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Printing (Read 12332 times)

GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Printing Dec 24^th, 2003 at 4:44am	Print Post
	When trying to print a record using the "Record Commands - Print Form" option, the printer just spits out a blank sheet. I have tried this on on some 10 different db forms with the same results, no print. This also occured using records from the "Samples\gems. db" When I tried it on the "Samples\Schedule.db" it did print a rectangle 1 1/8" x 5/8" in the background color in the top left corner of the page. Table Views print. The help screen & manual are a little vage with the following statement "Forms are scaled to fit the printed page. If you have a form with very large dimensions, but only have layout elements in the top left corner, then the printed page will show the "active" area of your form in miniature at the top left of the printed page" Can you clairify the correction for this statement & how do I get the saved record to print using this method? Am I missing the obvious? thanks, becky


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Alec Lanticans Offline Posts: 200 Location: Ascot, England, UK Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #1 - Dec 24^th, 2003 at 9:58am	Print Post
	These forms print fine for me Becky. What printer are you using, and which operating system?

	Alec
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #2 - Dec 24^th, 2003 at 3:01pm	Print Post
	Alec, I.m using Windoze XP pro printing to a HP2500c+ I did go into Q&A 5.0 after posting last night to print some needed records and it printed fine but then again Q&A uses a older dos driver.


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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #3 - Dec 26^th, 2003 at 11:47pm	Print Post
	OK here's my update to my printing problems! Sesame would not print using the standard HP2500c series printer driver under Windows XP, no matter what I tried. After installing additional printers(drivers) the HP 2500c series PS3 and the PCL5Ce driver it did print, but from the time of selecting ok to print to the printer commencing to print was some 3 & 4 minutes I have tried some other HP drivers and had them print instantly but with mixed results eg. incorrect color etc, so any ideas so I don't have to load and try every HP driver to see what works would be appreciated. Is there anyway we can get more control over printing an individual record? rather than the print screen approach of what you see is what you get. For example having static text for easy form reconition and pleasing to the eye colors is great but what if we don't want those items printed in the case of using a pre-printed forms! Senero: We currently use Q&A 5.0 in the workshop as a point of sales system. Customers come in to pick up items, if they do not have a charge account we enter the record on an Invoice form, print the Invoice, they pay, end of transaction. If a customer comes in who has a charge account then we enter the record on a Pickup/Delivery form, print the ticket and away they go. Pic ticket records are later processed into their respective invoice billing cycles. Basically everthing is done on the fly with the importance of being able to print that record instantly. Our Q&A forms have field labels, background, text and active text box colors but per our options we only print the entered record information. Is there anyway we can get Sesame to react in the same way? I take it we cannot create an Element without a Label and any color in the form will print so how would you print added records on the fly to pre-printed forms? Must admitt still on the learning curve but enjoying Sesame.


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Alec Lanticans Offline Posts: 200 Location: Ascot, England, UK Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #4 - Dec 27^th, 2003 at 10:26pm	Print Post
	You should certainly use the correct printer driver for your printer. I suggest you remove all the extra "printers" you have installed (alternative drivers) and download the latest drivers for your printer from the HP website. This printer seems to have a reputation for being horribly slow if you don't buy the RAM upgrade. You may not have seen this from Q&A, because it is only printing text. Sesame is printing a "picture" of the form, which will take much longer to process. How is printing from other Windows apps? Have you tried printing other than small text documents from Word? You might like to explore creating another form optimised just for printing. You can have as many forms as you like, and you can copy a form in Designer / Layout Manager. You might also like to check out the WordMerge app supplied with Sesame. This allows you to print a single record using Word. As for your suggestion for additional control over how elements print - this is a good one, and we are certainly considering it for future versions.

	Alec
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	to Re: Printing Reply #5 - Dec 28^th, 2003 at 12:28am	Print Post
	Alec, the HP2500c+ is a commerical type printer from HP. When we ordered this printer, we included the max memory module, postscript printing plus some other options, we currently use this printer to print a number of different formats including text, photo (including all our MS Office applications)and all our shop drawings from our cadd system, these print to 8 1/2 x 11 in tray 2 to 11x17 in tray 3 & we have had no problems with printing or speed of print until now. Quote: You should certainly use the correct printer driver for your printer. I suggest you remove all the extra "printers" you have installed (alternative drivers) and download the latest drivers for your printer from the HP website. The alternative drivers are the Poscript & PCL5 drivers which are included for this particular printer to enable postscript printing, the standard 2500 series driver that we normally always use is the current driver available from HP. I did load some drivers from other HP printers & found that Sesame would print with them but will not print with the standard 2500 driver, therefore I'm assuming my problem goes a little deeper. Will keep working on this but in the mean time will try some of your other suggestions. thanks becky.


