Chapter 3
- Printfil configuration
Printfil configuration
is stored in the PRINTFIL.INI
file.
It is usually managed by the Printfil configuration
dialog (right clicking the trayed icon), but, if you
want, you can also edit it with a simple text editor.
Please note that in the second case Printfil has to be
restarted to activate the changes.
At Printfil startup,
the PRINTFIL.INI file will be searched in the current
path. If not found, it will be searched in the Windows
installation directory (usually C:\WINDOWS or C:\WINNT).
Optionally,
a second ASCII file (FILENAME.CFG)
can be created to store specific information, which can
differ from print job to print job.
This file is optional, but it's very useful to have a
deeper control over certain jobs. For example, you can
use it to send a job to a specific printer instead of
sending it to the default selected one, or you can set
specific margins for a particular print job. If you want
to use it, it has to be created manually (usually by the
same application that creates the file to print).
PRINTFIL.INI
All the configuration
setting are included in the [Config] section. For
example:
| C:\WINDOWS\PRINTFIL.INI
[Config]
FileName=F:\Spool\FileName.txt
Font=Courier New
|
Here is
the meaning of its entries:
FileName
This is the name of the ASCII file(s)
to print. That file can be created directly by the source program or by
Printfil itself, when capturing a LPT port, as described on Chapter 7
of this manual.
This field can contain wildcards
(? , *) to check for multiple files simultaneously,
and an optional path (i.e. F:\SPOOL\FILE*.TXT).
It can contain environment
variables also, to check for multiple files
and/or directories simultaneously. (for example, [e:HOMEPATH]\filename.txt
, which is the default value when Printfil in
installed on NT-based Windows systems (NT, 2000, XP, 2003, Vista), makes Printfil
checking, for example, c:\document and
settings\Administrator\filename.txt or c:\document
and settings\user\filename.txt, depending by
which user is currently running Printfil)
Environment variables must be included in brackets
and start with e:. For example: c:\dir\[e:ENV_VAR]\file.ext
Filename cannot have
the extension .CFG .
Therefore, if you want to use the optional cfg file
(please see below in this chapter), wildcard
"*" cannot be used in the file extension (file*.txt
is acceptable, but file.* is not because in
the second case Printfil would try to print the
optional file.cfg also, while it's used for
the configuration)
Capture ( LPT1: ,
LPT2: .. LPT9:)
If you want to
automatically capture the output sent to a parallel
port, you can insert the port name here.
This feature on older Windows systems requires the creation of the "Printfil"
virtual printer into the Windows Control Panel, as
described on Chapter 7: "Capturing the parallel
port's output"
CapMode ( 0 , 1 , 2 ,
3 )
If Printfil is
running on a 32 bit Windows system (NT, 2000, XP,
2003, Vista), you can capture the output sent to a parallel
port in 4 different modes. For more information
please see chapter 7: "Capturing the parallel
port's output"
On Windows 9x/ME
only the 1 value is
allowed.
Printer
This is the name
(not the port) of the Windows printer to use without
user intervention if Choose=.F. (see below)
Choose ( .T. =
true , .F. = false )
If set to true, when
PRINTFIL detects a file to print, it ask the user for
the desired printer.
The user can also modify the standard printer
properties (copies, form size etc.).
RAW ( .T. = true
, .F. = false = GDI)
This option enables
RAW printing vs. GDI mode.
When printing in RAW
mode, the source print job will be sent to the
choosen printer AS IS, without going through the
Windows printer driver and without making any change
to the embedded escape sequences. This allow very
fast printing to dot-matrix printers (like
in the DOS days, even if the printer is USB),
printing jobs containing graphical printer
commands (graphs, drawings etc.) and sending
particular escape sequences to special printers
(cut labels, open cash drawers etc.)
In RAW mode, the job
must be already formatted with the right control
codes for the destination printer. All printers can
be used, including USB ones, but GDI printers
(printers that do not accept an input RAW file) and
virtual printers like FaxModems (WinFax etc.) and PDF
writers (Acrobat Distiller etc.)
If set to .T. all
the next settings in this chapter will be disabled,
but Timer.
Preview ( .T. =
true , .F. = false )
If set to true, the
preview window will be shown before printing the
file.
PrevZoom ( .T. =
true , .F. = false )
If
set to true, when opening the preview window the page will be shown
already zoomed. If it's = .F. print preview will show the entire
page on screen.
Font
This is the name of
a font installed on your Windows system.
There is no need to
set the size of the font because it is automatically
resized to fit the entire page (see below).
NOTE:
Theoretically you can use any font on your PC, but if
your report was designed to run on a dot-matrix
printer, you should use a fixed-width font (like
Courier New or Lucida Console), or your columns will
not align properly.
Color
This is the RGB
decimal number of the text color. By default Black
(RGB 0,0,0 = decimal 0) will be set.
