RE: Printing pre-setup (was: Is VMS losing the Financial Sector, also?)

Hey, thank you John! Appreciate the instructions. I found the
Ask-The-Wizard stuff, and had no trouble pointing it to a LPD queue that is
serving the network. (I missed the idea of the device control library
though... I'm assuming that "library" here means a directory with some data
modules in it... but I suppose it could be an objet module library too. :)

Thanks again!

-Paul

-----Original Message-----
From: John E. Malmberg [mailto:wb8tyw@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Saturday, July 07, 2007 12:51 PM
To: Info-VAX@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Printing pre-setup (was: Is VMS losing the Financial Sector,
also?)

Paul Raulerson wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: David J Dachtera [mailto:djesys.no@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]

Paul Raulerson wrote:


complex. For example, talk to a laserjet out a parallel port,

Worked very well the few times I tried it. I generally used terminal
servers or printers with network cards.

Not really part of VMS's primary focus, but a good point, none the
less.


and compress the print so as to print 132 column listings in
>>>the right size.

Not two hard to do.

I find setting the orientation to landscape, selecting fixed-pitch
font
such as Courier and pitch to circa 12cpi to be rather effective.

Actually, I want line printer font at 16.66cpi, 8 lines per inch, and
84
lines on a portrait page. I know the PCL to set that up, and indeed,
I know
how to do it PostScript. What I don't know how to do is to tell VMS
that is
what I want. It ain't BSD style LPR/LPD, CUSP, InfoPrint, RSA, BARR,
or any
other system I am aware of.

And I tend to start simple. One little printer, one little port... :)

I and others have posted that information before. I think that there
is
also information in the Ask The Wizard archive at HP.

The basic steps to do this are documented in the system manager guide.

First you create a device control text library, with each module doing
a
specific function. I use a different one for each model that I have to
use, and one with empty modules for printers that can not be remotely
programmed.

You have a module for reset (to what should be default) and a module
for
each specific setting.

While I needed separate device control files for LN03, LN05/6, and
DCPS,
I have only needed one device control library for all PCL printers.

Then you create a print queue to that printer and associate the device
control library with that queue. You can have it always do the reset
module between jobs.

Then you create a set of forms for each style of output that you will
want, making sure that they all have compatible *** definitions.

By having separate device control libraries for each printer model that
have all the model names, you can then use the same form name and get
the desired result on different models of printers.

For network printers, I also use "dummy" LTA devices that are spooled
to
the print queue, so that I can redirect output streams to them from
applications that are not print queue aware. You can also access a
spooled device through DECNET file notation.

For network printers, you can also have multiple print queues pointing
at them with different defaults. This is handy for software that knows
how to specify a print queue, but not the attributes.

Some gotchas:

1. On your test print page to verify your settings, put a test line of
characters separated by tabs underneath a set of numbers making a
ruler.
The tabs (unless you specifically changed this) should be at every 8
characters.
If this does not happen, then you need to find the flaw in your escape
sequence. This has not been an issue for me on PCL, but has been an
issue on LN03, LN05/6, and the DCPS/CPS ANSI translator.

2. If you share a printer with a certain PC based operating system, it
may at the start of each and every print job change the power up
defaults of the printer, particularly the margins and the duplex
settings, so that a simple reset to power up will not restore the
printer to the expected parameters.

3. Watch the *** definition, margins, and wrap settings on your
forms.

-John
wb8tyw@xxxxxxxxxxx
Personal Opinion Only

.