RE: [U2] PCL extra page
Depends on how you are formatting it. If you are formatting it by sending a prefix string of characters from one file, then sending your job, that would cause any ESC E to shoot out a new page. Also, by any chance does your job have any print @(-1) that are sent to the printer. If your terminal type uses char(12) to clear the screen, which is also a FF on most printers. How are you formatting the job? George -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Behalf Of Sirulnick, Steve Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 7:47 AM To: 'u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org' Subject: [U2] PCL extra page Does anyone know why I could be getting an extra page that spits out at the beginning of a print job? This only happens when I format the print job with PCL first. It's almost like a banner page with nothing on it. Regards, Steve Sirulnick Costa Fruit Produce 18 Bunker Hill Industrial Park Boston, MA 02129 Office: 617.912.8045 Fax: 617.912.8145 http://www.freshideas.com/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] PCL extra page
Steve: This is almost always limited to HP printers. What normally happens is that a print job always begins with a form feed. When PCL preceeds this print job you get a string that looks like: Pcl commands : FF : Print job Then, when this string is sent to the printer, HP interprets Pcl commands as text, so doesn't suppress the leading form feed...other printers often do. In D3, I was able to start a printer and suppress the leading form feed. However, D3 interpreted Pcl commands as text so when the Print job was sent it got preceeded by a FF anyway. The only way I was able to resolve this was to remove all form feeds from the print job (you can turn this off in D3), use footings in all reports (we already did anyway), and append a FF to the end of the footing (our footing text resides in a file). I don't yet know what solution exists for U2 but I'll soon find out. :-( Bill -Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Sirulnick, Steve Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 4:47 AM To: 'u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org' Subject: [U2] PCL extra page Does anyone know why I could be getting an extra page that spits out at the beginning of a print job? This only happens when I format the print job with PCL first. It's almost like a banner page with nothing on it. Regards, Steve Sirulnick Costa Fruit Produce 18 Bunker Hill Industrial Park Boston, MA 02129 Office: 617.912.8045 Fax: 617.912.8145 http://www.freshideas.com/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] PCL extra page
Bill, I may be reading too much between the lines here, but the following statement: --- Then, when this string is sent to the printer, HP interprets Pcl commands as text, so doesn't suppress the leading form feed...other printers often do. -- suggests to me that the printer was installed using the manufacturer's printer driver for that printer and that the printer driver is performing its usual tasks and, in addition, is not passing the ESC sequences thru to the printer: I didn't notice what platform you're running on, but on a Windows platform, we always install all Windows printers to be used by Universe using the Generic/Text driver found in the Generic Manufacturer's list of printer drivers. The Generic/Text driver performs no functions whatsoever, but passes thru to the printer all characters received by it, including ESC sequences which the printer interprets and reacts to correctly. I may be able to find a generic/text printer driver for Windows to send you if you don't have one. hth, Dave Dave Taylor President Sysmark Information Systems, Inc. 49 Aspen Way Rolling Hills Estates, CA 90274 800-SYSMARK (800-797-6275) (O) 310-544-1974 (C) 310-561-5200 (P) 800-339-1497 (F) 310-377-3550 Your Source for Integrated EDI Translation and DataSync Integration www.sysmarkinfo.com - Original Message - From: Bill Haskett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 7:00 AM Subject: RE: [U2] PCL extra page Steve: This is almost always limited to HP printers. What normally happens is that a print job always begins with a form feed. When PCL preceeds this print job you get a string that looks like: Pcl commands : FF : Print job Then, when this string is sent to the printer, HP interprets Pcl commands as text, so doesn't suppress the leading form feed...other printers often do. snip --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] PCL extra page
Dave: Now I may be reading too much between the lines. :-) Our clients use printers from multiple applications; there are no MV only printers. So all printers have the appropriate Windows drivers installed. I've not seen where a print stream sent from an MV application gets altered by these Windows print drivers. What I was talking about was the reaction of the printer to this MV generated print stream. I've sent the same stream of text (a simple A/R customer report wrapped in PCL) to both HP, Canon, and Kyocera printers (all printers were PCL5 compatible). The string looked like: peqs '1' size = 7372 01 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ENTER LANGUAGE = PCL..[E[l1ol1e41F[a3l105M[(s0p13h0s3b4099T...T/R 4.2.1 CUSTOMER NAME INFORMATION FOR LAKEWOOD VIEW TWNHOME ASSN (450) THRU 30 Jan 05 PAGE1 02 . . 44 45 (C) Copyright 09:59:59 07 Mar 2006, Advantos Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 46 .T/R 4.2.1 CUSTOMER NAME INFORMATION FOR LAKEWOOD VIEW TWNHOME ASSN (605) THRU 30 Nov 04 PAGE2 47 . . 70 . 71 (C) Copyright 09:59:59 07 Mar 2006, Advantos Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 72 .