Printing a 'Graphic' on top of a form from AREV (AREV Specific)
At 30 JAN 2003 09:45:39AM Rod Morris wrote:
I would like to print a 'letterhead' on top of a custom form that I print from an RBASIC program. The 'letterhead' would be in the same location on each report but I would like to use a different color depending on information in the report. The 'letterhead' can be generated using WORD or scanned or any of several other sources, and in about any type of file format, ie; JPG, GIF, TIF, etc.
Can this be done? And if so, how?
Thanks for any guidance.
Rod
At 30 JAN 2003 10:03AM [url=http://www.sprezzatura.com" onMouseOver=window.status= Click here to visit our web site?';return(true)]The Sprezzatura Group[/url] wrote:
We've traditionally done this using PCL Macros - download the letterhead then invoke the letterhead for the page.
World Leaders in all things RevSoft
At 30 JAN 2003 10:39AM Rod Morris wrote:
Thanks for the response, however I am a relative novice. Can you explain what a PCL Macro is and how to invoke it?
Thanks,
Rod
At 30 JAN 2003 11:22AM [url=http://www.sprezzatura.com" onMouseOver=window.status= Click here to visit our web site?';return(true)]The Sprezzatura Group[/url] wrote:
Printer Control Language is a language with which you can control printers. So the idea would be you'd produce the letterhead file by printing to disk from Word, manually strip out some interfering control characters (reset, form feed) then put the file somewhere useful. At app startup you'd copy the file to the printer telling it via PCL that this was a Macro - say Macro 1. Then when you needed the letter head you'd send a Macro 1 command to the printer using PCL.
PCL reference manuals used to come with HP Laserjets - our efforts to find them on line are currently foundering.
World Leaders in all things RevSoft
At 30 JAN 2003 11:37AM [url=http://www.sprezzatura.com" onMouseOver=window.status= Click here to visit our web site?';return(true)]The Sprezzatura Group[/url] wrote:
http://h200005.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/bpl11935/bpl11935.pdf
Takes forever to load and seems to hang - be patient!
World Leaders in all things RevSoft
At 03 FEB 2003 10:35AM H Vance wrote:
I've written an R/BASIC subroutine that can convert two-bit (b&w) TIFF images into PCL. The subroutine doesn't support LZW compression but it can handle uncompressed TIFFs. The program will convert the TIFF image into a PCL image with Packbits compression. Let me know if you want a copy.
At 04 FEB 2003 01:32PM Aiden Massey wrote:
I use Forms Electric (for laser printers). Program allows you to create form, logo or whatever in any windows program and then download to printer as a macro. Includes comprehensive documentation and examples for use with dos programs.
Cheers
Aiden
At 04 FEB 2003 01:35PM Aiden Massey wrote:
Url for Forms Electric http://www.visual.co.uk/Formelec.html
At 05 FEB 2003 10:38AM Rod Morris wrote:
Thanks Aiden, I'll look into this!!
At 05 FEB 2003 03:58PM Aiden Massey wrote:
If you have any problems I can send you the programming code and methods I use
Cheers
Aiden Massey
At 05 FEB 2003 05:59PM Warren wrote:
Try this one too:
Again the HP Site is slow.
At 19 FEB 2003 02:09PM c fichot wrote:
Rod:
Our company works with a 12-year old AREV program which has a lot of R/Basic-generated letters as well as an Open Insight version of the same program.
When the program was converted to OI, the decision was made to use Microsoft Word for printing of most documents (this was pre-OIPI). The method works in both AREV and OI, as long as you can write (or obtain) a VB script and Macro to perform the wordmerge of the two documents. Basically, what we do is write out a tab-delimited text file with the field names and corresponding values to be used to fill in the form letter. Then we send a command via the Windows Scripting Host to run a visual basic script which tells Word to take the source file and merge it to the form letter and then print it.
A more simple alternative is to simply export the data to the flat file and then perform the mail-merge manually.
Functionally, it works very well. From a maintenance standpoint, it removes the necessity of having a programmer make changes to a program whenever document changes need to be made. Needless to say, it can create some really pretty documents as well, much more quickly than having to program all those PCL commands.