PRINTER SETUP IN DYNAMIC 3i

Printing from an application on a network can be confusing:

Is the printer set up correctly?

Do I have access?

Do I have to be connected to the network? 

Can I use my own locally connected printer at my desk?

What if I want to print in both portrait and landscape? 

The following should clarify the questions above.

Printers are defined in two places under a LAN (Local Area Network) environment, locally to the client and at the server. From here on we will try and keep it simple. 

Printers that are defined locally usually mean they are connected directly to your PC or system.

On the main system or server as they call it, any printers defined can be thought of as all being directly connected to that system.

Here in lies the definition and naming concerns/confusion.  Lets use an example and refer to it for the remainder of this document.

On your own PC you can define printers and call them anything you would like and assign properties:

Example:

Printer 1 - “My Main Printer”, (portrait by default)

Printer 2 – “HP 960c”, (landscape by default)

You are in total control of the name and properties i.e. if the printer prints portrait or landscape, color or black and white, 1 copy 5 copies etc. etc.

These definitions are all handled under the operating system that you are using and your local printer definitions.  Refer to the help of your specific operating system to see how to set up printers under your own PC.

Any or all of the printers that you set up can also be shared amongst your fellow employees.  This allows them to treat your printer as if it was attached to their system.

Note.  On their system they could name your printer something else as well (maybe ‘John’s Printer’).

Now to the main system or server side:

Once all of the printers are shared and defined to the main system the applications that use the main system can print to any one of them.  In DYNAMIC 3i there is an application which defines all of the printers connected to the main system.  This allows DYNAMIC 3i to configure the printer for its own use (like a user).  It basically allows DYNAMIC 3i to override the properties that the local owner had set.

Example:  Using the above printer, “My Main Printer”, (portrait by default)

(This printer is attached to your PC and is named as such.  It is shared to your colleagues under the same name) 

Using the Printer Maintenance – (GB4600) in DYNAMIC 3i this printer is re-defined as:

“Order Desk” and is told to print in landscape

When running a listing or report in DYNAMIC 3i the choice of printers will now show

“Order Desk” as a valid printer and print over the network to your printer.  All users who use DYNAMIC 3i will now know your printer as “Order Desk” when using DYNAMIC 3i

Another Twist

We have established that under DYNAMIC 3i your printer will be known as “Order Desk”

Here is the twist, if you print something locally ie. use another application such as a word processor you will see your same old printer “My Main Printer”  NOT  “Order Desk”

Also, if you choose to run a DYNAMIC 3i application to the “screen” (which simply displays your listing or report on your monitor) the print function from within that display will only see printers attached to your system, namely “My Main Printer”.

Because of this the DYNAMIC 3i report which you ran to screen can then be printed to your choice of locally connected printers.  When you choose this method the local operating system will ask/verify the printer properties to print with (you will not get this when running the report directly to a printer from within DYNAMIC 3i).

Example:  Using the above printer, “My Main Printer”, (portrait by default)

(This printer is attached to your PC and is named as such.  It is shared to your colleagues under the same name) 

Under DYNAMIC 3i and Printer Maintenance – (GB4600) this printer is re-defined as:

“Order Desk” and is told to print in landscape

Using DYNAMIC 3i and running a product listing you will be given the choice of using “screen” or “Order Desk”

By choosing screen (the listing will run to your monitor) and then using the print icon you will see your printer “My Main Printer” be selected and are given the choice to accept certain properties.  If you accept all the default settings the listing will come out in portrait on your printer.

By choosing “Order Desk” the listing will run over the system (using the properties defined in the Printer Master Maintenance – GB4600) and will come out in landscape on your printer.

Character Printers

DYNAMIC 3i uses by default all bitmap reports.  In certain installations their may still be the requirement to have a report be printed in what is known as a character format or character mode report.  These reports would be specifically written and would require a DYNAMIC 3i character printer defined.

Under DYNAMIC 3i a character printer is defined simply by entering a ‘Character Format Destination’ under the printer file maintenance application (GB4600).

It is important to note here that if a bitmap report is run to a character printer DYNAMIC 3i will not create a report listing and visa versa, if a character report is printed to a bitmap printer the report will be in error.  Also  note that any application statuses will be updated by the application as per normal processing.  This is due to the fact that the application is in control of the status update and the destination simple renders the report.  If the wrong printer is chosen by error then the report would have to be re-printed.

The ‘Character Format Destination’is the name of the Oracle Printer Definition file. There are generic (Dot Matrix) Printer Definition files (dflt - 80 character, wide - 132 character), and printer specific Printer Definition files (HPLWIDE contains printer escape sequences necessary to print compressed in Portrait mode).   The destination format can also be set to html in order to generate the report to disk in hyper text markup language or pdf to generate the report to disk in postscript.

The Printer Definition files are stored under \ORAWIN95\REPORT25\PRINTERS with ‘prt’ file extensions. These are editable text files. The default definition is dflt.  It is possible to create new Printer Definition files for a printer for which Oracle has not created one. See Appendix A in the Oracle's Developer/2000 Reports2.5 Runtime Manual. You can specify width and length of page, printer initialization and termination strings, font change codes etc.