Printing to plotters...

[mark smit]

Hello Everyone!

I have a small project that has the potential to turn into a big headache. I have been given the task of writing a utility that prints very long bitmaps to a plotter(inkjet). I was hoping that some of you could help me out with some questions.

1. How does a plotter treat "pages"?
2. Do you still use StartPage and EndPage in the same manner?
3. How big would the plotters DC bitmap height be?

Most pages are about 11 inches in length but how does this work with the plotters paper roll?


Thanks in advance!




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Cheers

[Timm Motl]

Mark:

No experience with plotters, but my first step would be to run some code like this to see what I could
learn about the printer in question (width / height)...

#COMPILE EXE
#REGISTER NONE
#INCLUDE "WIN32API.INC"


FUNCTION PBMAIN
   DIM PInfo5(0:2) AS PRINTER_INFO_5
   EnumPrinters %PRINTER_ENUM_LOCAL, BYVAL %NULL, 5, BYVAL VARPTR(PInfo5(0)), 0, Needed&, Returned&
   Upper& = Needed& \ SIZEOF(pInfo5(0))
   REDIM pInfo5(0:Upper&)
   EnumPrinters %PRINTER_ENUM_LOCAL, BYVAL %NULL, 5, BYVAL VARPTR(pInfo5(0)), (Upper& + 1) * SIZEOF(pInfo5(0)), Needed&, Returned&


   MSGBOX STR$(Returned&) + " Printers found"


   FOR LoopVar& = 0 TO (Returned& - 1)
      Printer_hDC& = CreateDC(BYVAL %Null, PInfo5(LoopVar&)[email protected], BYVAL %Null, BYVAL %Null)
      PrnWidth& = GetDeviceCaps(Printer_hDC&, %PHYSICALWIDTH)
      PrnHeight& = GetDeviceCaps(Printer_hDC&, %PHYSICALHEIGHT)
      IF PrnWidth& < PrnHeight& THEN
         Orientation$ = "Portrait"
      ELSE
         Orientation$ = "Landscape"
      END IF
      DeleteDc Printer_hDC&
      Attribute$ = ""
      IF (PInfo5(LoopVar&).Attributes AND %PRINTER_ATTRIBUTE_LOCAL) THEN
         Attribute$ = "Local "
      END IF
      IF (PInfo5(LoopVar&).Attributes AND %PRINTER_ATTRIBUTE_NETWORK) THEN
         Attribute$ = "Network "
      END IF
      IF (PInfo5(LoopVar&).Attributes AND %PRINTER_ATTRIBUTE_DEFAULT) THEN
         Attribute$ = Attribute$ + "Default "
      END IF
      IF (PInfo5(LoopVar&).Attributes AND %PRINTER_ATTRIBUTE_DIRECT) THEN
         Attribute$ = Attribute$ + "Direct "
      ELSE
         Attribute$ = Attribute$ + "Spooled "
      END IF
      IF (PInfo5(LoopVar&).Attributes AND %PRINTER_ATTRIBUTE_QUEUED) THEN
         Attribute$ = Attribute$ + "Queued "
      END IF
      IF (PInfo5(LoopVar&).Attributes AND %PRINTER_ATTRIBUTE_SHARED) THEN
         Attribute$ = Attribute$ + "Shared "
      END IF
      IF (PInfo5(LoopVar&).Attributes AND %PRINTER_ATTRIBUTE_WORK_OFFLINE) THEN
         Attribute$ = Attribute$ + "Work Offline "
      END IF
      IF (PInfo5(LoopVar&).Attributes AND %PRINTER_ATTRIBUTE_HIDDEN) THEN
         Attribute$ = Attribute$ + "Hidden"
      END IF
      MSGBOX "Printer #" + STR$(LoopVar&+1) + $CRLF + $CRLF + PInfo5(LoopVar&)[email protected] + $CRLF + _
             PInfo5(LoopVar&)[email protected] + $CRLF + Attribute$ + $CRLF + Orientation$ + $CRLF + _
             "Width:  " + STR$(PrnWidth&) + $CRLF + "Height: " + STR$(PrnHeight&)
   NEXT
END FUNCTION

Timm

[Lance Edmonds]

PRINTER_INFO_5 is not supported by Windows NT. Win2K and Win9x do support that structure.

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Lance
PowerBASIC Support
mailto:[email protected][email protected]</A>