PCL print text over two pages

Question

PCL print text over two pages

Ginger01 (Programmer)

(OP)

19 Oct 06 05:01

Hi,

i need to print a text over 2 pages.
Sounds easy but:
The first half of text line #1 should be printed on page 1,
while the second half of line #1 should be printed on page 2.
Then the first half of text line #2 should be printed on page 1 again, while the second half of line #2 should be printed on page 2.

And so on...
If e.g. 40 lines fit on one page,then first half of text line #41 should be printed on page 3, while second half of
text line #41 should be printed on page 4.

Is there a possibility to print text that way when using PCL?
Thanx in advance for any information that could help.

webrabbit (MIS) · Answer 1 · 2006-10-19 12:34:51

I don't think this can be done with PCL. Maybe Postscript. Does your printer support Postscrpt? Many HP printers do.

jlasman (TechnicalUser) · Answer 2 · 2006-10-19 14:22:30

I doubt you can do this directly in a PCL context and probably not in Postscript either, but I'm not sure.
It may make more sense to do the splitting before it goes to the printer.

Is this fixed pitch or proportional text? If fixed pitch, you could "cut" out the appropriate text for each page without too much difficulty. Pretty easy on UNIX with the supplied OS tools.

If it is proportional text, then I would try to print the entire "two page" flat as a single page, but end up with an image file, a .BMP or what have you, and then cut the image in half and print the left half on page 1 and the right half on page 2.

If this is something you need to do on a recurring basis, then you will want something more streamlined than outlined above.

Jim Asman
http://www.spectracolorservices.com

Ginger01 (Programmer) · Answer 3 · 2006-10-20 03:03:04

Thanx for the proposals,
I'm using a Lexmark printer (C920) which works with PCL and PostScript.
At the end of the day i would need the printout in the way that i can lay page 1 and page 2 side by side (page 3 and 4 side by side and so on).

When printing on one page (that works) it's almost impossible to read the text. So when splitting the text of one page over two pages the text(font) can be twice large and readable.
I could use a font set with fixed pitch. Would that help?
My OS is WinXP.

Thanx

DansDadUK (Programmer) · Answer 4 · 2006-10-20 08:47:31

Some printer drivers offer 'n-up' features, where 'n' input pages (2, 4, 9, 16, ...) are printed (in reduced size) on each output page.

Some drivers also offer 'poster' features, where a single input page can be printed (in enlarged size) on 2 (or 4, 9, 16, ...) output sheets.

I've no idea what features the LexMark C920 drivers offer.

The important point (as Jim has already indicated) is that the 'split' is done by the application and/or printer driver, not the printer itself.

webrabbit (MIS) · Answer 5 · 2006-10-20 10:18:06

What about formatting the printout for landscape. That way, the text can be wider and still fit on one line.

Ginger01 (Programmer) · Answer 6 · 2006-10-20 10:26:47

Thx for the reply.

I solved the problem by using another printer driver.
The output thats generated is exactly what i need.
I'm printing from SAP R/3, so i tried the SAP-Print-Driver.
(Just adding a line for initialization of the printer)

If that Driver emulates its code into PCL or not - i don't know. However, i would have been interresting printing
to solve that problem only by using PCL (but unfortunately i don't have the time)

THX 4 your help

Ginger01 (Programmer) · Answer 7 · 2006-10-23 02:42:04

@webrabbit
Hi,
i'm already printing on A3 landscape with a small font size. The stuff i need to print are data for finance and this normally needs pretty much space.
Thats why i need two A3 pages side by side to be able reading a whole line at once.

cheers

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PCL print text over two pages