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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #6 - Dec 28^th, 2003 at 3:22pm	Print Post
	Concerning the delay in printing: does the delay occur before or after the standard print dialog appears? If it happens before, then Sesame is trying to assemble your form for printing. Typically this happens no slower than it takes to assemble the form to show on screen - it is the same code with its output redirected to the printer. Typically, this is nearly instantaneous. In Win32, all "drawing" is done to a "device context" (called a "DC"). Usually that would be the device context for your screen. In print form, we use the device context for your printer, instead of the screen. The device context is part of the operating system that attaches a program to the device driver for any device that can draw. From the program's point of view, the DC for one device is identical in speed to any other DC. Any variation would be between the DC and device driver used. Once the print dialog appears, Sesame is suspended by the operating system - which is busy passing (and possibly translating) the contents of the print queue to the print driver. Any delay here would be universal to any print job of equal complexity. To find a job of equal complexity - find a web page with a layout, use of color, use of images, background image, and somewhat equal size as your form, and print it from your web browser. Make sure (if your form has a background color) to tell the web browser to print the background color and background images from the web page. Both Netscape and I.E. have options to tell them to print the background. There are at least three HPs that go by the term 2500c - one of the them is a plotter - intended for use in displaying technical drawings. Because it is built for extreme accuracy - this 2500c will be very very slow. From your description of its general behavior, I doubt this is the one you have. Another 2500c is a color laser printer. The third is an ink jet printer. In that you describe using 11"x17" a capability of only the inkjet and the plotter - can we assume you have the inkjet? Do not use the Postscript translation module with Sesame for any form that has color fills - Postscript is an ASCII format that will create a text description of every dot of color it is trying to print. This will be very slow. If your print driver allows control - you may be able to specify that it use B&W or greyscale - and see if that improves the speed. Have you tried making a copy of your application (always work with at least one backup) and setting the form colors so that the backgrounds are all white and the text is all a single color? If that improves the print speed - you may consider using two forms both attached to the same data. One for data entry and other operations. And one for printing. A macro or SBasic programming could allow you to switch between them in automation. For your final application you may consider using the print commands in SBasic. They will allow you to extract the data from your result set and print it pretty much however you want (with labels or without). Or you should consider using the free form reports in report writer. The print commands use a similar mechanism as print form, but offer substantially more control. The free form reports use the operatings system's HTML print handler - so if your web browser is printing quickly, so will they. We are looking into providing a separate command that will print only the form data and labels - not the using the background colors or the "boxes" or the static images. If there is sufficient market demand, it will be in the next major release.

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #7 - Dec 28^th, 2003 at 8:24pm	Print Post
	Quote: Same problem using my HP2500CM. Spooky. This usually due to the form being set to a size much larger than the elements it contains. Print form uses the form size to scale how big it prints everything in the form. Load your .db file into SDesigner and check the size of your form. The sample databases included in the box - or downloaded with the free trial version, should be okay. But any databases built previously (used as part of the Beta program) may well exhibit this behavior.

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #8 - Dec 28^th, 2003 at 9:00pm	Print Post
	Mark, bear with me and I will try to explain my problem a little better than the previous post and answer your questions at the same time. The printer we use is a "Deskjet HP 2500C Plus" Sesame will not print using the standard 2500c series print driver under Windows XP pro. Driver name "UNIDRV.DLL" Data File "HPWM5250.GPD" Config File "UNIDRVUI.DLL" Driver Version "5.00" HP does not have an updated driver for this printer under WinXP. To get Sesame to Print I installed the "PS3 & PCL5" drivers (the only other drivers available for the HP2500 series) and Bingo, Sesame printed, but with the result of slow transfer to the printer which I presume is the result of converting to postscript. Now we do not want to print using Postscript but it was the only way we could print using the 2500 series drivers. Per my previous post: Quote: I have tried some other HP drivers and had them print instantly but with mixed results eg. incorrect color etc, so any ideas so I don't have to load and try every HP driver to see what works would be appreciated. I am told I should not use drivers for other printers, but if I can find one that works so we are up and running with the new data base for the start of the new year then we have time to figure out the rest later. Besides if I tell the boss we need to spend $999 to upgrade our printer to the newer HP2600 business series printer just to print our forms, I may find myself on the unemployment list Our new data base that I'm working on feverously for the new year has been stripped of a lot of Sesame's bells and whistles in the form design just to get the quick print to our forms. One of the biggest things we liked about Q&A is that using a point of sale invoice, pic ticket data base system is that while your customer is standing on the other side of the couter, anyone in the workshop can fill in the blanks on the screen form, hit F2, F10 to print, F10 to save record, put a hard copy in the customers hands in 30 seconds or less and be pulling the ordered items from stock immediately. This not only makes us happy but our customers also. We don't have to change screens to find print specs, or design them for that matter and this sure makes life easier. It is still early & Sesame is showing itself to be a very powerfull DBMS but sometimes its the simplest operations that makes things work well. Going along similar lines, from our point of view we would love to see the menu tree moved to drop down menu's along the top menu bar and give us full screen use of our form. The reason is, using the above mention data base system, we have designed the form to match paper layout then to print using "Record Commands / Print Form" As you cannot see all your form without scrolling and if you drag the form to full screen so non computer savey employees don't get confused with the tree then we are creating more headaches and problems getting those employees back to the print form selection. A drop down menu with a "Print Form" selection working with a full screen would simplify input immensely, would also make Sesame more familiar like 99% of the other programs we use. Your probably sick of my ramblings by now but as I'm on a roll with this subject of printing records on the fly at input, we would like to be able to print the record prior to saving to the data base. You get so many customers after seeing their ticket want to make changes to the order. As the order is committed to the data base the non savey worker from the workshop now has to quit out of add records and now have to access to search/update records for them to find and change. We feel this one is a diaster waiting to happen for us. Of course this is not criticism just quirks that we would like to have to make our DBMS more powerfull.


