Alpha Software Mobile Development Tools:   Alpha Anywhere    |   Alpha TransForm subscribe to our YouTube Channel  Follow Us on LinkedIn  Follow Us on Twitter  Follow Us on Facebook

Announcement

Collapse

The Alpha Software Forum Participation Guidelines

The Alpha Software Forum is a free forum created for Alpha Software Developer Community to ask for help, exchange ideas, and share solutions. Alpha Software strives to create an environment where all members of the community can feel safe to participate. In order to ensure the Alpha Software Forum is a place where all feel welcome, forum participants are expected to behave as follows:
  • Be professional in your conduct
  • Be kind to others
  • Be constructive when giving feedback
  • Be open to new ideas and suggestions
  • Stay on topic


Be sure all comments and threads you post are respectful. Posts that contain any of the following content will be considered a violation of your agreement as a member of the Alpha Software Forum Community and will be moderated:
  • Spam.
  • Vulgar language.
  • Quotes from private conversations without permission, including pricing and other sales related discussions.
  • Personal attacks, insults, or subtle put-downs.
  • Harassment, bullying, threatening, mocking, shaming, or deriding anyone.
  • Sexist, racist, homophobic, transphobic, ableist, or otherwise discriminatory jokes and language.
  • Sexually explicit or violent material, links, or language.
  • Pirated, hacked, or copyright-infringing material.
  • Encouraging of others to engage in the above behaviors.


If a thread or post is found to contain any of the content outlined above, a moderator may choose to take one of the following actions:
  • Remove the Post or Thread - the content is removed from the forum.
  • Place the User in Moderation - all posts and new threads must be approved by a moderator before they are posted.
  • Temporarily Ban the User - user is banned from forum for a period of time.
  • Permanently Ban the User - user is permanently banned from the forum.


Moderators may also rename posts and threads if they are too generic or do not property reflect the content.

Moderators may move threads if they have been posted in the incorrect forum.

Threads/Posts questioning specific moderator decisions or actions (such as "why was a user banned?") are not allowed and will be removed.

The owners of Alpha Software Corporation (Forum Owner) reserve the right to remove, edit, move, or close any thread for any reason; or ban any forum member without notice, reason, or explanation.

Community members are encouraged to click the "Report Post" icon in the lower left of a given post if they feel the post is in violation of the rules. This will alert the Moderators to take a look.

Alpha Software Corporation may amend the guidelines from time to time and may also vary the procedures it sets out where appropriate in a particular case. Your agreement to comply with the guidelines will be deemed agreement to any changes to it.



Bonus TIPS for Successful Posting

Try a Search First
It is highly recommended that a Search be done on your topic before posting, as many questions have been answered in prior posts. As with any search engine, the shorter the search term, the more "hits" will be returned, but the more specific the search term is, the greater the relevance of those "hits". Searching for "table" might well return every message on the board while "tablesum" would greatly restrict the number of messages returned.

When you do post
First, make sure you are posting your question in the correct forum. For example, if you post an issue regarding Desktop applications on the Mobile & Browser Applications board , not only will your question not be seen by the appropriate audience, it may also be removed or relocated.

The more detail you provide about your problem or question, the more likely someone is to understand your request and be able to help. A sample database with a minimum of records (and its support files, zipped together) will make it much easier to diagnose issues with your application. Screen shots of error messages are especially helpful.

When explaining how to reproduce your problem, please be as detailed as possible. Describe every step, click-by-click and keypress-by-keypress. Otherwise when others try to duplicate your problem, they may do something slightly different and end up with different results.

A note about attachments
You may only attach one file to each message. Attachment file size is limited to 2MB. If you need to include several files, you may do so by zipping them into a single archive.

If you forgot to attach your files to your post, please do NOT create a new thread. Instead, reply to your original message and attach the file there.