To calculate the RGB decimal number you can use the
following formula:
RED
x 256 ^ 0 + GREEN x 256 ^ 1 + BLUE
x 256 ^ 2
For
example:
BLACK=RGB 0,0,0 = 0 x 256^0 + 0 x 256^1 + 0
x 256^2 = 0
RED=RGB 255,0,0 = 255 x 256^0 + 0 x 256^1 +
0 x 256^2 = 255
GREEN=RGB 0,255,0 = 0 x 256^0 + 255 x 256^1
+ 0 x 256^2 = 65280
WHITE=RGB 255,255,255 = 255 x 256^0 + 255 x
256^1 + 255 x 256^2 = 16777215
AnsiConv ( .T. =
true = Ansi , .F. = false = OEM )
This setting tells
PRINTFIL if it has to do OEM or ANSI conversion to
the font Character Map. OEM conversion is
particularly useful if you want to print boxes or
other special characters using a PC8 font like the a
You can download
this font from http://www.printfil.com/eextra.htm
Timer
This number is used
to set the number of seconds PRINTFIL must wait to
check if a file to print is present. It's not good to
set too small a value because PRINTFIL could start
printing a file that your application hasn't finished
generating. Usually 2 seconds is a sufficient time to
reach the end of the file without annoying the user.
Note that if your software performs long actions
during the generation of the file (for instance, long
select times over a very large database), your print
file could pause for more than 2 seconds and PRINTFIL
could start printing too soon. In this case you could
even print to a temporary file, then, when the job if
finished, you could copy the temporary file on the
final one.
This timer does not
have to be set as long as the print job creation, but
as long as the longest pause during the source
printing process.
UM
Unit of Measure -
Centimeters or Inches - CM or IN
Top , Left , Right ,
Bottom
These are the margin
settings (in the chosen U.M.)
Please note that is
not a good idea to set some margins to zero, because
normally all the printers need a minimum margin on
each sheet's side to take it (hardware).
Rows
Number of rows per
page. A page will be break at the specified amount of
rows or whenever a Form Feed character is encountered
inside the print job (see Chapter 5: Control Codes).
The font will be
autofitted to the page. The height of the selected
font will be set according to the height of the
paper, as set in the printer properties.
CutRows
This parameter tells
Printfil how many rows it has to "cut"
after each page. It could be useful if your original
application was printing an additional band after
each page, but you want only the main page to be
interpreted by Printfil.
For example, if your
source app. is printing to 16" sheets (96
lines), where the first 12" (72 lines) are
containing an Invoice and the remaining 4" (24
lines) are used for a separate band, you can set this
Rows=72 and CutRows=24 to obtain only the Invoices
printed on A4 sheets, without having to modify the
source application.
A "Form
Feed" control code into the ascii file will
cause to stop the line-counting for this section and
to start a new section/page.
For more information see Chapter 5: "Control
Codes"
Columns
This is the maximum
number of columns in the print job (i.e. the length
of the longest line in the file). PRINTFIL will
autofit the font changing its width according to the
width of the paper indicated in the printer
properties.
If there are more
characters in a row than the given value, the
exceeding characters will be ignored.
If you set this
parameter to 0 (zero), PRINTFIL will use the maximum
value found in the first page to print.
AutoLand
In this field you
can set the number of characters per row that
PRINTFIL will use to automatically set the page
orientation to Landscape.
For instance, if it
is set to 100, an 80-column file will be printed in
Portrait, while a 132 column file (the typical
compressed A4 in DOS, or the normal A3), will be
printed in Landscape.
If it is set to 0
(zero), PRINTFIL will not do the auto-orientation.
However the user can set the preferred orientation
using the Windows printer dialog box (if Choose=.T.).
FILENAME.CFG
This file is optional.
It's usually created by your application with the file to
print, but you can also create it with NotePad. This is a
simple ascii file, without .ini format
Without this file, or
some rows in it, PRINTFIL will use default values.
The FILENAME is the same
as the file which Printfil is currently printing,
including path. The extension must be .CFG.
For example, if in PRINTFIL.INI
FileName=C:\Spool\file*.txt, and Printfil is currently
printing file0001.txt, then this file must be named
C:\Spool\file0001.cfg
It can have 13 rows:
1) PRINT NAME
This is a
description that will be displayed on the title of
the preview window (if it exists) and in the list of
pending spooler processes.
The default value is
"Preview" (in your local language)
2) NUMBER OF ROWS |
CUTROWS
If present, this
setting overrides the Rows setting
in the Printfil.ini file.
Optionally you can
set a second parameter, separated by a
"pipe" ("|" , ascii 124) to
override also the CutRows setting in
the Printfil.ini file
For example, if your
source app. is printing to 16" sheets (96
lines), where the first 12" (72 lines) are
containing an Invoice and the remaining 4" (24
lines) are used for a separate band, you can set this
row in the CFG file as:
72
| 24
to obtain only the
Invoices printed on A4 sheets, without having to
modify the source application.
3) NUMBER OF COLUMNS
If present, this
setting overrides the Columns
setting in the Printfil.ini file.