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hhiarbee Member Offline No personal text Posts: 6 Joined: Dec 28^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #9 - Dec 28^th, 2003 at 10:44pm	Print Post
	We have been using q&a since 1987. For an end user it has enabled me to design the databases that we run our office on. The best part of q&a was its simplicity. It did about half of what other products did but about 95% of what we really needed. The element of q&a that made it useful to us was the ease of printing letters and court documents. As someone has already pointed out, choose your document,press f2 and f10 database screen comes up, choose record(s) and you have a document. I as many others have been waiting for Sesame for years. I have not received my pre-ordered copies as of yet but have downloaded the demo. Of course in the demo the qa translator is not enabled, nor can one see how the word processing link works since there is no obdc(?) driver. I am afraid that Sesame is so powerful that it has lost sight of the simplicity of Q&A. I still can't get a simple, easy to understand , nontechnical answer how quickly a mail merge can be done. We use Q&A in an office environment where 7 secretaries are printing dozens of different letters each per day from the same database at the same time. If they have to go through 15 steps to print a letter than I am afraid this product will be useless for our purposes. I and my staff have been waiting to get our hands on Sesame not only as an upgrade path but to help us deal with the databases getting corrupted over the years. I don't mean to complain when so much hard work has gone into this product but is there still and easy way to do the mailmerge printing...or maybe can we hope for a lite version of sesame? I have read the faq and manual on how simple the mail merge printing is but it doesn't sound so simple to me. Thanks


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Hammer YaBB Administrator Lanticans Offline Fire bad. Tree pretty. Posts: 3436 Location: Ohio Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #10 - Dec 28^th, 2003 at 11:16pm	Print Post
	Well, for starters, F2/F10 (PrintForm) is not the same thing as a mail merge in any program, including Q&A. A mail merge involves placing the data from each record in a data source into the correct position in a word processing document. At an absolute minimum, you need to: 1. Create the data source and fill it up with data records. 2. Create the merge document and tell it where the data goes. 3. Tell the document what records to use and where the data is. It would be quite a trick to explain all of the above steps while remaining completely non-technical. Especially considering how complex merge documents can get! There is an article on this subject which mentions three different methods that are explored more fully in the manuals, and gives an example of a fourth at: http://www.lantica.com/Support/sesamelibart24.html Your Sesame package includes a WordMerge application which can be used to get you started. It comes with several sample merge documents that run by clicking a button in the Sesame form. It works very nicely, and can be used an an example. Merging is a popular topic and I'm sure that Inside Sesame, the newsletter that replaces The Quick Answer, will include many articles on the subject. http://www.insidesesame.com Bottom line, there are a number of ways to skin this particular cat. One of them is likely to work for you.

	- Hammer The plural of anecdote is not data.
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hhiarbee Member Offline No personal text Posts: 6 Joined: Dec 28^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #11 - Dec 28^th, 2003 at 11:47pm	Print Post
	Sorry if iI didn't make myself clear. I was talking about printing a write document (letter) and merging the data from the database associated with that document. Again f2 f10 choose the record(s) f10 and the letter prints. Do any of the ways Sesame uses (once the merge letter is designed in Word) make it this easy..or can a macro be designed to accomplish it. As I said I dont want to complain but I have asked this question several times during the design process and ..maybe because I am slow I still don't know how many different steps or keystrokes it takes to accomplish this task. I know that an incredible amount of time went into Sesame..I have followed it on the Delphi forum during the design process as well as the Lantica website..I am only trying to see if it will work for the purposes we use Q&A for. We print a hundred different documents a day from one main database. I can see if you were doing one or several large mass mailings it might not matter as much. Thanks again Ps I am hoping once i get my copies of Sesame that I will have a better understanding of it.


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Alec Lanticans Offline Posts: 200 Location: Ascot, England, UK Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #12 - Dec 28^th, 2003 at 11:59pm	Print Post
	Quote: Sorry if iI didn't make myself clear. I was talking about printing a write document (letter) and merging the data from the database associated with that document. �Again f2 f10 choose the record(s) �f10 and the letter prints. Do any of the ways Sesame uses (once the �merge letter is designed in Word) �make it this easy..or can a macro be designed to accomplish it. Have you tried the WordMerge samples? It does what you describe here, even easier than Q&A. You set up merge document(s) and use them for merging with your database, as in Q&A. Only difference is that the merge document is in Word. In fact, it's easier than Q&A. I'm sure you will all find - after a short while - that the Sesame logic of "Find your records first, then decide what to do with them" is actually more convenient, and more intuitive, and often faster, than Q&A's "Tell me what you want to do, then tell me which records you want to use. Want to do something else as well? - Then start all over again."

	Alec
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Hammer YaBB Administrator Lanticans Offline Fire bad. Tree pretty. Posts: 3436 Location: Ohio Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #13 - Dec 29^th, 2003 at 12:09am	Print Post
	Quote: Sorry if iI didn't make myself clear. I was talking about printing a write document (letter) and merging the data from the database associated with that document. Since Sesame does not have an integrated word processor, you will need to get an external word processor involved to do merge documents. The reason why it is difficult to answer "how many keystrokes" is because we have no idea what your actual requirements are. As I said earlier, there are a lot of different kinds of merge documents and several different methods for Sesame to print them. It will be require more setup than in Q&A, because of the external word processor, but it can be automated in several different ways. While the final method you use will be be different from Q&A, you will likely be able to find a method that works for you. The inital setup will likely be a bit more complicated than with Q&A, however, once your setup is done, it will likely be a question of clicking a button, or making a choice from a UserSelect list. Take a look at the WordMerge application. You retrieve your records and click a button on the Form. You choose which document you want, whether you want all the records or just this one, and off it goes! Three clicks.

