Printing. One user, with three screens, prints come out as if on A4/A5 paper

[GriffMG]

Hi

Got a weird one today, an app running on 10 or so PCs in an office, all working lovely
except one who gets his reports printing as if on the wrong sized paper - in preview,
print or whatever - regardless of which printer I select and even on different PDF
creators, the output is truncated/trimmed as if printed on A5 (or somesuch) paper instead
of the landscape A4, that it should be.

This user has an unusual screen set up, that sets him apart from the other users, in that
he is slightly visually impaired and has three lowish resolution screens (very hard to
do remote control to, because you only see a fraction of his real estate). The IT there
think/wonder if this is contributing.

Any ideas anyone?

I have thought about trying setting the paper size to A3, but it could be that is a problem as
they have A3 printers...

This is a VFP9 app, with report behaviour set to 9

Thanks in advance




Regards

Griff
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[Olaf Doschke]

Is printer info embedded? What paper format is defined for the frx? Go into properties, page format, double click on the page graphic and you'll see page dimensions VFP uses. That is always bound to a report, even if you uncheck "save printer environment".

Screen dimensions or resolution will not have an affect, but are system fonts set larger? This has some bad effect on pageframe tabs AFAIR and I wouldn't be surprised, that reports also have a problem with a generally higher on screen font size affecting printing.

Try it with SET REPORTBEHAVIOR 80, if you don't use any vfp9 reporting features. As far as I browsed reportoutput.app sourcecode, it has some dependency on screen dpi and is bound to the 96dpi default.

Bye, Olaf.

 

[Mike Lewis]

Have you tried temporarily setting his screen to "normal" to see if the problem goes away? That would at least confirm or otherwise that it is the screen resolution that is causing the problem. That it turn would help you focus on where to look for a solution.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[GriffMG]

Hi Olaf

The printer info is partially embedded, for decades I have been 'processing' the frx files
before compiling and programatically changing what is there to suit myself, in this case the
compiled printer info looks like this:

DRIVER=WINSPOOL
ORIENTATION=1
PAPERSIZE=9
DEFAULTSOURCE=7
PRINTQUALITY=300
YRESOLUTION=300
TTOPTION=1

This is the same for nearly every report, in every app I have done in 20 years - bar
some changes to paper size and orientation.

I think this particular user is picking up a default paper size from the driver associated
with WINSPOOL and it's not changing properly when he selects an alternative printer...

Worth investigating.



Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

I'm trying to cut down on the use of shrieks (exclamation marks), I'm told they are not good for you. ​

 

[GriffMG]

Hi Mike

It's tricky because the user is closer to you than he is me, and I have to use a remote
control program to see him at all, and there are limits on what I'm allowed to do while
I'm 'assisting' him.

But I will mention it.

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

I'm trying to cut down on the use of shrieks (exclamation marks), I'm told they are not good for you. ​

 

[GriffMG]

Found a workaround.

Changed default printer to a PDF generator, set that to A4, then scaled the output by 65%
and it's ok.

Go figure, put's leg in fridge to get better mobile reception...


Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

I'm trying to cut down on the use of shrieks (exclamation marks), I'm told they are not good for you. ​

 

[Mike Lewis]

Glad you've found a workaround, Griff. But isn't it frustrating not to have found the reason.

As the Romans might have said, Errare humanun est - sed perseverare diabolicum.

Mike

__________________________________
Mike Lewis (Edinburgh, Scotland)

Visual FoxPro articles, tips and downloads

 

[DSummZZZ]

Screen dimensions or resolution will not have an affect, ...

Olaf, I have to disagree with that statement. I have had issues many times where printer output and preview were affected by screen resolution.

However, color options, font size settings, video hardware, video driver, printer driver, ... All of those could have an effect on the output. It may take a little twiddling with each to get things to work right though.


-Dave Summers-

Even more Fox stuff at:

http://www.dave-summers.net/foxprolinks.htm

 

[Olaf Doschke]

Hi Dave,

well, I only know of influences of the font sizes highered (eg for this case of impaired users) having an effect, evenmoreso with print result. As I said above the reportoutput is effected by the screen DPI, but that's a separate setting from the resolution.

Griff, have you tried to do without VFP9 report behaviour and SET REPORTBEHAVIOR 80?

Bye, Olaf.

 

[GriffMG]

Hi Olaf

When I was able to demonstrate that it was a fault (most likely) not directly connected with the app
the customer lost interest, so I can't persue the problem.

BUT I think you are on the right lines, the user in question has very big icons (indicating lo-res)
for - I think - eyesight issues, so it could be the font size causing the problem.

THanks for your help

Regards

Griff
Keep [Smile]ing

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.

I'm trying to cut down on the use of shrieks (exclamation marks), I'm told they are not good for you. ​