David -
AFAIK Mike has it right. RBase for Windows is a Windoze program and
therefor the print engine feeds its output into the Windows print system
which is graphics. The graphics are output to the printer as a raster
stream. This process takes much longer for a dot matrix printer. The dot
matrix printer is built to accept a stream of ascii character codes, which
it tranlates into the whatever internal font has been selected, and prints
the entire characters on a given line all at once with only one pass across
the page. With Windows the dot matrix printer instead prints raster scan
lines and has to run back and forth across the page 8 to 10 times for each
line of characters because it is printing a picture rather than a character
stream.
Given that you are using RBase for Windows there are several ways I
can think of to overcome this problem:
1) Create a PAGEMODE report which can be written to a file which is
then copied to the printer.
2) Use write statements to mimic the report and write them to a
file which is then copied to the printer.
3) Write the report output to a table, then write the table
contents to a file and copy the file to the printer.
All of these methods bypass the Windows print control system and
also allow for insertion of printer control codes.
bernie
======================================
At 09:38 AM 7/4/2001 -0500, you wrote:
>When printing from Dos to a printer, (AFAIK) upon receipt of the first LF,
the printer starts printing from its memory cache, thence the fast start and
also is receiving character codes directly in the printer stream. In
windows the whole report has to be rendered in memory before being sent to
the printer and then the printer has to print the stream as a graphic. I
believe from posts quite awhile back that others had some success using the
generic text printer driver in Windows to drive the printer, circumventing
the graphic representation of the report......
>
>mike
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: david blocker
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Cc: Conroy, Frank ; Tellef, Karen
> Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2001 9:14 AM
> Subject: Printing to high speed dot matrix printer from Windows
>
>
> Dear R:Base folks
>
> I CAN"T believe there is not a simple solution to this ridiculous problem
Frank Conroy and I ran into this week in installing a conversion and
enhancement of an R:Base for DOS application to R:Base for Windows.
>
> Working with Frank, Karen Tellef and William Mason, we have set up a
slick inventory control system for a company that is in the TRANSFER
business. They are at the fish pier in Boston, and their facility consists
of a large refrigerated warehouse space with many truck bays. Trucks are
pulling up all day (and night sometimes) with loads of fresh or frozen fish,
which stay very little time in the facility before they are shipped out
again. Four salespeople work their butts off in a cramped little office at
the edge of the warehouse entering orders and printing out bills of lading.
THey are harrassed all day by truckers impatiently waiting for their paper
work so they can get on the road. The pace is very fast; to accomodate
this, they purchased a high speed Lexmark 370 printer which when printing in
Draft mode prints 700 or so characters per second. When the application ran
in DOS, all four of them could be entering and printing these bills of
lading (on pre printed forms with carbons) nonstop and the printer would be
printing them so fast that by the time they pressed [Enter] and got up from
their chairs to walk the four steps to the printer, despite the high volume
and four stations sending bills all day, the bill of lading was done and
sitting there waiting to be torn off.
>
> Monday, we installed the new system, where we had put little attention on
this bill of lading as a minor and easy report and put attention instead on
the very complex inventory control system, and bar coding application we
were implementing.
>
> IMMEDIATELY, we learned about the Achille's Heel effect. The bill of
lading report was suddenly taking so long to print (25 - 30 seconds per for
the simplest one item bill) that they were backed up to the point where they
didn't get out of work Monday, a very busy day, till 1 AM. We MUST speed up
this printing by Friday or they are going to go back to the DOS app until we
can figure it out.
>
> Here's the details:
>
> Four PC's, running Windows 98.
> Windows 2000 is the server system
> All printing goes to a Lexmark 370 Printer.
> All printing cycles through a PC which IS very slow, just a Pentium.
