Posted by Robert on Wed, 10 Sep 2003 14:24:09 :
Hi,
I'm getting totally frustrated with Windows and Xerox over this stupid N32 laser printer...
We just completed a very easy to use print routine that would allow us to print reports on any
kind of Windows printer with standard presentation and very few user input.
It is so smart that it actually recomputes the font size if it believes that the report details
will not fit in the print frame.
Obviously we are using fixed pitch font. We selected "Letter Gothic" for it's readability up 'till
fairly small size. So far so good...
What we discovered is that stupid Windows does not render fonts with the same height/width ratio
if you call a font be height or by width (points size vs CPI).
Anyway, our report routine will generate 2 fonts; the standard font (default to 10 pts) and the
title font (typically 12 pts). The title font is used only on the top line of the page (in the
header routine) and the remainder of the header and the report data is printed using the standard
font.
What I have (in my test program) is a report with 114 columns to fit between margins 529 & 11495
pixels. So when I call SET.FONT.STANDARD I tell it to use a font with a Width of 96 and for the
Height i multiply that by 2. GetFontInfo confirms that my font once generated has a Height of 235
and an AveCharWidth of 96.
What I see on paper is that when my report starts printing it prints a bit smaller: I calculated
that it was printing with a 95 pixels wide font. BUT I print a microline every third line (for
readability) and the line immediately following the MicroLine is CORRECT (aka wider than the other
lines). This happens on only ONE printer and it behaves the same for Win98 & Win XP (totally
different print driver).
I use the PTR.TextOut routine for printing. I do not call any font or font align function once the
header is printed. I tried PTR.MoveTo/PTR.LineTo and the mnemonics... same!
If I run this on any other printer Laser and/or inkjet, the reports prints fine.
This was tried with Comet 2002 build 311 and Comet 2000 build 308.
Question to Brian: does Comet touch in any way the data that is sent to Windows Printing? I
remember that the QCRT does character repositioning ad every two-spaces....
I tough that once a font was generated it didn't change... why would it go back and forth between
95 pixels and 96 pixels... only call in between is the MoveTo/LineTo...
Help please !
Robert
MasterDebugger@yahoo.com
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