Printing Picking Tickets From XP to Lexmark 2380 Plus

[murphyswitch]

Hello,

I am running version 7.5.103f. We have mostly Windows 98 clients, but I have recently installed a Windows XP Pro client. When printing pick tickets to a shared Lexmark 2380 Plus, the Windows 98 machines align to the form exactly. The XP Pro machine does not. There appears to be additional carriage returns or line wrapping causing the data to be shifted lower on the page. The very first line is correct but it is thrown off after that.

Any ideas?

Thank You.

Bob

 

[abaldwin]

Does it do the same if the printer is directly attached to the XP box?

This could be a driver issue. Insure that you are using the latest XP driver on the XP box. You said this was a shared printer. Is it a network printer or shared from another users machine?

The drivers are pretty easy to locate on the internet.

Andy

Andy Baldwin

 

[MacolaHelp]

Win 2k & xp workstations handle printing differently than 98. Best solution is to have the correct drivers on the windows server (can't do this w/netware) & to have the client WS have the SERVER handle the print job. That said, also check infomines 02.083.765 and 01.280.637. Also search infomine using first print, then refine the search to dot. You'll find a number of documents related that may or may not help. I have sometimes turned off any advanced graphics, higher resolution, print margins, etc. on the printer I use for a macola job vs a word or excel document which passes the printing off as graphical vs text to the windows print manager. Usually, it's just pure luck that corrects this. Sometimes you need the latest driver from the vendor website. Sometimes using generic text only works better. It is more a trial & error effort rather than a scientific solution, but there is usually a way to make it work.

FYI: macola support tells me all form printing issues have been resolved in 7.6.200. If you are willing to test drive or if anyone else has feedback on the forms thing, I'd be interested in the results. I recently had everything working on forms at a site w/only xp clients on 7.5.103f & 7.6.100a introduced second line of description or all lines of description dropping on forms that exceeded 1 page. That's when I heard it was fixed in 7.6.200; when I called to report the problem in 100a sql. I'm interested in your response.

 

[stravis]

In addition to the great suggestions above you should try clicking on the "Change Defaults" button, in the Macola print dialog, and reselect the printer you would like to print to. Many times when moving from a Windows 9x version to a Windows NT/2000/XP version of Windows you need to perform the operation listed above. If this operation works you will need to perform the same action logged in as the user who will be printing from your new Windows XP client for each print job that needs to be reformatted.

The reason that this is sometimes required, is that in addition to retaining the default printer to use for each print job in Macola for each user, Macola appears to retain some binary driver information that is used when formatting your print job in the database. When the driver changes with your version of Windows the binary driver information does not change automatically, and thus causes improper formatting of your print job. This problem can cause problems with your print offsets (placement of data on the page), cause print jobs to end in the middle of the page, and cause the last page of a print job to be cut off.

Hope this helps.

 

[murphyswitch]

Thanks guys. I appreciate your help. I'm going to take the suggestions and do some more trial and error with the printer. A couple of comments related to your comments:

This is a new workstation with a brand new user. So, I don't think I have a problem with it remembering older printer defaults with the user.

I did try using a generic printer driver without success.

The printer is a shared printer from a Windows 98 machine.

The Infomines look helpful. I'll give those Epson default drivers a try.

We have an enhancement for whole order discounts that won't work on the newer versions. I don't want to try the newer releases just yet.

I'll get back to you with my results.

Thanks again for the help.

Bob

 

[MacolaHelp]

If all else fails on the xp client, have the user click on use font dialog when sending a job to the printer. They will find that macola is trying to send a font 11 & if you change to 10 or 9 (in some cases), that will correct the problem. Most users initially hate to do this, but after a couple of weeks it is second nature & they don't even think about the "extra key strokes". I've had a couple of printers that simply wouldn't take any global changes, just had to use the font dialog solution. Good luck. Printing problems are a real pain.

 

[murphyswitch]

Thanks guys.

I'm still stumped. I have yet to stumble upon a combination that will work for the XP client. It's almost as if the columns and rows that the print driver thinks the printer has is different than reality. I can't find anywhere in any of the printer tabs or buttons a place to define the exact size of the paper. I can select "Letter" which is correct. Maybe if I could define the paper size and the margins this problem would go away. Any more ideas?

MacolaHelp - In the font dialog box, there are choices for the font and the font size. It lists several Courier fonts from 6 cpi to 20 cpi. I can select this AND a size. There is also the True Type Courier New font. I've tried 9 and 10 for the size and get the same wrapping / skipping lines problem.

Do you think a custom form just for XP clients is the solution?

 

[kscheeler]

You may have to have two forms in Macola. Once set up for Windows98 and the other modified to work for WindowsXP. You may have to change the column width to 8in vs. 8.5in or change the number of lines on the form to get it to print correctly.

I agree with everyone that it's very difficult sometimes to get printers to work with different versions of Windows.

I've been down this road with a Genicom printer between Windows98 and XP and Checks and basically did the option above.

Kevin Scheeler

 

[MacolaHelp]

I haven't tried to work with this printer before. If it's one of the new ones with lots of tabs on the properties or printing preferences, you might be able to set up a profile for the xp client. Sometimes there is a setting related to true type fonts you can switch the other way.

I think it might relate to the shared nature of the printer. If it is attached to a 98 machine, then the 98 driver is probably trying to handle the job from the xp client. Some printers have a sharing tab & allow you to install additional drivers if different versions of windows are using the same shared device.

Two forms might be the answer. I would also try making sure that the last column used on the form is column 78. See if a generic Macola form does the same thing as your custom. The form might need to be recreated, especially if you've used it for a long time. They have done lots of changes to the forms & form programs over time & there might be something inherently wrong in the original form that doesn't like to take direction from an xp machine.

One of my clients added win2k clients into an environment which previously only had win98 & they have one of those multi-tray lexmarks. Basically all the workstations had to be reconfigured after getting the lexmark set up properly on the server. My printer expert tells me that the network would be much happier with a hp jet direct & a network connection rather than a shared printer. You must also install all the drivers for all the clients who need to access this device if you do go the jet direct route.

 

[stravis]

My Two Bits,

I have spent far too much time in the past trying to get a dot matrix printer to work with a new version of Windows. It has been my experience that you are going to have more headaches than solutions trying to negotiate the fact the the "compatible" driver that comes with the new version of Windows for the old printer is only "compatible" in the sense that is sends information to the printer and makes marks on the paper.

My personal copout method of dealing with older dot matrix printers is to buy another printer. This certainly does not serve the geek in me, but when you start counting up your time that you spend trying to make things work versus the amount of money it takes to buy another printer the cost benifit is certainly there.

If you want to make things work with what you have, I would suggest that you either place the printer on some sort of print server, so that regardless of the client the same print driver is used or you make a copy of the original macola form and make the necessary changes to that form so that it works from an XP client. Your users would then use the appropriate form for the client that they are working from. It has been my experience that this does not always work. Sometimes XP just does not want to recognize that the dot matrix printer paper is actually 11" long, and this makes it difficult to print forms under any circumstances.

Just my two cents,
Scott

 

[murphyswitch]

Once again thanks for the input. I'm going to try to create a new custom form just for XP clients. Hopefully that will work.

 

[murphyswitch]

UPDATE

I made a new custom form based on the old custom form. This appears to have solved the problem. I just moved the starting locations to match what was coming out of the XP driver. So, XP clients print with a different form number than 98 clients.

Not perfect, but it works.

Thanks again.

Bob