Dreaded Dot Matrix Printer

I have a site still using Dot Matrix printers. Their printer had to be restarted recently as it started printing random information. This then lost the paper size and everything. Long story short the IT uninstalled everything and set up from scratch. I can print from Opera on one machine and it will be fine. Go to another and it will print landscape instead of portrait. But of course if I amend the report for it to work it then doesn't work on the original machine....

IT and now refusing to do anything (everything is the same on all machines !) and I am stuck with it. As this is a bespoke report it is not in the report layout menu so I can't set the printer here.

Does anyone have any ideas of what I can do next.

Many thanks

Felicity

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Steve Loader

Hi Felicity,

I may be talking absolute twaddle here, but does the Windows Printing Preferences for that printer, on your user's machine, have any bearing on the issue?

Have you checked the Printing Preferences for that printer, on that machine, to see what the default orientation is set to?

Kind regards

Steve

fzw

Unfortunately we have all the machines appear to say the same thing. It's like there is a hidden setting that I don't know about causing me problems....

Felicity

alan-bourke

Yes, dot matrix printers are a nightmare especially networked. No need in this day and age!

Is it a nonstandard paper size ?

If so tthis is what I used to do (I think, it was years ago)

Use the same driver on each workstation. Generally these days if you share the printer from the machine it’s connected to, and then add it to the other machines as a networked printer, the other machines will use the driver from the machine it’s shared from. I used to use the same printer name on all machines, say ‘Invoices’.

Set up a custom paper size in Windows on each machine, called say ‘Invoice’, then set that as the paper size to use in on the ‘Invoice’ printer properties on all machines. Then log into Opera as admin, print the report, and when the layout is shown for editing, set it to use the ‘Invoices’ printer.

Regarding report layouts in Opera, if your bespoke layout is bespoke in the sense that it’s a customised standard invoice or something, there’s nothing stopping you adding a new record for it and entering the paper dimensions there.

colin-avey

Hi Felicity,

Any reports can be added to the Report Layouts if they use the standard Publisher functions and Publisher deals with it, so adding it to Report layouts should be an option.

Also from memory, Windows has a painful way of storing any bespoke paper sizes defined for a printer. I think they are numbered on each machine in the order they are created. Unfortunately, this means bespoke paper size 3 on one machine is no necessarily bespoke paper size 3 on the next. All sorts of fun adding extra ones to get them to match up. Again, from memory, they are listed in the registry somewhere.

Not sure if any of this helps

Colin

Daily Support Tasks.docx

fzw

Thank you for getting back.

Yes it is a custom paper size which has been set up on the server and all machines.

I wanted to set up on a machine as you said and then share out but their IT have said no as this is against GDPR or something.

They have Opera bespoke and it is a report out of here rather than a bespoked standard report.

Although it is nice to know that I haven't completely forgotten how to set up dot matrix printers !!

colin-avey

Just to confirm. Reports from bespoke projects can be added into Report Layouts if they are published using the normal Publisher functions provided for Opera bespoke.

Add a new record with the Report field containing the name of the report used in the Publisher function.

in this case "sqpickl2" is the report being called by my bespoke code

fzw

I think that is literally the best news I have had all day !!

Luckily for me the programmers did use the normal Publisher functions so I have managed to set up the report in the Report Layouts.

This gives me so many more avenues to explore !

Many thanks

Felicity

fzw

Just wanted to say thank you. I have a very happy customer as they can now print from all the machines and the printer isn't shared which keeps their IT happy !.

I had to set up the report four times so they have their own report but it does the trick.

Many Thanks

Felicity

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