Printing on continuous paper

rbuser

Hello.

I posted this question before and the answers I got never quite helped me
(though I thank all of you for the effort .

I need to print a report on continuous paper (I dont know the length of the
page). I tried a couple of drivers and none of them offered me "Continuous
Paper" as of paper size.

Lets say I can calculate the total length of my report in RAP, is there any
way I can set the length of the report at runtime ?

I have to solve the problem ONLY within the bounds of a report, not in the
source of the application. I load a .rtm file at runtime and I can only
code in the Calc Tab of the report.

Can you see any other ways to solve my problem ? I really need to be able
to print this report.

Thanks

Steve

nardmoseley

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Article: Printing to Continuous Paper
----------------------------------------------------

1. Layout

For continuous printing (for example a receipt) use Title/Summary and
removing the Header/Footer. Set the PrintHeight of each to phDynamic. Layout
the DetailBand to print a single line item. Set the margins to 0 or to the
smallest that the printer driver will support (some printers have an
unprintable area).

With this configuration The Report will generate a Title followed by a
variable number of Detail bands that span pages if needed, and then finally
print a Summary at the end.

2. Pagination

a. dtPrinter

Some printer drivers have a continuous paper size setting. If not then try
setting the paper size to be very small - perhaps the size of the tallest
band in the layout. Or try setting the page height to be the size of a
detail band. Note that some printer drivers will only accept page sizes
within a certain range of paper sizes.

b. dtReportTextFile

With the above layout, the report text file will generate the page breaks
properly, however the device will fill up a page with blank lines. You can
control the number of lines per page by configuring the CharacterGrid
property in the Report.BeforePrint event:

example:


procedure TForm1.ppReport1BeforePrint(Sender: TObject);
var
lDevice: TppReportTextFileDevice;
begin

if (ppReport1.FileDevice <> nil) and (ppReport1.FileDevice is
TppReportTextFileDevice)then
begin
lDevice := TppReportTextFileDevice(ppReport1.FileDevice);

{120 characters per line, 66 lines per page}
lDevice.CharacterGrid(120, 66);
end;

end;






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rbuser

Thanks for the fast response

The report I made already uses the layout you suggest (with a small page
height) but the printer I print on is equipped with a cutter and cuts the
paper on every page break. I tried to set the printer to cut at the end of
the job without success. I think my only chance is to have a report that is
ALWAYS 1 page long.

Any hint ?

nardmoseley

You can set Report.PrinterSetup.PaperHeight prior to the report generating.
You can try using Report.OnStartPage to set
Report.Engine.Page.PrinterSetup.PaperHeight. That's about the last chance to
set the paper size because the report engine relies upon that info to
generate the report.


--
Nard Moseley
Digital Metaphors Corporation
www.digital-metaphors.com