inexpensive laser printer for printing 132 column reports

[vergeb]

Hello,
I've got a user who is looking for a regular paralell printer to hook on to her PC. She wants a laser printer, and it has to be able to print condensed (132 columns, 17 pitch). Does anyone have any idea of a good printer to recomend for her. She is not very technical so it has to be simple, ie, the old lexmark 2380 dot-matrix printers had a "pitch" button on the front that you could change from 10, 12, 15, 17 to allow you to print 80 or 132 column reports onto an 8.5x11 sheet. Anybody know of a decent laser printer that has that type of feature, a button for printing in condensed/132 column/17 pitch mode?
Thanks,
Verge

 

[DSummZZZ]

Since this isn't a Foxpro question, I'll make it one.
You can use pretty much any printer with a suitable driver that can print condensed by issuing formatting controls from Fox.
[ul square]
[li]You can create a report form with smaller fonts[/li]
[li]Create a report form with escape codes[/li]
[li]Send font sizes to the printer using commands like:[/li]
[ul circle]
[li]@...SAY cSomething FONT "Arial", 6[/li]
[li]?cSomething FONT "Arial", 6[/li]
[li]??cSomething FONT "Arial", 6[/li]
[/ul]
[li]Send control codes to the printer prior to sending the report job using escape sequences:[/li]
[ul circle]
[li]?CHR(27) + CHR &&... where n = control code.[/li]
[/ul]
[/ul]



-Dave Summers-

Even more Fox stuff at:

http://www.davesummers.net/foxprolinks.htm

 

[JRB-Bldr]

As Dave has said above, you have not identified if this is a FPD or FPW application (or if Foxpro at all).

If FPD -- you can use Dave's suggestion or a modification of it.

Each laser printer has its own Programming Control Language (PCL) which you can use to change the font, page layout, etc. Different printers have different flexibilities available.

Find your printer's PCL reference and send commands to it like Dave shows and control your print out appearance.

IF FPW -- you have a more flexible solution. Since FPW can utilize the Windows Print Drivers directly, you can use FPW's Report Designer to modify the Printer Setup for the report itself to print in a Landscape mode without having to issue the individual PCL commands yourself. You can then modify the Report's text object fonts to give you what you need.

Good Luck,


JRB-Bldr
VisionQuest Consulting
Business Analyst & CIO Consulting Services
CIOServices@yahoo.com

 

[richsweeney]

Okidata 320, You can get them off of ebay. I even picked one up at a garage sale for $25. They still offer tech support for them. We still us 4 of them at our place.