[archive] Printing with AcuCobol

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Mike,

We have chosen to use the column method of WIN$PRINTER so that we can use the proportional fonts... We just "bit the bullet" and did it. Perhaps others will offer a less intrusive solution?

Rob

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

thanks for your response, one more quesiton, if you mix font types and/or sizes on a page, how do you keep up with the lines per page so you know when to page break, just trial and error?

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Mr.SKEEN:

To Know the end of page on a Report with multiple fonts you have to know the HEIGHT of every font you use and add this height every time you write a line. You must know the height of the page as well. This may be different depending on the paper size you choose. Remember the unprintable zone in this case and margins as well.

WIN$PRINTER does not resolve everything nor ACUBENCH with the ugly HTML code.

We must learn other techniques or change the porgramming lenguage.

My Regards.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Mr.SKEEN:

To Know the end of page on a Report with multiple fonts you have to know the HEIGHT of every font you use and add this height every time you write a line. You must know the height of the page as well. This may be different depending on the paper size you choose. Remember the unprintable zone in this case and margins as well.

WIN$PRINTER does not resolve everything nor ACUBENCH with the ugly HTML code.

We must learn other techniques or change the porgramming lenguage.

My Regards.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Mr.SKEEN:

To Know the end of page on a Report with multiple fonts you have to know the HEIGHT of every font you use and add this height every time you write a line. You must know the height of the page as well. This may be different depending on the paper size you choose. Remember the unprintable zone in this case and margins as well.

WIN$PRINTER does not resolve everything nor ACUBENCH with the ugly HTML code.

We must learn other techniques or change the porgramming lenguage.

My Regards.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

I agree, this seems to be a shortcoming with AcuCobol or it at least makes a lot of coding just in order to be able to use a mixture of font sizes.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Gentlemen,
I can assure you most programming languages does not provide much Windows native printing facilities at all.

No programming languages provide automatic calculation of the size of the content of a page. If you know of such, please let me know.

These features you are requesting are features normally seen in designated report tools, like for instance Crystal Report, but not in a programming language.

Having said this, why is the ultimo answer to start complaining? Why not, if you feel a certain feature should be present, rather than complaining, suggest it as an enhancement. Even better, propose how you imagine such a feature should work.

I am pleased to state that most of the suggestions / enhancement requests received for Windows printing during my career at Acucorp has been implemented, and I have all intention of continue doing so, provided it is a suggestion that makes sense.

Speaking of mixed fonts... Let me tell you of one nice feature of the winprint-column:

Did you know that you can mix fonts on the same line? Each column may have its own font. You can for instance have the description column in Arial 12 and the numbers column in Courier 10. Believe me, doing such in any other language would require quite a bit of programming on your hand.

Now, if you take the challenge to try this, you will certainly be disappointed that the line is not even, the smaller font appear to have a base line higher than the bigger font. Well, there is actually an opportunity to address this as well. In version 8, due any time soon, there is an opcode WINPRINT-COLUMN-VERT-ALIGN. Call this after you have set all your columns, before you print and your line appear evened out with a common base, so that the difference of the height shows upwards, not downwards.

Oh, did I mention that this of course works transparently with Thin Client, no coding changes required. Which other language give you that?

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Mr.GFORSETH

I'm sorry if I hurt your fellings. WIN$PRINTER is a Great Routine.
I beg your pardon. I will never critize AcuCorp again.

My Regards.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Mr.GFORSETH

I'm sorry if I hurt your fellings. WIN$PRINTER is a Great Routine.
I beg your pardon. I will never critize AcuCorp again.

My Regards.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Mr.GFORSETH

I'm sorry if I hurt your fellings. WIN$PRINTER is a Great Routine.
I beg your pardon. I will never critize AcuCorp again.

My Regards.

[Migrated content. Thread originally posted on 07 September 2007]

In order to prepare reports with a look similar to other third party applications what is the suggested font type and size? In the past I have limited myself to the standard courier 10 and 12 standard fonts. There seems to be very few choices (not true type) that do not give the "wavy" effect. If I use those then I have to use the set-column commands of win$printer which means more coding changes for existing reports. Any suggestions? I would especially like to hear from those who are developing applications for resale.

Please, please, do critize, but be constructive. That is the way to improve.
I suppose I can say I am a bit sensitive to the Windows printing mechanism yes :-). But that does not mean I am negative to feedback, rather the contrary. It was just the assumption of another language implicitly being better. In many cases, this can be true, but for Windows printing it is actually not so simple, regardless of language.

I have been thinking about this issue a little, and I thought, what if we had a mechanism generating a file status when a form feed is about to occur... Hm... I have to think about that.