Working With Text Printers

If it is at all physically possible it is always advisable to work with a printer that is Windows compatible. Obtaining the correct make and model number of the printer driver for your printer is very important. The print preview will not be accurate unless you use the correct printer driver.

If you have no option but to try to operate a text only (non-graphical) printer with Visual Builder then the general procedure is as follows:

1. Try to obtain a Windows printer driver - these are often available by searching the Internet even if one did not come with the printer itself.

Keep in mind that a Windows printer driver for a text only printer is likely to have various limitations: the print preview is not likely to be correct. As well, you may only be able to print "printer only" fonts. If you select, say, Arial fonts, and your text only printer does not recognise Arial as an in-built font, it may print the wrong font or nothing at all.

In the past, text or DOS printers were controlled by sending printer control sequences to select fonts, set page margins and activate other special effects. This is normally not possible using Visual Builder as Visual Builder is a true Windows based printing system. The printer driver will automatically strip out any control code sequences you try to imbed into your text or field objects. (This issue is controlled by Windows itself and not Visual Builder.)

However, if a Windows printer driver is available for your printer, you may be able to control/select fonts by selecting the appropriate printer only font. For example, there may be fonts such as "CBM Black Doublewidth" or "16cpi" which will activate the appropriate function/special effect within the printer.

Some printer drivers offer a "control font" feature. If the control font is selected, then returning a string such as CHR(27) + CHR(40) will result in the control codes ESCape (ASCII 27) and ASCII 40 being sent to the printer.

2. Generic / Text Only

If a Windows printer driver is not available you can install the Generic / Text Only printer driver that comes with Windows. It will work with virtually all printers that are capable of recognising straight ASCII text. However, you will not be able to change fonts, or print any effects such as italics, bold or underline, using this driver.

Limitations of Text Only Printers Under Visual Builder

These are the main issues to consider when working with a text only printer:

• The print preview will not be accurate. You will need to experiment by printing to paper and checking positioning manually.

• The correct font sizes may not be shown on-screen. You may need to re-size text and field objects using your mouse.

• Be sure to use the top align and bottom align facilities of Visual Builder to ensure that text and field objects are positioned on exactly the same line. If this is not done you may get unexpected line breaks. (Text may appear on the same line on-screen but will appear on different lines when printed.)

• Depending on the limitations of the printer driver it may be difficult to get multiple text and field objects aligning on the same line.

• Mixing printer fonts on the same line may not work.

• It is not possible to print graphics such as bitmap image files or lines or boxes.

• Any font that is not supported by the printer may result in the printing of the wrong font or no font at all.

• The printer may issue unexpected line breaks or page feeds if you print too far to the right side of the page. Try to avoid printing that might result in text automatically wrapping to the next line.

• You may not be able to get the printer to stop printing where you want it to. Or it may not align itself correctly on the next page. You may be able to control this to a certain degree by careful positioning of your field and text objects, and the printer driver may offer page size and control options.