Blank pages printed at end of reports

[crystalized]

Hello everyone,

We use drag and drop printing (basically a batch file allowing us to drag LIS files and have them print). I am not sure if this is commonly used with PeopleSoft because I am new to this project but I hope someone can help.

When printing in this manner one or two blank pages are "printed" at the end of the report. I have looked at the LIS files (in textpad, notepad and even in Word) and in textpad and notepad I see a little bar at the end of the report and in word there is a page break. I assume this means that there is a page break character being placed at the end of the report but I am unsure of where this might be coming from.

If anyone has any solutions to this I would greatly appreciate hearing from you.

Thanks in advance


Crystal
--------------------------------------------------

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.

-Oscar Wilde

 

[jmanj]

I'm not sure what you mean by drag and drop the .lis file into a batch file. Here's something you can do to test the print file. In DOS go to the directory where the .lis file is located(cd). type the following command

COPY Filename.lis to LPTxx where LPTxx is where your printer is located(either network or local). If you still getting an extra blank pages then you may have to post your SQR program here so we may be able to digest it.

 

[crystalized]

Hi Jmanj,

The problem is that we have the extra pages at the end every time we use a batch file to print. The batch file just has a print command in it

print /d:<printer path here> %1

This batch file allows us to drag an LIS file onto the batch file and have it print. The extra pages are fed through regardless of the report being printed so I am sure it is not a report specific problem.

After my investigation I noticed that there appears to be a form feed character appended to the end of the LIS files (I believe this is the culprit but I am not certain of it).

I hope this helps to clarify the problem.

Crystal
--------------------------------------------------

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.

-Oscar Wilde

 

[jmanj]

Did you tried using the COPY command instead of PRINT? How do you know it is a form feed character? Usually these characters are non-display and giberish. How do you run the report? Are you using SQR? If you are using SQR post the program here and we can take a look. We barely use PRINT command when dealing with .lis files.

 

[crystalized]

Hi,

I know that it is a form feed character because I looked up what a form feed character is from a list of printer codes and it is visible when I view the LIS file in Text pad and I can actually see what the characters value is even though it displays as a little rectangle I can place the cursor over it and see what the character is.

I did try the copy command but instead of getting a blank page I get a page with a small amount of gibberish printed on it (so that is worse than the blank page).

Again I will say that the form feed character shows up at the bottom of all of our LIS files (no matter which report was run) so I am not sure that posting SQR code would be of benefit as it even happens with completely vanilla reports straight from PeopleSoft.

Thanks,

Crystal

Crystal
--------------------------------------------------

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.

-Oscar Wilde

 

[jmanj]

Have you checked the printer settings? There might be something in the settings that produce an extra blank pages. If your printer is a network printer there might be a banner pages that is on. You may have to re-map your route to the network printer. I forgot how to do it in unix but in novell invironment you can do this in your PC:
1. Click START then RUN and type CMD or COMMAND depending
what OS version you have.

2. In C:\> type CAPTURE SHOW... this will list all your print queus names and corresponding port number.

3. Type CAPTURE EC=1 or EC=2 or EC=3 depending on how many
ports were used....this means you are ending connectivity to the printers.

4. Make sure you know the printque name of the printer you want to print into..then type the following ...............CAPTURE L=1 Q=PrintQueName NT NB NFF TI=60 ....above sample means you want to connect to PrintQueName using LPT1 as port number and all of the rest of the flags is explained if you type in HELP CAPTURE...

5. Type CD <path of your file name>

6. Type COPY FileName LPT1

Check the result. If you still have the same blank pages, then this could only come from the application.

You may want to examine the file before and after it is printed. Is the form feed character present before and after?

Simply reboot your PC to re-establish previous connection to printers.

 

[crystalized]

Hi,

Thanks for the suggestion but we are not on Novell. So I had actually found some info on capture before but unfortunately it doesn't work for me since I am not on Novell.

I will continue my search!!

Again thanks for trying.

Crystal

Crystal
--------------------------------------------------

Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.

-Oscar Wilde