Windows is really fun, mostly. But one of the things I miss about UNIX (or the IBM 1401) is the handy way it writes to a line printer. No sissy graphics, no obsequious “Page n of m” ( unless you want to write a lot of extra code), just thousands of sturdy fixed width lines of ASCII characters. Gayle Manufacturing Company (The GM in all the names and labels below) is the steel fabricating company I work for. Most of the routine reports we generate are in line printer format, nothing fancy – just the numbers. Did you ever wonder why there isn’t some easy way to simply iterate through your data and print a line at a time (nostalgic sigh)?? Maybe it’s just been too obvious and that’s why I missed it.
I’m immersed in a project that is a redesign of a system that presently runs on UNIX. Most of the reports are fine the way they are so I want a simple way to re-create them from Windows apps. I need a line printer!! I want printf() to go to ‘stdout’ so I can pipe it to ‘lp’. Is that so wrong? The idea is to loop throught the data in a query and print a line or two for each row of data with the odd total here and there.
Ah, well. Things have changed and there isn’t a line printer so I guess I had to make my own. I designed a COM class that acts sort of like a line printer. It’s written in VC++ 5 with MFC4.2, ATL and STL. Since it is a dual inteface COM component, it may be used from C++ or VBA. It makes it trivially easy to create line printer style reports and it runs under MTS. It is another example of a way to print without using a CView class. It compiles under UNICODE. The error checking is rather minimal and some of the code is probably BFI (Brute Force and Ignorance, but if I’m ignorant how can I tell?).
The COM Interface has the following methods
write(LINE_TYPE, BSTR text)// to send lines to the print arrays
reset(RESET_TYPE) //to clear the print arrays
print(PRINT_TYPE) //to format the print arrays onto the default printer
these properties
font_size ( GMP_FONT_CPI)//to set the fixed width font size(10, 12, 15 cpi)
orientation ( GMP_ORIENTATION) //portrait or landscape
title(BSTR) //prints on the lower right corner of each page (a company standard)
print_heading(bool)// set to false for really plain printing
page_breaks(bool) //if false don’t allow forced page breaks
punch_margin(double ) // Sets the width of the margin for 3 hole punching
and these enumerations
[helpstring(“enum line types”)]
typedef enum
{
GMP_LT_DEFAULT,
GMP_LT_HEAD,
GMP_LT_BODY,
GMP_LT_NEWPAGE
} LINE_TYPE;[helpstring(“enum reset types”)]
typedef enum
{
GMP_RS_NONE,
GMP_RS_HEAD,
GMP_RS_BODY,
GMP_RS_ALL
} RESET_TYPE;[helpstring(“enum print types”)]
typedef enum
{
GMP_DEFAULT,
GMP_PAGE_RANGE,
GMP_NO_PAGE_BREAK,
GMP_NO_HEADING
} PRINT_TYPE;[helpstring(“enum orientation”)]
typedef enum
{
GMP_PORTRAIT,
GMP_LANDSCAPE
} GMP_ORIENTATION;[helpstring(“enum font cpi selection”)]
typedef enum
{
GMP_FONT_10,
GMP_FONT_15,
GMP_FONT_12
} GMP_FONT_CPI;
It works like this Use the usual means of getting a pointer to an IGMPrintEZ instance. I like the #import method so
IGMPrintEZPtr p_prt;
HRESULT hr = p_prt.CreateInstance(__uuidof(GMPrintEZ));
The printer object starts out empty but just to be sure I can reset it
p_prt->reset(GMP_RS_ALL); // clears all the data from the arrays
Write the heading lines to the heading line table
// the text is a BSTR so use any means of providing one
BSTR text = SysAllocString(L”HeadingLine 1″);
CString str_blankline = “”;
p_prt->write(GMP_LT_HEAD, text);
// a blank line
p_prt->write(GMP_LT_HEAD, str_blankline.AllocSysString());
p_prt->write(GMP_LT_HEAD,
SysAllocString(L”Column 1 Column 2 Column3″));
You can write heading lines any time during the process. There is a separate array for the heading and the body lines. The driving program could write the heading lines AFTER processing all the body lines so that totals appear on each page heading. This opens a number of possibilities. In fact the title, orientation, and font can all be determined after the body lines have been written to the body line array, and set just prior to actually printing.