When attaching screen shots, it is best to attach an image file (.BMP, .JPG, .GIF, .PNG, etc.) or a zip file of several images, as opposed to a Word document containing the screen shots. Because Word documents are prone to viruses, many message board users will not open your Word file, therefore limiting their ability to help you.

Similarly, if you are uploading a zipped archive, you should simply create a .ZIP file and not a self-extracting .EXE as many users will not run your EXE file.
See more
See less

Printing custom form - Alpha4v8 on XP Virtual Machine

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Printing custom form - Alpha4v8 on XP Virtual Machine

    I'm hoping someone can help me out with a printing problem. Here's the details:
    Win 7 Professional host machine
    XP SP2 virtual machine (vmware)
    Alpha 4V8
    Printing 8-1/2x7 continuous feed, 4 part form to an Epson LQ-590
    I have set up a custom paper size in the Server Properties in both the host and the virtual machine
    The printer is loaded in the host machine , using the USB port, attached to a print spooler to give it an IP address. Using TCP/IP printer port with assigned IP addrs. Driver 'Epson LQ-590 ESC/P 2 Ver. 2.0'
    The virtual machine is using port: TPVM 'Thinprint print port for VMWare'

    When I print my report in Alpha4v8, and I say 'standard page length' it will print multiple invoices on 8-1/2x11 paper. But when I change the report to say 'no' on standard page length, and set my page length to 42 lines, I only get the first invoice and then printing stops.
    Other report parameters:
    Page breaks 'yes'
    reset page no. after group 'no' (but have tried both yes and no, with same results)
    Reprint group header after Pg break 'Yes'

    I have also tried printing to a networked HP, and get the same results, so this is not exclusive of the Epson.

    I have also tried printing in notepad to the Epson printer, and chosen the custom page size. It prints correctly in notepad in both the host Win 7 machine, and the XP virtual machine. So I know windows can properly tell it what size paper to use.

    My suspicion is that it's something stupid in Alpha4v8 that I'm missing.

    I've been working on this issue for 6 weeks, and am getting desperate to fix it and move on. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

    #2
    Re: Printing custom form - Alpha4v8 on XP Virtual Machine

    Hi, I know this doesn't answer your question, nor am I sure this works with VMWARE, but I'm running Alpha4 in XP mode under Windows 7 and, from the beginning I decided to use XPS for all printing. That is, all my A4 printers under XP are defined as XPS printers. When I print from A4 it through up a window that lets me choose where to file the print. I've chosen by default a folder that is under Windows 7. I then just print from Windows 7. This may seem a little more clumsy but there are some side benefits. Firstly, you can choose NOT to print a report if there’s something wrong with it or if you can glean the information you really need by simply viewing the file. So there is a potential paper saving. Secondly, it means you can print the report on any printer you want, rather than on the printer(s) assigned to A4. Thirdly, you no longer need to use the re-start facilities provided by the A4 application in case of printer jam or malfunction. Fourthly, and provided that you give the print files meaningful names at the time you print them, you can keep these files for a while (days, weeks even months if you wish). So, if a need arises at a later time to produce another copy of a certain report, this can be done without worrying about how to make the A4 application retrospectively do this.
    You do have to install XPS in the XP machine but I didn't find this to be any problem. Hope this helps

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Printing custom form - Alpha4v8 on XP Virtual Machine

      I wanted to post an update, in case someone else is struggling with the same problem. I believe my problem comes down to the windows driver that I was using. For other reasons not related to this post, I purchased a new, network capable, dot matrix. Okidata ML420. Initially, I had the same issues with this printer as I previously posted with the Epson. The ML420 driver would not allow me to see my custom paper size that I had created under Server Properties. I ended up using the ML421 driver (same printer, just wider carriage) and that allowed me to see the custom sheet. I did all of this set up in my Win 7 host machine.

      In my VMWare XP virtual machine, the software continues to use the TPVM 'Thinprint print port for VMWare'
      In Alpha 4, I set my printer parameters to standard page length, and voila! I can print continuous invoices on my custom paper size.

      Comment

      Working...
      X