printing to windows spooler - width of doc problem

[Brian K. White]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dennis Malen" <dmalen at malen.com>
To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
Sent: Friday, April 01, 2005 11:34 AM
Subject: Fw: printing to windows spooler - width of doc problem


>I posted this yesterday. Anyone have an asnswer for me or can you put me in 
>the right direction.
>
> Dennis
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Dennis Malen" <dmalen at malen.com>
> To: <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
> Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2005 5:02 PM
> Subject: printing to windows spooler - width of doc problem
>
>
>>I have redefined the printer on the UNIX side to be set up as a generic 
>>printer in my definition as a remote printer.
>>
>> The windows spooler seems to recognize the font code I am using but does 
>> not recognize filePro's width of page.
>>
>> Can anyone suggest a fix for this? I have the report defined as an HP-4+ 
>> in filePro. Is there code that I can include in the HP-4+ definitions in 
>> filePro that would solve the width problem?
>>
>> The document prints fine except for the width.

The problem is you haven't answered the questions people have asked.

How, _exactly_, are you sending the jobs to windows? And how is the printer 
configured in windows? ie: any non-default options played with in the 
printer properties, specifically, the spool settings?

When I define a printer in windows and don't touch the spool settings, the 
print processor is always RAW.
When I then share the printer and print to it via facetwin, it's like 
printing to a direct parallel port printer.
The data I generate on unix (be it from filepro or touched up by the unix 
print spooler interface scripts) goes to the printer unmolested in any way, 
and so all I need to do to have perfect printing is to generate the right 
data in the first place, which is a simple matter of:
* configure the printer in unix to use a interface script that has an option 
for raw mode "HPLaserJet" (raw mode = don't touch the data, ie: don't add a 
form feed, don't prepend printer setup codes, etc...)
   In the case of facetwin you don't do this in scoadmin but with: 
"fct_rlpadmin [options] -m HPLaserJet [options]"
* use the appropriate print code table in filepro  "hplaser"
* use the aforementioned "raw" option on the lp command line in fp print 
config. "lp -d fct_billing -o raw -s"

Sending via Samba instead of facetwin is more complicated to set up, but 
also results in perfect printing.
It's slightly possible you have VisionFS instead of either FacetWin or 
Samba. That works too, but I've used that enough to decide I'd rather use 
facetwin or samba and never touch it again, and have done so, and so I can't 
help much with that because I don't have it installed any where and it's 
usage details are no longer day to day working knowledge for me.

I have used the "print services for unix" that 2K and XP have a few times, 
which is a way for windows to accept the job via lpr/lpd instead of smb. 
(actually it doesn't disable smb, so I should say in addition to smb)
When you define a printer in unix to use lpr, it means selecting "remot 
printer" in scoadmin, and in that case it doesn't matter what model 
(interface script) you use because unix doesn't use an interface script for 
lpr jobs, It's like having -o raw all the time without asking. By default 
that is. There are /etc/printcap options that can cause the data to be 
modified on the way out, but none are used by default.
"man printcap" for details. I have noticed a couple times that printing via 
lpd/lpr to windows print services for unix, that the print jobs weren't 100% 
perfect, but I can't help with the fix, because a) because of that very 
fact, I don't use that method for printing except as a last resort, and I'm 
very good at never having to resort to my last resort :) and b) sometimes 
there is no problem, or, the problem was easily corrected by some small 
change that affects all jobs like a printcap adjustment or a print code 
table tweak and it was easy to spot the problem and the fix by seeing the 
first printout.

The "real" answer is to buy a good hp print server and set up netcat 
printing and stop wasting your time playing with windows. The ones who can 
provide the best help don't really want to waste their time helping you 
waste your time to do something they wouldn't even do themselves. The 
next-best answer (in my opionion) is to use FacetWin, but only if you 
already have it for other reasons. A single seat licence costs more than a 
far superior one-port hp print server.

Brian K. White  --  brian at aljex.com  --  http://www.aljex.com/bkw/
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