	- Hammer The plural of anecdote is not data.
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hhiarbee Member Offline No personal text Posts: 6 Joined: Dec 28^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #14 - Dec 29^th, 2003 at 12:43am	Print Post
	Great thanks for putting up with me...can't wait to get my hands on my copy!!


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MecTec Member Offline No personal text Posts: 2 Joined: Dec 30^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #15 - Dec 30^th, 2003 at 7:43am	Print Post
	Quote: Going along similar lines, from our point of view we would love to see the menu tree moved to drop down menu's along the top menu bar and give us full screen use of our form. I have not received our copy yet but tried a little with the trial version and I also want to se the tree away from the form, or better if there is any way to make a custom menu as the Q&A dos versions


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Gordon_M Member Members Offline No personal text Posts: 12 Location: Washington DC Joined: Nov 23^rd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #16 - Dec 30^th, 2003 at 10:21pm	Print Post
	[One of the biggest things we liked about Q&A is that using a point of sale invoice, pic ticket data base system is that while your customer is standing on the other side of the couter, anyone in the workshop can fill in the blanks on the screen form, hit F2, F10 to print, F10 to save record, put a hard copy in the customers hands in 30 seconds or less and be pulling the ordered items from stock immediately. This not only makes us happy but our customers also. We don't have to change screens to find print specs, or design them for that matter and this sure makes life easier. Your probably sick of my ramblings by now but as I'm on a roll with this subject of printing records on the fly at input, we would like to be able to print the record prior to saving to the data base. You get so many customers after seeing their ticket want to make changes to the order. As the order is committed to the data base the non savey worker from the workshop now has to quit out of add records and now have to access to search/update records for them to find and change. We feel this one is a diaster waiting to happen for us. [/quote] Becky, I thought of many possibilities, given all the issues you explained in the posts I read through. The wordmerge.db would be very workable; it is highly flexible, but it does take some study to get to understand where to modify it. If you print just the one record (with wordmerge), you are returned to where you started - so you can change the order and print again. The suggestion of using a different form I also found very attractive, but I had to prove something to myself. Having done so, you might try this: create that "other form, for printing." (Or more than one). Then, from Add on your data entry form, you create a macro that goes to the first field, the unique key field (invoice number, order number, etc. (Home, home, home - just like Q&A). Shift-End to highlight the field contents, Ctrl-C to Copy, then Ctrl-F10 to save and close. Next, click the Application Menu tab, and open the Print Form in Search/Update, press "Tab" to enter the key field, press Ctrl-V to paste in the number, press F10. From the menu tree, select Print Forms to Default Exit Search/Update Select Search your original data entry form Press Tab to enter the key field, press Ctrl-V, then F10. Back in the record, ready to change the record, and reprint as necessary! You should have 2 macros attached to 2 buttons on the input form, one If @add, the other if @update. If you have several types of forms to choose from, your can program the buttons like the wordmerge.db button to put of a list of forms prior to the macro (it gets more complicated). (Help is available at Lantica, Support, Links and resources).


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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #17 - Dec 31^st, 2003 at 5:46am	Print Post
	Gordon, thankyou for the in-depth explanation, I will look into both options but I'm not sure I understand the workings of these options to make them apply to our scenario. If I'm looking at this right neither option will let us print static text or element names, they still only print the added record information which is fine for pre-printed forms but defeats the purpose of being able to have your input form match your paper when you have a number of other forms which prints to plain paper. Is this correct?


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Gordon_M Member Members Offline No personal text Posts: 12 Location: Washington DC Joined: Nov 23^rd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #18 - Jan 1^st, 2004 at 5:03pm	Print Post
	Happy New Year, Becky. I am confused by your message that seems to say only the data is printing, not the static text or element labels. I open an app, like wordmerge.db, pull up ONE record, click Print to Default, and the whole form prints. In wordmerge, it says Customer Record at the top, and even has the "Print Word Merge Letter" button near the bottom. Please clarify what you are printing, and what appears on the paper.


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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #19 - Jan 1^st, 2004 at 10:35pm	Print Post
	Happy New Year to everyone. Gordon, I haven't had a chance to look at the "second form options" you mentioned as yet, due to end of month, end of year closing but basically we just cannot get a print out without switching to a postscript driver which gives us pot luck on what we get it seems. If I follow your steps and open app, like wordmerge.db, pull up One record, (sample Customer.db) click Print to Default, I get two blank sheets of paper shot out of the printer. Now on a previous experiment of printing I switched to a different driver and printed through Record Command - Print Form and selected the PS3 driver I got the filled info only (have not been able to duplicate since, not sure what I did) now I tried the same process again to the PS3 driver and I get a printed form with the "Print Word Merge Letter" on the bottom the same as you but the form is way undersized to the paper. I've resigned to the fact that printing is not much of an option until we get a patch or a workaround for these inkjets, so will concentrate on other aspects of our db's and keep plodding along until we can get this little problem resolved. becky


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Gordon_M Member Members Offline No personal text Posts: 12 Location: Washington DC Joined: Nov 23^rd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #20 - Jan 1^st, 2004 at 11:26pm	Print Post
	Becky, Sounds like Print Form is out. So, wordmerge.db type option is the way to go. Design the "invoice form" merge document by taking one of the sample wordmerge.doc s and editing it extensively. It is set already to merge with customer.txt, although the merge fields are likely not correct for your needs. Don't worry about that right now. Instead of Insert Merge field, type actual data, like a real Address, City, Item number, Amount due into the merge doc. Then Save As and give it the name you need. The programming for the button in wordmerge can be easily modified to a) either popup a list of docs, or not, as you need, b) print just the current record, rather than asking user to choose "all" or "one", c) modify the Array to correspond to the fields you need for the merge document. I know; I've modified it several times for a couple of apps I'm working with, even though I could never have written it from scratch by myself. So, click on the button, Word opens with the filled in form, and you click Print, then Close, and you are back on the record in Sesame! Good Luck. Gordon


