Slow label printing

[Nathan Zeiset]

We recently began using a Zebra S600 thermal printer (fast machine) to print our cassette tape labels (using A5v5). It prints so fast that the computer can't keep up with the printer. It seems like the data transfer is the bottleneck. (It uses a parallel port.) The problem is that the printing process uses all of the computer processor's resources, significantly slowing down other programs that are running. (The computer has a 2ghz P4 processor.)

Usually we print many copies of the same label. A5 sends each copy as a separate page, greatly increasing the amount of data transfer to the printer. (Each label is about 9kb in size.) The printer will print one page, pause a second, and print the next one. All the while the processor is running top speed, inhibiting the other programs in use. (We often print hundreds of labels at one time, which causes the processor to be tied up for several minutes.)

If we create the same label in MS Word and send multiple copies of it to the printer, it sends the job as one page, and then the printer prints continually until the number of pages requested is complete. The high processor usage only lasts as long as needed to send the first copy.

Is there any way to force A5 to behave the same way?

Nathan

[Doug Page]

Re: Slow label printing

Nathan,

I am just going to hazard a guess here as you have not given much detail into the working of your applications printing routines. Do you have Alpha creating all the labels? In other words, do you enter the quantity of labels into your app and let it create all the labels?

When you do your print, a print dialog should open. There should be a place for you to select how many copies. Select it here and it will tell your printer to print how many copies of what you are sending it. Have Alpha only send one copy. That should speed things up.

HTH

[Al Buchholz]

Re: Slow label printing

Nathan

Search for report.printer_override() in the help system. It'll show you how to over ride printer settings (including # of copies)

Then let us know if that made it better...

[Nathan Zeiset]

Re: Slow label printing

Doug and Al,

Thank you for your help! Report.printer_override() did the trick. I do enter the quantity of labels needed in the app, rather than the printer driver, but the printer_override() function was able to handle that. For the benefit of anyone else who has this problem, I'm posting the code below. It's mostly a copy of the example in the help file. However, I had insert the printquantity variable into the options_text, so I split it into 2 other variables and concatenated them with the printquantity in between.

Thanks again!
Nathan

'This script will override certain of the printer properties that are specified in the saved layout.
delete options
dim options as p

'before you can initialize 'options' using the property_from_string() function at least one dot variable must exist. therefore, create a dummy variable.
options.dummy = 1
'override printer options, and set the quantity of labels to the printquantity variable
options_text1 = <<%str%
<copies=
%str%
options_text2 = <<%str%
>
<collate=.F.>
%str%
options_text = options_text1+printquantity+options_text2
'create a dot variable from options_text. the dot variable contains the printer properties to be overridden
property_from_string(options,options_text)

'now you can delete the dummy variable
delete option.dummy

'oldOptions will store the current printer options, so that we can restore them.
delete oldOptions
dim oldOptions as p
oldOptions.dummy = 1

last_printer = :report.printer_override(vCassetteprint,options,oldOptions)
'delete the dummy variable
delete oldOptions.dummy
:Label.print("Cassette Label","cassettes->index = index_number","")
:report.printer_override(last_printer,oldOptions)