The other operation is to write the body lines
LINE_TYPE lt = GMP_LT_BODY;
while(! data.IsEOF())
{
CString data;
data.Format(“%25s %10d”, data.item, data.quantity);
p_prt->write(lt, data.AllocSysString());
data.MoveNext();
}
Before we print we set the title, the format to landscape and the font to 12 characters per inch
p_prt->title = _T(“Test Job”);
p_prt->orientation = GMP_LANDSCAPE;
p_prt->font_size = GMP_FONT_12;
And then we print
p_prt->print(GMP_DEFAULT);
The print object iterates through the BODY line array and prints a line for each entry in the array. The heading and footer are separated from the body by horizontal lines. The date and time print in the lower left, the page number in the center and the title in the lower right.
The main elements of the program are a pair of vectors ( vector
bool GMLinePrintpage_loop()
{
// loop thru the body lines and print to the page
try
{
CPrintDialog pd(FALSE);
DOCINFO di; // must have DOCINFO for CDCStartDoc(DOCINFO)
m_line = 0;
m_max_lines = 20;
m_last_body_line = m_max_lines;
m_line_height = LINEHEIGHT_10;// if the body lines don’t contain anything just return now
if(0 == body_lines->size())
return true;memset(di, 0, sizeof(DOCINFO)); // make a clean start
di.cbSize = sizeof(DOCINFO);
di.lpszDocName = m_title;// lazy way of getting the default printer
// just get all the printer defaults – no display
// so this COM object can run from MTSpd.GetDefaults();
DEVMODE *dm = pd.GetDevMode();
// set orientation
// print landscape or portrait?
dm->dmOrientation = m_orientation + 1;
// signify te presence of orientation data
dm->dmFields |= DM_ORIENTATION;// set punch margin
switch(m_orientation)
{
case GMP_PORTRAIT
m_top_offset = 0;
m_left_offset = INCH * m_punch_margin;
break;
case GMP_LANDSCAPE
m_top_offset = INCH * m_punch_margin;
m_left_offset = 0;
break;
}// create the printer device context by getting values from the
// printdialog and the dm structure
CDC dc;
if(! dc.CreateDC(pd.GetDriverName(), pd.GetDeviceName(),
pd.GetPortName(), dm))
{
AfxMessageBox(_T(“Can’t create DC in print_loop”));
return false;
}dc.StartDoc(
// obtain the page dimensions from the Device Context
m_page_height = dc.GetDeviceCaps(VERTSIZE) * MM_TO_INCH;
m_page_width = dc.GetDeviceCaps(HORZSIZE) * MM_TO_INCH;CFont *oldfont;
// select font and set line height
switch(m_font)
{
case GMP_FONT_12
oldfont = dc.SelectObject(C12);
m_line_height = LINEHEIGHT_12;
m_cpi = 12;
break;
case GMP_FONT_15
oldfont = dc.SelectObject(C15);
m_line_height = LINEHEIGHT_15;
m_cpi = 15;
break;
case GMP_FONT_10
default
oldfont = dc.SelectObject(C10);
m_line_height = LINEHEIGHT_10;
m_cpi = 10;
break;
}// compute the lines per page
m_max_lines = -(( m_page_height – m_top_offset) /
m_line_height);// compute the last body line
if(m_b_print_head)
{
m_last_body_line = m_max_lines – FOOTER_LINES –
head_lines->size() – HEADER_SEPARATOR;
}
else
{
m_last_body_line = m_max_lines;
}// the print loop
// I like to use the Standard Library collections when I can.
vectoriterator itext;
m_page = 0;
for(itext = body_lines->begin();
itext < body_lines->end();
++itext)
{
// look for a pagebreak
if(“@@FF” == itext->Left(4))
{
if(m_b_use_page_breaks)
{
m_line = 0;
dc.EndPage();
new_page(&dc);
}
// otherwise just ignore the page_break token
}
else
{
if (m_line >= m_last_body_line)
{
m_line = 0;
dc.EndPage();
}
if (m_line == 0)
new_page(&dc);dc.TextOut(
m_left_offset,
(m_line++ * m_line_height) – m_top_offset,
*itext
);
}}
dc.EndPage();
dc.EndDoc();
dc.DeleteDC();
return true;
}
catch(…)
{
return false;
}
}
There is no user interface to this object (that’s a feature!!) so there is no print preview or printer dialog. This makes it it possible to install this COM class on MTS and run the printer from a process on a remote system.
Download demo project – 36.8 Kb