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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #21 - Jan 2^nd, 2004 at 1:52pm	Print Post
	To any and all having "Print Form" looks like a postage stamp problems, if you would - could you do me a favor? Using an unmodified backup of the "Schedule.db" database, edit it in SDesigner so that the title font is Arial Bold size 16. Make sure that no other changes have been made - particularly to fonts and font sizes. Save the changes and go into preview. From preview perform a search that returns at least one record. Go to Record Commands \| Print Form - and print the form. If this has any affect (like not printing it the size of a postage stamp - for instance) or no affect at all - please post here listing your make and model of printer, type of printer (Laser, color, inkjet, etc..) and OS. Thanks!

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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Bob_Hansen Senior Member Members Offline WOW, They have the Internet on computers now! Posts: 1861 Location: Salem, NH Joined: Nov 24^th, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #22 - Jan 2^nd, 2004 at 7:06pm	Print Post
	Hi Mark. � ======================== Nit picking first: Transforming to Sesame can be tough for long time Q&A users because of new terminology, relationships, tree structures, etc. �Not be to be picky, but shouldn't this: Quote: Using an unmodified backup of the "Schedule.db" database be referring to an "application" vs. a "database"? �Can use all the help possible to be consistent with the new terms. �Thanks. ========================== Back to printing issue (terminology a factor here also): I could not find anything referenced as "title". �I thought that "title" might be the heading , "SCHEDULING DATABASE" on the Appointments form. �So I modified the field named "LE1". �Changed it from Comic Sans MS Bold 16 to Arial bold 16. Searched for record set of one record in result. Printing result was a problem. � 1. �Printed a "postage stamp" image, about 1.75" wide, 1.5" tall. � 2. �Looking closely at the image, I see only the form labels and boxes, no data from the record. � 3. �"title" did not show print. � 4. �"version" at bottom did not print 5. �No extra pages (that is good). Printer = HP DeskJet 870Cse inkjet.
	« Last Edit: Jan 2^nd, 2004 at 8:37pm by Bob_Hansen »
	Bob Hansen Sesame Database Manager Professional Sensible Solutions Inc. Salem, NH 603-898-8223 Skype ID = sensiblesolutions
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #23 - Jan 4^th, 2004 at 9:17pm	Print Post
	Mark, In response to your above requested print test, using the modification to a copy of schedule.db The printer just spat one blank sheet out. Using the same method to the original unchanged db it prints a postage size, top left, back ground color (light blue) only. Printer: HP 2500C Plus (color deskjet) OS: Windows XP Pro.


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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #24 - Jan 5^th, 2004 at 2:55pm	Print Post
	The good news here is that we have determined a cause for both the network printing only a blank page problem and the "postage stamp" problem. We have also found what appears to be a 95% fix for both problems. We are currently testing on the six different windows platforms and dozen or so print drivers we have in combination to get past that last 5%.

