Printer wide-font problem

[aharrisreid]

I am outputting a (very old, hand-coded) report directly to a printer using ??? for print commands and @ SAY for text posisitioning. I want some lines to be output in double-width font. The code looks something like this...

SET DEVICE TO PRINT
SET PRINT TO
??? CHR(27)+'@' && reset printer (necessary, but can't work-out why)

??? CHR(27)+'W1' && set wide font on
@0,0 SAY "Double-width text"
??? CHR(27)+'W0' && set wide font off
@1,0 SAY "Back to normal width"
@2,0 SAY "Further text in normal width"

SET PRINT TO
SET DEVICE TO SCREEN

This doesn't work - all printed text is in normal width. However, I found some very old code and discovered that the following code-block replacement works...

@0,0 SAY "Double-width text"
??? CHR(27)+'W1'
@1,0 SAY "Back to normal width"
??? CHR(27)+'W0'
@2,0 SAY "Further text in normal width"

Can anyone explain what might be going on, and what is the neatest way around this problem? Ideally I want the double-width lines 'wrapped' between the wide-font on/off commands, but it seems that the ??? wide on/off is required *after* the @ SAY... line. This doesn't make sense to me.

Any help would be appreciated.

Alan

 

[baltman]

I'm not a printer expert, but I believe that printer codes are printer specific. I'd recommend posting the make/model of the printer you are using too.

Brian

 

[aharrisreid]

baltman, thanks for the reply.

>... I believe that printer codes are printer specific.
> I'd recommend posting the make/model of the printer you
> are using too.

In this case I am using an Epson LQ-300, but it uses the ESC/P2 codes which are common to most Epson dot-matrix printers.

I know that the codes I am using are correct to set wide-font on/off, but I would expect to set it ON before the double-width line, then OFF after the line is output, but it is not behaving this way.

Regards,
Alan

 

[Mike Lewis]

Alan,

The codes you are using are indeed correct for the LQ series (they are two of the few codes I happen to remember).

There are two possible problems:

- I'm not sure, but I believe @0,0 is a special case, which does some sort of printer reset. It might be worth trying your original code, but printing to, say, @1,1 rather than @0,0, just to see what happens.

- It's always a bit risky to mix @.. SAY and ??? commands. I don't see why that should cause this particular problem, but it might be worth keeeping in mind.

Apart from that, I can't see any reason for the behaviour you are describing.

Mike


Mike Lewis
Edinburgh, Scotland

My Visual Foxpro web site:

http://www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk

My Crystal Reports web site:

http://www.ml-crystal.com

 

[aharrisreid]

Hi Mike,

>...I believe @0,0 is a special case, which does some sort >of printer reset. It might be worth trying your original >code, but printing to, say, @1,1 rather than @0,0

I tried that, but unfortunately there was no change.

>It's always a bit risky to mix @.. SAY and ??? commands.

I know, but unless the client puts hand in pocket and agrees to haul the reports into 2004, I'm stuck with making the best of a bad job :-(

Regards,
Alan

 

[Mike Lewis]

Alan,

Unfortunately, I can't think of anything else to suggest. If you come across a solution, let us know.

Mike


Mike Lewis
Edinburgh, Scotland

My Visual Foxpro web site:

http://www.ml-consult.demon.co.uk

My Crystal Reports web site:

http://www.ml-crystal.com

 

[cricket]

Try the following
??? chr(14)+'Big wide print'

The effect of chr(14) applies for only one line and is self retiring.

 

[aharrisreid]

Cricket, thanks for the reply.

>Try the following
>??? chr(14)+'Big wide print'

>The effect of chr(14) applies for only one line and is >self retiring.

You're right. I missed that one in the manual! It works, but in my tests it doesn't allow a mixture of wide-font and normal-font on the same line. Still, it may be useful in the future.

I also notice that CHR(20) switches wide-font off (one line only), but I can't understand the point if CHR(14) is self-retiring.

Regards,
Alan