> The Lexmark has four fonts built into it:
> Fast Draft, at 700 CPS
> Draft, at 630 CPS
> Courier and Gothic letter quality at 150 CPS
>
> Tech support at Lexmark suggested we use a font in R:Base that matched
one of the built in fonts. For now, the best we have been able to do has
been by:
> * Using Century Gothic Regular 10 font
> * Under Windows print manager, setting the print settings to print
coarse text, graphics at the simplest resolution
> * Using a PRNSETUP "printer name" command in the R:Base for WIndow
program for this printer followed by an OUTPUT PRINTER command
>
> The result is that as each new BOL prints, you can watch the printer take
5-6 seconds "setting up", then about another 9 seconds to print the simplest
of the BOL's. Clearly, it's printing at the 150 CPS speed. Originally, the
printer WAS printing a line, then cycling back to the left before starting
again. With the changes we figured out, at least it now prints left to
right, next line right to left, and so on, hence the cutting the time in
half. (The ideal, which they had under DOS, was NO delay on starting and
maybe 3 seconds to print even a complex BOL) On the more complex BOL's,
something wierd happens. The report is based on a detail table, with many
rows sometimes per bill. To save paper, the report prints as a group header
the lot number and item name (eg, Lot 142 Cod) and then creates in a footer
a list of the weights of the individual boxes (sometimes as many as 100) as
a long text string with commas between them which wraps onto several lines
to print the weights of the boxes being shipped from that lot. In DOS, as
in R:Base for Windows, the report CREATION is very fast. In DOS, the
PRINTING is also very fast, with each line printing right out. In WIndows,
these individual lines of weights cause a second or so delay between the
lines! The sales reps and truckers are losing patience fast.
>
> In addition to the above we have tried:
>
> * Printing to a file; the report doesn't print correctly and the printer
still doesn't use the draft font when we TYPE it out.
>
> Frank's had a brilliant idea for a temporary fix to stave off the wolves
which we will be trying today / tomorrow: In WIndows app, don't print, just
flag a row in the bill of lading table as ready for printing (such a column
already exists and is indexed). Then create a little DOS program that will
connect to the database and in a constant loop look for rows in the table
where status = ready to print, and print the BOL.
>
> We will try this and hope it works. But I can't believe that we can't get
R:Base for Windows to print to a high speed dot matrix printer in fast draft
mode!!!!! SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE must be doing this!
>
> Any and all ideas are welcome!
>
> Thanks
>
> David Blocker
>
>
><!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
><HTML><HEAD>
><META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
><META content="MSHTML 5.50.4616.200" name=GENERATOR>
><STYLE></STYLE>
></HEAD>
><BODY bgColor=#ffffff>
><DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>When printing from Dos to a printer, (AFAIK) upon
>receipt of the first LF, the printer starts printing from its memory cache,
>thence the fast start and also is receiving character codes
directly in the
>printer stream. In windows the whole report has to be rendered in memory
>before being sent to the printer and then the printer has to print the
stream as
>a graphic. I believe from posts quite awhile back that others had some
>success using the generic text printer driver in Windows to drive the printer,
>circumventing the graphic representation of the report......</FONT></DIV>
><DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
><DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>mike</FONT></DIV>
><BLOCKQUOTE dir=ltr
>style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px;
BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
> <DIV
> style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color:
black"><B>From:</B>
> <A [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]";>david blocker</A> </DIV>
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]";>[EMAIL PROTECTED]</A> </DIV>
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Cc:</B> <A [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]";>Conroy, Frank</A> ; <A
> [EMAIL PROTECTED] href="mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]";>Tellef,
> Karen</A> </DIV>
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Wednesday, July 04, 2001 9:14
> AM</DIV>
> <DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Printing to high speed dot
> matrix printer from Windows</DIV>
> <DIV><BR></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Dear R:Base folks</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>I CAN"T believe there is not a simple
solution to
> this ridiculous problem Frank Conroy and I ran into this week in
installing a
> conversion and enhancement of an R:Base for DOS application to R:Base for
> Windows.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Working with Frank, Karen Tellef and William
> Mason, we have set up a slick inventory control system for a company that is
> in the TRANSFER business. They are at the fish pier in Boston, and their
> facility consists of a large refrigerated warehouse space with many truck
> bays. Trucks are pulling up all day (and night sometimes) with loads of
fresh
> or frozen fish, which stay very little time in the facility before they are
> shipped out again. Four salespeople work their butts off in a cramped
> little office at the edge of the warehouse entering orders and printing out
> bills of lading. THey are harrassed all day by truckers impatiently
> waiting for their paper work so they can get on the road. The pace is
> very fast; to accomodate this, they purchased a high speed Lexmark 370
printer
> which when printing in Draft mode prints 700 or so characters per second.
