Posted by Grant Foraker (208.57.82.141) on September 19, 2003 at 14:11:10:
Cometeers:
The biggest headache I've found in my Comet Windows printing is getting the fonts to size the way I want.
First, a brief commentary. Laser printers are good. Inkjets SUCK!!! Almost nothing will work the same on inkjets as it does on lasers. You almost need two programs. Still have ZPT$ in your Z1 file? L for laser Q for inkjet. Good thing you kept it :)
Sometimes it's the Printer/Driver. I recommend always having the latest driver installed at every user has the latest driver for their O/S. Different O/S's will yield different results, usually slight. So, don't make your form design too tight or your boxes too small or you'll eventually get bit by this problem as users upgrade their PC's. My very first frustrating experience with this, was fighting with Brian's demo invoice program. The text didn't, wouldn't print in the nice boxes or sometimes even on the same page.
This is some live code I lifted from Brian.
! CHANGE TO NEW FONT AND SIZE
GOSUB GDI.INITLOGFONT
LFHEIGHT$ = INTELD(12*20)
LFWEIGHT$ = INTELD(FW.BOLD)
LFFACENAME$ = 'Arial Narrow' + NULLBYTE$
GOSUB SETFONT
You could also code lfheight = INTELD(240) to get 12 point type. Don't try to fine tune by trying INTELD(235). The Printer/Driver always seems to render the font in whole points (H*20). And, from my experience, not all point sizes. TrueType fonts, like Lucida Console, seem to work from point sizes 6-28, then 36, 48 etc. Once you get to 18 there are sizes that don't work. Non TrueType fonts, like old Courier, seem to have even fewer options. I've tested the following with Lucida Console to see what the CPI might be. Of course, the line height changes too. Your not in 6 LPI Kansas anymore.
H=12 10CPI
H=11 11CPI
H=10 12CPI
H=9 14CPI
H=8 15CPI
H=7 17CPI
H=6 20CPI
H=13 9.5CPI
H=14 9.0CPI
H=15 8.5CPI
H=16 8.0CPI
H=17 7.5CPI
H=24 5.0CPI
H=6,7,9,11,13,15 and 17 don't show up in MS Word so we can actually squeeze a bit more out of a font. Nice. I don't have any lawyer clients so nobody has asked for anything below 6. Might work, might not.
Have fun. And just to repeat. Laser printers are good. Inkjets SUCK!!!