any Printer codes that may be stored in   ** the Tag memo

REPLACE Tag2 WITH "" && Remove any Printer codes that may be stored in   ** the Tag2 memo

APPEND MEMO Expr FROM Hpprint.txt OVERWRITE && Replace any printer ** setting already there with the HP IIID Settings

USE && Close Myreport.frx SET PRINTER TO NAME 'HP LaserJet IIID' REPORT FORM Myreport TO PRINT NEXT 60 && Send the report to the ** HP IIID printer using the printer attributes specified in the ** Expr memo field.

USE Myreport.frx && Open the FRX as a table LOCATE FOR Objtype = 1 AND Objcode = 53 && find the record that holds ** the printer information

APPEND MEMO Expr FROM Panprint.txt OVERWRITE && Replace any printer ** setting already there with the Panasonic KX-P1180 Settings

USE && Close Myreport.frx SET PRINTER TO NAME 'Panasonic KX-P1180' REPORT FORM Myreport TO PRINT NEXT 60 && Send the report to the ** Panasonic KX-P1180 printer using the printer attributes ** specified in the Expr memo field.

 Save and run the program.</li></ol>

Keywords: kbhowto kbprint kbcode KB133163

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