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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Bob_Hansen Senior Member Members Offline WOW, They have the Internet on computers now! Posts: 1861 Location: Salem, NH Joined: Nov 24^th, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #25 - Jan 27^th, 2004 at 7:11pm	Print Post
	Version 1.0.1 did not correct problem for me. Version 1.0.0 printed out the "postage stamp". Version 1.0.1 does not print at all. �Gives message: "Printer Driver Problem. �Data required by the printer driver cannot be found or has been corrupted". System has been rebooted, same results. �Other programs are printing OK. (Note that preview on forum shows a line above here that is from the html form source code here....please ignore it) Get same message in all four print options that go to printer. �Using option to sent to HTML succeeds, but the result is no good. �No data in report, just labels. �Heading is too low. �Source code is shown here: ========================= <HTML> <HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="a8fcfc"> <FORM> <DIV STYLE="position:absolute; left:154px; top:19px; background:#a8fcfc; color:#000000;"><FONT FACE="Comic Sans MS" STYLE="FONT-SIZE:16px">SCHEDULING DATABASE</FONT></DIV> <DIV STYLE="position:absolute; left:89px; top:72px; background:#a8fcfc; color:#000000;"><FONT FACE="Arial" STYLE="FONT-SIZE:14px">Call Date</FONT></DIV> <INPUT STYLE="background:#ffffff; color:#000000; font-family:Arial; font-size:14px; line-height:14px; text-align:right; margin:0px; position:absolute; left:150px; top:71px; width:136px; height:18px;" VALUE="02/11/2003"> <DIV STYLE="position:absolute; left:67px; top:110px; background:#a8fcfc; color:#000000;"><FONT FACE="Arial" STYLE="FONT-SIZE:14px">SalesPerson</FONT></DIV> <INPUT STYLE="background:#ffffff; color:#000000; font-family:Arial; font-size:14px; line-height:14px; margin:0px; position:absolute; left:150px; top:109px; width:226px; height:18px;" VALUE="Gracie Harrold"> <DIV STYLE="position:absolute; left:88px; top:148px; background:#a8fcfc; color:#000000;"><FONT FACE="Arial" STYLE="FONT-SIZE:14px">Call Time</FONT></DIV> <INPUT STYLE="background:#ffffff; color:#000000; font-family:Arial; font-size:14px; line-height:14px; text-align:right; margin:0px; position:absolute; left:150px; top:147px; width:121px; height:18px;" VALUE="12:00:00 PM"> <DIV STYLE="position:absolute; left:87px; top:188px; background:#a8fcfc; color:#000000;"><FONT FACE="Arial" STYLE="FONT-SIZE:14px">Company</FONT></DIV> <INPUT STYLE="background:#ffffff; color:#000000; font-family:Arial; font-size:14px; line-height:14px; margin:0px; position:absolute; left:150px; top:187px; width:218px; height:18px;" VALUE="Western Grinders"> <DIV STYLE="position:absolute; left:36px; top:223px; background:#a8fcfc; color:#000000;"><FONT FACE="Arial" STYLE="FONT-SIZE:14px">Appointment With</FONT></DIV> <INPUT STYLE="background:#ffffff; color:#000000; font-family:Arial; font-size:14px; line-height:14px; margin:0px; position:absolute; left:150px; top:222px; width:216px; height:18px;" VALUE="Dan Johnson - Owner"> <DIV STYLE="position:absolute; left:24px; top:317px; background:#a8fcfc; color:#000000;"><FONT FACE="Arial" STYLE="FONT-SIZE:14px">Comments</FONT></DIV> <TEXTAREA STYLE="background:#ffffff; color:#000000; font-family:Arial; font-size:14px; line-height:14px; margin:0px; position:absolute; left:94px; top:268px; width:357px; height:114px;">They have placed orders in the past but have been very slow in paying us. See if you can stress the importance of prompt pay without being too obnoxious. They need our product and could turn into a big customer.</TEXTAREA> <DIV STYLE="position:absolute; left:175px; top:404px; background:#a8fcfc; color:#000000;"><FONT FACE="Arial" STYLE="FONT-SIZE:9px">SCHEDULE. �Version 1.00 Dec 2003</FONT></DIV> </FORM> </BODY> </HEAD> </HTML> ============================= Followed instructions from Mark's Jan 2 post. �Made a copy of Schedule. �Modified heading to Arial, Bold, 16. �Saved design, went to Preview mode, retrieved one record, and tried to print. Using Windows 98 SE with HP DeskJet 870Cse.

	Bob Hansen Sesame Database Manager Professional Sensible Solutions Inc. Salem, NH 603-898-8223 Skype ID = sensiblesolutions
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #26 - Jan 27^th, 2004 at 7:46pm	Print Post
	1.01 gave part fix to printing Using- Record Commands -Printing Commands The Print Form and the Print Form(no background) This gives the same results as 1.0 - One little ink splot in the top left corner and nothing else. Using Print Defaut and Print Default (no background) does print but I get a 1" margin at top and left side with a 1.125" margin on the right, this brings my printed size to 6.25" wide which inturn reduces my font size to an unbearable small size. My form is sized in designer to full screen width. Have not had a chance to check HTML as yet but will later. Using Windows XP Pro printing to HP Deskjet 2500C Plus


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Ray the Reaper Global Moderator Members Lantica Support Offline The One & The Only Posts: 2482 Joined: Aug 20^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #27 - Jan 27^th, 2004 at 7:59pm	Print Post
	Bob You say when you Print to HTML the results are no good. May I ask what browser you are using? I only ask because i.e. 5 when i make a web page using the source code that you pasted works just fine. and in Netscape 7.1 I can see all the information but the text size is a little bit too big for the size of the fields. I can even read in the source code the values of the fields.

	Raymond Yoxall Consulting ray.yoxall@gmail.com ryoxall@lantica.com Sesame Applications, Design and Support
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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #28 - Jan 27^th, 2004 at 9:44pm	Print Post
	Quote: 1.01 gave part fix to printing Using- Record Commands -Printing Commands The Print Form and the Print Form(no background) This gives the same results as 1.0 - One little ink splot in the top left corner and nothing else. Using Print Defaut and Print Default (no background) does print but I get a 1" margin at top and left side with a 1.125" margin on the right, this brings my printed size to 6.25" wide which inturn reduces my font size to an unbearable small size. My form is sized in designer to full screen width. Have not had a chance to check HTML as yet but will later. Using Windows XP Pro printing to HP Deskjet 2500C Plus That is really odd. The "regular" print routines and the "default printer" print routines only differ in that the regular routines allow the user to access the print dialog before printing - where they can set margins, landscape versus portrait, etc...

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #29 - Jan 27^th, 2004 at 11:35pm	Print Post
	Well Mark, if its going to happen to anyone it will be me Tried both options again with same result, closed db and Sesame, restarted and tried again had same results, ink spot in top left corner. On attempt #6 when the print dialog box opened I selected properties, made no changes and selected ok, properties box closed and I selected ok in the print dialog box and my form printed. I then tried this same method with the Print Form (no background) and it printed also. Do you do exorcising as well as programming? Tried the HTM option, it printed elements over the top of other elements, changed the positon of static text and overran the paper size down the right margin. It did change the margins to .75" and brought the font size back to its correct size. It acted like the form was too big for the paper size.