When
> the application ran in DOS, all four of them could be entering and printing
> these bills of lading (on pre printed forms with carbons) nonstop and the
> printer would be printing them so fast that by the time they pressed [Enter]
> and got up from their chairs to walk the four steps to the printer, despite
> the high volume and four stations sending bills all day, the bill of lading
> was done and sitting there waiting to be torn off.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Monday, we installed the new system, where
we had
> put little attention on this bill of lading as a minor and easy report
and put
> attention instead on the very complex inventory control system, and bar
coding
> application we were implementing.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>IMMEDIATELY, we learned about the Achille's
Heel
> effect. The bill of lading report was suddenly taking so long to print
> (25 - 30 seconds per for the simplest one item bill) that they were
backed up
> to the point where they didn't get out of work Monday, a very busy day,
till 1
> AM. We MUST speed up this printing by Friday or they are going to go
> back to the DOS app until we can figure it out.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Here's the details:</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Four PC's, running Windows 98.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Windows 2000 is the server system</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>All printing goes to a Lexmark 370
> Printer.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>All printing cycles through a PC which IS very
> slow, just a Pentium.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The Lexmark has four fonts built into
> it:</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> Fast Draft, at 700 CPS</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> Draft, at 630 CPS</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2> Courier and Gothic letter
quality at
> 150 CPS</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Tech support at Lexmark suggested we use a font
> in R:Base that matched one of the built in fonts. For now, the best we
> have been able to do has been by:</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>* Using Century Gothic Regular 10
> font</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>* Under Windows print manager, setting
the
> print settings to print coarse text, graphics at the simplest
> resolution</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>* Using a PRNSETUP "printer name" command
> in the R:Base for WIndow program for this printer followed by an OUTPUT
> PRINTER command</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>The result is that as each new BOL prints, you
> can watch the printer take 5-6 seconds "setting up", then about another 9
> seconds to print the simplest of the BOL's. Clearly, it's printing at
> the 150 CPS speed. Originally, the printer WAS printing a line, then
> cycling back to the left before starting again. With the changes we
> figured out, at least it now prints left to right, next line right to left,
> and so on, hence the cutting the time in half. (The ideal, which
> they had under DOS, was NO delay on starting and maybe 3 seconds to
print
> even a complex BOL) On the more complex BOL's, something wierd
> happens. The report is based on a detail table, with many rows
sometimes
> per bill. To save paper, the report prints as a group header the lot
> number and item name (eg, Lot 142 Cod) and then creates in a footer a
list of
> the weights of the individual boxes (sometimes as many as 100) as a long
text
> string with commas between them which wraps onto several lines to print the
> weights of the boxes being shipped from that lot. In DOS, as in R:Base
> for Windows, the report CREATION is very fast. In DOS, the PRINTING is
> also very fast, with each line printing right out. In WIndows, these
> individual lines of weights cause a second or so delay between the
> lines! The sales reps and truckers are losing patience
>fast.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>In addition to the above we have
> tried:</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>* Printing to a file; the report doesn't
> print correctly and the printer still doesn't use the draft font when we
TYPE
> it out.</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Frank's had a brilliant idea for a temporary
fix
> to stave off the wolves which we will be trying today / tomorrow: In WIndows
> app, don't print, just flag a row in the bill of lading table as ready for
> printing (such a column already exists and is indexed). Then create a
> little DOS program that will connect to the database and in a constant loop
> look for rows in the table where status = ready to print, and print the
> BOL. </FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>We will try this and hope it works. But I can't
> believe that we can't get R:Base for Windows to print to a high speed dot
> matrix printer in fast draft mode!!!!! SOMEBODY SOMEWHERE must be
doing
> this!</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Any and all ideas are welcome!</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>Thanks</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2>David Blocker</FONT></DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV>
> <DIV><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT> </DIV></BLOCKQUOTE></BODY></HTML>
>
