Printing nice docs from filePro

[Boaz Bezborodko]

I wanted to give back to the group and thought this might be helpful.

I'm sure this is not an issue for you Linux programmers as you seem to
have more tools available for command line operations or those who've
already set up reports with PostScript or HP-PCL, but for development of
new forms, Windows users (like myself) or mixing web viewable programs
with printed documents I found a nice little program that will print
html documents from the Windows command line.

HTMLPRINT.EXE from Bersoft.com allows you to build the files in HTML and
then print them with the SYSTEM command.  You can have it select a
printer or it can accept a default printer type.  It uses Windows' own
printer drivers to print out the output.  So the formating is done by
HTML and the printing is done by windows.

I wrote a procedure to build an HTML file with open invoices on them and
then open it with the Windows START command.  Now I've taken the same
code and append it to another file with the formatting on it for a
complete, mailable document.  The two files don't view the same on the
screen as they print so I use two separate style sheets to reformat one
for the screen and one for the document.

Building the formating file is pretty straightforward with any HTML
editor or WYSIWIG program and then just save the starting chunk that
comes before the variable data.

I don't know if this helps anyone, but it can't hurt to have the
information.

Boaz