Print Multiple Copies

[russ Boehle]

I have a report that usually will need to have 4 copies printed but sometimes will need fewer. I can set up a printer definition to handle this but was wondering if there is a way to do it in Alpha regardless of the print driver. I seem to recall that this is there somewhere in the report layout but don't see it. I could also use a loop but don't want to repeat the query for each copy. I would like to set a variable to the number of copies and have it print them. Any ideas?

Thanks
Russ

[Jay Talbott]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

Russ,

Could you:

unmark all records
run the query
mark all records that meet the query criteria
print marked records
repeat the above the appropriate number of times
and then unmark all records?

Regards,
Jay Talbott

[russ Boehle]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

Thanks Jim, but that won't work. I am printing 1 record but from a large set with multiple child and grandchild records. Actually I could run a loop and redo the query but it takes longer than it should and it is optimized for LQO. I was hoping for a report property for number of copies but can't find any such animal.

Russ

[Tom Cone Jr]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

Russ,

If the report is based on the 'currently selected records' why run the query more than once?

-- tom

[Allen Klimeck]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

You can use the printer override functions to do this.

[russ Boehle]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

Tom,
I am currently running it with print selected record, but that's a good idea. The "print current record" runs a query on the current key value so I should be able to do that.

Thanks
Russ

[russ Boehle]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

I am already using printer override to allow the user to select a printer in their user defaults. It works if I set up a printer with print a number of copies but I figured it would be easier to keep it all in Alpha.

Thanks
Russ

[Mike Konoff]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

Russ,

I need to do something like this in Alpha Four. In the script that prints that report, I go in and actually print one copy of the report twice. It's quick. Can you do something like this with xbasic & A5?

Mike

[russ Boehle]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

Actually I decided to do it with a custom printer set up. Unfortunately, even though the printer setup specifies 4 copies, and print test page prints 4 copies, when I print to it from alpha it prints 1 copy. Oh well.
I put in a for next loop and it works good enough. It's a little slow but should be OK on the network as it runs faster there. (There appears to be a critter preventing proper optimization on a stand alone machine, but on a network it works the way its supposed to)

Thanks for all the help.

Russ

[Peter.Wayne]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

the report.printer_override() function has a way to set copies:

dim old_settings as p
dim new_settings as p
new_settings.copies=4

old_settings.dummy=""

report.Printer_override("HP LJ4 on LPT1:",new_settings,old_settings)

Russ Boehle wrote:
-------------------------------
Actually I decided to do it with a custom printer set up. Unfortunately, even though the printer setup specifies 4 copies, and print test page prints 4 copies, when I print to it from alpha it prints 1 copy. Oh well.
I put in a for next loop and it works good enough. It's a little slow but should be OK on the network as it runs faster there. (There appears to be a critter preventing proper optimization on a stand alone machine, but on a network it works the way its supposed to)

Thanks for all the help.

Russ

[russ Boehle]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

WOW Peter, you're amazing, where do you find these things? That's perfect. Thank you.

Is that documented somewhere?

Russ

[Peter.Wayne]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

when you start typing report.printer_override(), the online help gives you the syntax. the rest is simply playing around.
the way i found the syntax was by typing
dim old_settings as p
dim new_settings as p
new_settings.dummy=""

old_settings.dummy=""
report.Printer_override("HP LJ4 on LPT1:",new_settings,old_settings)
? old_settings
= collate = .T.
color = "Monochrome"
copies = 1.000000
defaultsource = "Automatically Select"
dummy = ""
orientation = "portrait"
papersize = "Letter"
truetype = "Substitute"

i don't know if it's documented or not. i sent an email to ed larrabee today to let him know that it's not documented properly in the help file, and i'm sure he will fix it. but in general you can get pretty far with the on-line help if you play with it enough.
- peter

[russ Boehle]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

I cut and pasted from the docs so I never saw the autocomplete syntax. I guess I should look more carefully. My excuse is I didn't think there was anything else to look for.

Thanks again
Russ

[Selwyn Rabins]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

while it is true that Peter Wayne is amazing, it is actually very easy to set the number of copies in create an Action Script to print your report.

If you go to the "Options" tab in Action Scripting while defining the action for "Print a Layout", you will see a checkbox for "Override Printer Settings".

If you check this box, you will see a lot of options, including, number of copies.

[russ Boehle]

RE: Print Multiple Copies

I have to admit I never saw that. I guess I'm not too observant in my old age. Peter's actually works better for my needs as I have a table of defaults for each user where they can set the printer to use for certain reports based on the printers available on their local computer or the network. Once these are set, unless they change the printers defined on their local machine, the report will always print to the specified printer but it can be different for each user. The Action scripting dialog doesn't allow this.

How about for version V6 allowing the printer to be defined by a variable (or an expression) to allow for this usage? This would save some work.

Thanks for pointing this out to me, I'm sure I will use it now that I know about it.

Russ