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Bob_Hansen Senior Member Members Offline WOW, They have the Internet on computers now! Posts: 1861 Location: Salem, NH Joined: Nov 24^th, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #30 - Jan 28^th, 2004 at 12:28am	Print Post
	Default browser was Netscape 4.79 I should have looked at HTML source code myself. I just opened up the html form in 9 different browsers with the following results: Netscape 4.77: Form shows no fields, no data. Netscape 4.79: Form shows no fields, no data. Oops, If I resize the Netscape window, the fields with data show up. If I refresh, data disappears again. Same thing in Netscape 4.77. ??? Netscape 6.2: Form displays properly. Netscape 7.1: Form displays properly. MSIE 6.0: Form displays properly. Mozilla 1.4: Form displays properly. AOL 5.0: Form shows with data, but does not finish loading. Gets error message that "request took too long. ??? AOL 7.0: Form displays properly. AOL 9.0: Form displays properly. So do we now need a definition of the minimum versions of browsers needed to work with Sesame? Not just to work with Sesame but for others to be able to read reports generated by Sesame. Note: This is only the print to html issue, still not printing to printer.

	Bob Hansen Sesame Database Manager Professional Sensible Solutions Inc. Salem, NH 603-898-8223 Skype ID = sensiblesolutions
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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #31 - Jan 28^th, 2004 at 1:38pm	Print Post
	Bob, The browser must support cascading style sheets (1.0 or better) for the Print to HTML command. This would include, but not be limited to: IE4, IE5.x, IE6, IE7, Mozilla, NS6, NS7, Konqueror (Linux), Opera5, Opera6. IE3.x and NS4.x predate CSS.

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #32 - Jan 28^th, 2004 at 1:51pm	Print Post
	Quote: On attempt #6 when the print dialog box opened I selected properties, made no changes and selected ok, properties box closed and I selected ok in the print dialog box and my form printed. I then tried this same method with the Print Form (no background) and it printed also. Becky, please double check with HP that you are using a driver made for XP. The latest driver I can find for your printer on HP's site is the one made for NT 4.0. There is a "lite" driver for 2000. There is also a firmware upgrade for use with NT 4.0. But I can't find a XP specific driver for that printer. I would imagine (though I can't say for sure) that the 2000/NT driver might be okay. But I would be very concerned if you are using the driver made for 95/98/ME. Quote: Tried the HTM option, it printed elements over the top of other elements, changed the positon of static text and overran the paper size down the right margin. It did change the margins to .75" and brought the font size back to its correct size. It acted like the form was too big for the paper size. Again, double check that your driver is made for XP. The HTML print routine uses the embedded HTML printing functions that comes with XP as part of the OS, IE, or MSOffice. If you print to a file and look at it with IE or Netscape do the same problems happen?

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #33 - Jan 28^th, 2004 at 3:02pm	Print Post
	Quote: please double check with HP that you are using a driver made for XP. The latest driver I can find for your printer on HP's site is the one made for NT 4.0. You are correct Mark HP did not release a driver for XP. The driver I'm using is the 2500 series from within XP which I presume to be the NT 4.0 driver Quote: The HTML print routine uses the embedded HTML printing functions that comes with XP as part of the OS, IE, or MSOffice. If you print to a file and look at it with IE or Netscape do the same problems happen? Viewing it in IE 6 is the same as Printing to paper except the form fits the screen in width, same elements and a command button at the bottom of the form get moved up into the bottom of the subform. Or I should say the subforms lines increase in height which expands the subform in length, which inturn places the element and command button in the subform. If I open the html file in word it rearranges everything on the form to one line items down the left margin. I guess I can try re-loading the the print driver from HP's site starting with the NT 4.0 driver, the lite 2000 driver I think from memory was for laptops. If anyone else is using a HP 2500 series printer and are not having any problems would you post your driver name/date thanks


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Bob_Hansen Senior Member Members Offline WOW, They have the Internet on computers now! Posts: 1861 Location: Salem, NH Joined: Nov 24^th, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #34 - Jan 28^th, 2004 at 3:23pm	Print Post
	Thanks for the info on acceptable browsers Mark. It might be a good idea to include that information in documentation for System Requirements, or in a ReadMe file somewhere. There are still many machines out here using older software. I tested on 9 browsers because I try to have systems available in my office to simulate conditions of my clients's environments. How many people do you know who are still using DOS programs? (hundreds of thousands to buy Sesame, right?)

	Bob Hansen Sesame Database Manager Professional Sensible Solutions Inc. Salem, NH 603-898-8223 Skype ID = sensiblesolutions
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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #35 - Jan 28^th, 2004 at 3:50pm	Print Post
	Quote: It might be a good idea to include that information in documentation for System Requirements, or in a ReadMe file somewhere. Please pass this on to support@lantica.com. Quote: There are still many machines out here using older software. I tested on 9 browsers because I try to have systems available in my office to simulate conditions of my clients's environments. Our log files for the web server show only a small percentage using browsers more than 3 years old. Netscape 4 (June 1997-Nov 2000) and IE 4 (Oct 1997 - Mar 1999), make up only a tiny fraction of our traffic. The scarcity of older browsers among the general surfing public may account for the oversight in the documentation / requirements. However, I was using Netscape 3.0 until last year when I switched to Mozilla. So while our customers do have a penchant for DOS based programs (or is it a particular DOS based program?), they seem to be on the cutting (bleeding?) edge when it comes to browsers. This page (the Forum) depends heavily on CSS - so anyone using our Forum likely has a browser made since 1999. General Note: We use very little CSS in the reports, because the browser support for it is a little spotty. There are a couple of report functions that require it - like forced page breaks. But if your browser doesn't support CSS, table based reports should be okay. The only function in Sesame where CSS is strictly required is the Print to HTML command - where we need CSS to get absolute positioning. By the way there is a browser history page at: http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/history/browsers.htm that includes a CSS support history at: http://www.blooberry.com/indexdot/css/supportkey/syntax.htm if anyone is interested.