[E[%-12345X ...where '[' equals escape and the 1st '.' before each MV generated heading is a form feed generated by the MV AQL HEADING statement. What appears to happen is the Canon and Kyocera recognize the print buffer is empty (ignores the PCL code) and ignores this 1st form feed; which makes sense. The HP, on the other hand, simply kicks a page when it finds the 1st form feed. The [Esc]E doesn't kick the page on either the HP, Canon, or Kyocera. In order for us to solve this problem, we had to move the form feed from the 1st character of each mvDbms created heading to the end of each ...All Rights Reserved. part of the string. To do this, we were able to turn off the D3 created form feed completely (via TERM setting of formfeed delays to 0) and add a form feed to the end of the copyright text. Hopefully, I haven't missed the point completely. :-) Bill Haskett Advantos Systems, Inc. www.advantos.net (760)944-5570 (CA) (360)923-4838 (WA) -Original Message- From: Dave Taylor [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 9:21 AM To: Bill Haskett; u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Subject: Re: [U2] PCL extra page Bill, I may be reading too much between the lines here, but the following statement: --- Then, when this string is sent to the printer, HP interprets Pcl commands as text, so doesn't suppress the leading form feed...other printers often do. -- suggests to me that the printer was installed using the manufacturer's printer driver for that printer and that the printer driver is performing its usual tasks and, in addition, is not passing the ESC sequences thru to the printer: I didn't notice what platform you're running on, but on a Windows platform, we always install all Windows printers to be used by Universe using the Generic/Text driver found in the Generic Manufacturer's list of printer drivers. The Generic/Text driver performs no functions whatsoever, but passes thru to the printer all characters received by it, including ESC sequences which the printer interprets and reacts to correctly. I may be able to find a generic/text printer driver for Windows to send you if you don't have one. hth, Dave [snipped] - Original Message - From: Bill Haskett [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org Sent: Tuesday, March 07, 2006 7:00 AM Subject: RE: [U2] PCL extra page Steve: This is almost always limited to HP printers. What normally happens is that a print job always begins with a form feed. When PCL preceeds this print job you get a string that looks like: Pcl commands : FF : Print job Then, when this string is sent to the printer, HP interprets Pcl commands as text, so doesn't suppress the leading form feed...other printers often do. snip --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] PCL extra page
Goo'day, Dave and Bill, A further option you might like to consider (in a Windows printer environment) is the use of the printer's Page Separator (for each of the separate and several printers you create) to set a document's properties to whatever you requirelandscape/portrait, font, size, etc, etc, without burying those instructions in your document Using PCL-style instructions... At 12:20 07/03/06 -0800, Dave Taylor wrote: snip -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.0/276 - Release Date: 07/03/06 Regards, Bruce Nichol Talon Computer Services ALBURYNSW 2640 Australia http://www.taloncs.com.au Tel: +61 (0)411149636 Fax: +61 (0)260232119 If it ain't broke, fix it till it is! -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Anti-Virus. Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 268.2.0/276 - Release Date: 07/03/06 --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
RE: [U2] PCL extra page
In our case... The users rightfully complained about those blank pages at the beginning of print jobs, so years ago we put a wrapper around all of our printing. Essentially, everything goes to a hold file first. The leading form feed is stripped from the beginning of the job if present. The file is then: * output to the printer * or processed via PCL2PDF (from visual software) * and/or optionally emailed to the user It (the wrapper) not only solves the leading blank page eject problem but it provides an easy way to implement a variety of other tasks with the output. --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
Re: [U2] PCL extra page
Dear Steve, I have seen a number of really good ideas posted to the list to help you with this issue. Here is another option I haven't seen mentioned yet. HP PCL includes a command called eject page, which will cause a form feed to occur if printable data is currently stored in the printer's buffer. It causes nothing to happen when there is no printable data currently stored in the printer's buffer. What is sometimes possible in database printing applications is to create a new form feed character, to be used by the system when printing certain reports (i.e. those that get directed to HP PCL compliant laser printers), and to then define that the new form feed character is equal to the 5 byte PCL sequence ESCl0H (1B 26 6C 30 48 in ASCII hex). HTH Best Regards, /Paul -- Paul Tykodi Principal Consultant TCS - Tykodi Consulting Services LLC Tel/Fax: 603-343-1820 Mobile: 603-866-0712 E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] WWW: http://www.tykodi.com Date: Tue, 7 Mar 2006 07:47:04 -0500 From: Sirulnick, Steve [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: [U2] PCL extra page Does anyone know why I could be getting an extra page that spits out at the beginning of a print job? This only happens when I format the print job with PCL first. It's almost like a banner page with nothing on it. Regards, Steve Sirulnick Costa Fruit Produce 18 Bunker Hill Industrial Park Boston, MA 02129 Office: 617.912.8045 Fax: 617.912.8145 http://www.freshideas.com/ --- u2-users mailing list u2-users@listserver.u2ug.org To unsubscribe please visit http://listserver.u2ug.org/
