Re: Printer control characters in Informix Report

> I agree with Dennis Pimple's remarks. Yes, it can be done but you need a > degree in illogical processes (otherwise called printer ESCAPE sequences) > and a great deal of patience. I would suggest that you might save > great deal of time by using one of the WINDOWs based graphical repo > writers, or Wingz, HyperScript, etc. > > Malcolm Weallans The one occasion I had to get involved with printer escape sequences, I stored them in database tables rather than hard-coding them in the report. More work initially, but much easier to maintain, particularly if you get it wrong first time / find a better way of addressing the printer / have to (as we did) write to several different printers. The other thing you have to watch out for is that if you're sending "invisible" strings or changing the pitch size mid-page you can really foul up 4GL's line counting mechanism: unless you're using "OUTPUT TOP OF PAGE '^L' ", 4GL never actually sends form feeds to the printer but blank lines, so you could easily get the whole report out of sync if you're not careful. The worst mess I ever saw anyone get into was when they were using escape sequences to flip the page over! Malcolm's right - anything remotely fancy and you should look at a proper graphical report writer. akent@cix.compulink.co.uk (Andy Kent) -------------------------------------