I need an idea for a "how to" situation.

[Mel Bishop]

My laser printer has two-sided printing. Find and dandy. I use it all the time.

What I would like to do is print the 2nd side up-side-down.

If I have the paper on a clip-board, all I would have to do is flip the bottom of the paper up and the orientation would be correct for viewing.

Keeping in mind the character spacing, line spacing, font size, and number of pages could be variable.

Any ideas? I don't need any examples, just "I would do it this way" narrative.

[Rodney Hicks]

On my printer, inkjet, when printing the second side, I have to turn the paper around, keeping the printed side up. If I don't turn the paper around I end up with what you want. Don't know if the same applies to a laser printer, specifically, your laser printer.

[Fred Buffington]

if you are using PCL you should be able to use $Esc+"&a180P"
If you are using XPRINT, try MakeRotated Font
The function has been posted by Steve (PB staff) and Borje
I use it all the time to print "Form" at 90 degrees at the top of federal facsimiles.

[Peter Jinks]

Short-edge duplex?

Hi Mel,

If you're talking about a duplex printer, then what you're saying is that you want short-edge binding rather than long-edge binding. You should find a setting on the printer for this.

ADDED: PBWin9/PBCC5 have an XPRINT SET DUPLEX statement too.

Regards,

Pete.

[Hans Rietveld]

Hi Mel.

My default XP printerdriver has an option for it.

On printing preferences you can choose:
Print on both sides:
0 None
o Flip on

[Hans Rietveld]

Sorry to fast


On printing preferences you can choose:
Print on both sides:
o None
o Flip on Long Edge
o Flip on short Edge

I think this is what you need.


Hans Rietveld.

[Dale Yarker]

Look for an option where "head-to-head" is default, and "head-to-tail" is the other option. To do what you want is "head-to-tail" printing.

[Mel Bishop]

I was trying to do it via program. I already checked my print driver and no-go for what I want.

Oh well. I'll figure something out.

Thanks for the feed-back.

[Steve Rossell]

if you are using PCL you should be able to use $Esc+"&a180P"
If you are using XPRINT, try MakeRotated Font
The function has been posted by Steve (PB staff) and Borje
I use it all the time to print "Form" at 90 degrees at the top of federal facsimiles.

PBWin 9 and PBCC 5 have the FONT NEW statement, which supports printing of text at an angle.

You could create the second page as a memory bitmap (GRAPHIC BITMAP NEW) and then flip it and copy it to the printer (XPRINT COPY/ XPRINT STRETCH).

[Peter Jinks]

Re-scale it!

Hi Mel,

A quick idea...

#COMPILE EXE
#DIM ALL

FUNCTION PBMAIN () AS LONG
   LOCAL nLeft AS SINGLE, nTop AS SINGLE, nRight AS SINGLE, nBottom AS SINGLE
   LOCAL hFont AS DWORD

   XPRINT ATTACH DEFAULT

   XPRINT GET SCALE TO nLeft, nTop, nRight, nBottom

   XPRINT WIDTH 5

   ' First page
   XPRINT SET POS (0,0)
   XPRINT "This is the first page"

   ' Quick arrow to show orientation
   XPRINT LINE (100, 100) - (500, 500)
   XPRINT LINE (500, 500) - (500, 300)
   XPRINT LINE (500, 500) - (300, 500)
   
   XPRINT FORMFEED

   ' Second page

   ' Reverse scale (offset all coords by 1 to avoid bug)
   XPRINT SCALE (nRight - 1, nBottom - 1) - (nLeft - 1, nTop - 1)

   ' Setup the rotated font
   FONT NEW "Courier New", 0,0,0,0, 1800 TO hFont
   XPRINT SET FONT hFont

   XPRINT SET POS (-1, -1) ' That's 0,0 offset by -1, of course
   XPRINT "This is the second page"

   XPRINT LINE (99, 99) - (499, 499)
   XPRINT LINE (499, 499) - (499, 299)
   XPRINT LINE (499, 499) - (299, 499)

   ' Reset default font
   XPRINT SET FONT 0
   ' Tidy up
   FONT END hFont

   XPRINT CLOSE
END FUNCTION

I'm in a rush, or I'd explain a bit more, but hopefully it'll give you a start. For printing text, you have to set the position each time, because it will still move down the page for the next line, rather than back up it in accordance with the new scale. But for graphics it's as easy as pie.

Regards,

Pete.

[Cliff Nichols]

Printers are a nice subject, but I know your programming skills

Why not something more generic and not limit to drivers and particular printers???

My ole days we could control the printer by "Print Codes" to do a Line Feed, or a particular font or whatnot

Now days, the ole ideas may hold true, but so many variations...I do not know if you can keep up with the docs???