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #36 - Jan 28^th, 2004 at 9:41pm	Print Post
	Mark, according to HP the driver for my printer is the one within XP. But out of curiosity I downloaded both drivers they have available on their website, the full version for NT 4.0 and the Lite driver, installed each one (separately) and tested. All results came out the same as previous post yet all my other applications print fine and normal


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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #37 - Jan 28^th, 2004 at 10:47pm	Print Post
	Quote: Mark, according to HP the driver for my printer is the one within XP. But out of curiosity I downloaded both drivers they have available on their website, the full version for NT 4.0 and the Lite driver, installed each one (separately) and tested. All results came out the same as previous post yet all my other applications print fine and normal When you say, "...the driver for my printer is the one within XP" do you mean that you are using a driver that came with the operating system? Here's what I'm thinking: earlier you told me that when the print dialog appeared, you went to the "properties" tab before printing. Doing so caused Sesame to print relatively normally: Quote: On attempt #6 when the print dialog box opened I selected properties, made no changes and selected ok, properties box closed and I selected ok in the print dialog box and my form printed. I then tried this same method with the Print Form (no background) and it printed also. This makes me suspect that some variable in the driver is not defaulting properly. By going to the properties dialog you may have forced the default value. It may well be that Sesame needs to send a special command (just for that driver/OS/printer combination) to force the same value through. Are you using any non-Microsoft programs that print to that printer other than Q&A? I am especially interested in anything that does graphical screen dumps. I may be able to do a little research specific to your combination of OS/Drivers/Printer.

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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Bob_Hansen Senior Member Members Offline WOW, They have the Internet on computers now! Posts: 1861 Location: Salem, NH Joined: Nov 24^th, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #38 - Jan 29^th, 2004 at 1:10am	Print Post
	Quote: Version 1.0.1 did not correct problem for me. Version 1.0.0 printed out the "postage stamp". Version 1.0.1 does not print at all. Gives message: "Printer Driver Problem. Data required by the printer driver cannot be found or has been corrupted". System has been rebooted, same results. Other programs are printing OK. Get same message in all four print options that go to printer. Using option to sent to HTML succeeds. When I posted this, we got into the html-browser issue which has been resolved. But my not printing is still an open issue. WIN98SE with HP DJ870Cse

	Bob Hansen Sesame Database Manager Professional Sensible Solutions Inc. Salem, NH 603-898-8223 Skype ID = sensiblesolutions
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GW Junior Member Offline No personal text Posts: 83 Joined: Dec 16^th, 2003	Re: Printing Reply #39 - Jan 29^th, 2004 at 1:15am	Print Post
	Mark, Thanks for battling this headache, almost at the stage of looking for a new printer Quote: do you mean that you are using a driver that came with the operating system Yes, with XP Pro until I downloaded the 2 drivers from HP and tried today. Currently running under the NT 4.0 driver from HP's site. Quote: Are you using any non-Microsoft programs that print to that printer other than Q&A? Drawing programs include Visual Cadd, Auto Cadd Lt (just uninst but was printing fine), Vector and Rhino. Print direct from Scanner (HP5300c) Print photo's using Cannon Photo Record and Kodak Picture Printer Also print from Adobe Acrobat & Distiller as well as Photoshop. Dos programs are Q&A of course and our CNC software but that is just printing from its built in text editor. Most of the others are MS programs such as Office. Now we also run under Lantastic which will not let XP share its printer, so as a check I uninstall Lantastic and removed the XP machine off the network but this made no difference with the printing problems. Mark, I can print using the print default or by clicking options in the print dialog box method, that I can handle, the real problem to me is that it reduces the form and font size. Fonts end up at about 8 to 6pt, and the form at 6.25" wide thats the real headache. thanks becky


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Bob_Hansen Senior Member Members Offline WOW, They have the Internet on computers now! Posts: 1861 Location: Salem, NH Joined: Nov 24^th, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #40 - Feb 17^th, 2004 at 11:02pm	Print Post
	This is still a problem. When can we expect to see a solution?

	Bob Hansen Sesame Database Manager Professional Sensible Solutions Inc. Salem, NH 603-898-8223 Skype ID = sensiblesolutions
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The Cow YaBB Administrator Offline Posts: 2530 Joined: Nov 22^nd, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #41 - Feb 17^th, 2004 at 11:19pm	Print Post
	We've gone from about 80% or so tested working to well past 95% tested and working. Its really coming down to specific printers (instead of families) and specific OSs. In your case, the error was: "Printer Driver Problem. Data required by the printer driver cannot be found or has been corrupted". which is indicative of a corrupted print driver.

	Mark Lasersohn&&Programmer&&Lantica Software, LLC
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Bob_Hansen Senior Member Members Offline WOW, They have the Internet on computers now! Posts: 1861 Location: Salem, NH Joined: Nov 24^th, 2002	Re: Printing Reply #42 - Feb 17^th, 2004 at 11:31pm	Print Post
	Thanks Mark.....I will reinstall again and let you know the results.

	Bob Hansen Sesame Database Manager Professional Sensible Solutions Inc. Salem, NH 603-898-8223 Skype ID = sensiblesolutions
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