If you insert 0
(zero) in this row, PRINTFIL will use the maximum
value found in the first page to print, independently
by the value stored in the Printfil.ini file
4) BACKGROUND FILE
This is the name of
a graphics background file to be included on every
page of the print job.
If the file is .BMP,
you can also add some parameters to control its
dimensions and position on the pages. See Chapter 6.
5) NUMBER OF COPIES
This is the number
of copies of the document PRINTFIL will print.
If it’s not
specified, the default value is 1.
If the Choose=.T. in
PRINTFIL.INI (or in the 8th row in this file, see
below), the number of copies PRINTFIL will print is
the number specified in the printer setup dialog.
6) PAGE MARGINS
This row can
contains the margin settings and the U.M. used (Unit
of Measure - Centimeters or Inches), separated by
commas, as follows:
U.M.,
Top, Left, Bottom, Right
If the row is
present this margins will be applyed to the current
print-job only.
If the entire
row is not present, PRINTFIL will use the default
margins (set on PRINTFIL.INI)
If only some values
are not specified, PRINTFIL assume them to be 0
(zero). For example: CM,1,0,2,0 and CM,1,,2
are equals.
Please note that is
not a good idea to set some margins to zero, because
normally all the printers need a minimum margin on
each sheet's side to take it (hardware).
7) PRINTER
This is the name of
the Windows printer to use to send this print-job
only.
This works only
if Printfil is configured to not ask the user for the
desired printer ( Choose=.F. - in PRINTFIL.INI or 8th
line in this file )
If the row is not
present, or it contains an invalid name, PRINTFIL
will use the default printer set on PRINTFIL.INI
8) CHOOSE PRINTER
If present, this
setting overrides the Choose setting
in the Printfil.ini file. See above.
9) PREVIEW
If present, this
setting overrides the Preview
setting in the Printfil.ini file. See above.
10) NUMBER OF CHARS
TO AUTOMATICALLY SET THE ORIENTATION IN LANDSCAPE
If present, this
setting overrides the AutoLand
setting in the Printfil.ini file. See above.
If you want a single
print job to be surely Portrait you can set this
value to 9999. If you want it surely Landscape you
can set this row to 1. Setting it to 150 means that
if the job is 150 columns wide, it will be Portrait,
while if it's wider, it will be automatically
Landscape oriented.
11) RAW
If present, this
setting overrides the RAW setting in
the Printfil.ini file. See above.
It's usually used in
combination with the row 7 to send complex jobs to
dedicated printers or to print very fast to
dot-matrix printers.
12) E-MAIL
If present, this raw
is used to send the print job via e-mail in PDF
format. Please see Chapter 10.
It can contains
4 values, separated by "pipes"
("|" , ascii 124)
Show
| e-mail | Subject |
Body
Show
= .T. (true)
or .F. (false) - Whether to show the
e-mail message to the user before being sent. If it's
.T. and the user don't click the Send
button, the message will be closed without being
sent.
e-mail
= Destination address. If not provided, Show
is always assumed as .T. , so that
the end user can insert it before sending the e-mail.
Subject
= Mail subject.
Body =
Mail body. It can be a simple text or a file name
(with optional path) containing the text. If a file
name is specified, and the file exists, then it's
content will be used as mail body.
Either the subject
or the Body will be converted in Ansi / Oem format,
depending by the AnsiConv setting in
Printfil.ini
Please note that
even though setting this row simply as .F.
is sufficient to tell Printfil the PDF file should be
sent by e-mail, if you want to send it without
user intervention, you have at least to
specify it as .F.|user@domain.com ,
otherwise the e-mail message will be shown on screen.
Even
thought now this raw is used only when Printfil is
set to print to its own virtual printer, don't insert
it if you don't want to send the job via e-mail
because in future Printfil versions it may be used in
other cases also.
EXAMPLES
.T.
- After the job will be printed as a PDF file, an
e-mail message will be automatically shown to the
user. The user can complete the message and send it
or not.
.F.|user@domain.com
- After the job will be printed as a PDF file, it
will be automatically sent to user@domain.com without
user intervention
.F.|user@domain.com|My
Subject|My Body - After the job will be
printed as a PDF file, it will be automatically sent
to user@domain.com without user intervention, with
subject "My Subject" and body "My
Body"
.T.|user@domain.com|My
Subject|C:\Path\MyBodyText.txt - After the
job will be printed as a PDF file, it will be shown
to the user, who has then to choose whether to send
it or not. The message is already filled with the
destination address user@domain.com, subject "My
Subject" and the content of the
C:\Path\MyBodyText.txt file as body.
13) PDF FILE NAME |
OPEN
If you are creating
a PDF file without user intervention through
the "Printfil" virtual printer (Please see
Chapter 9), you can insert the destination file name
in this row, with an optional path and extension.
If the PDF is
created succesfully, you can also choose to
automatically open it by using the standard PDF
reader (for example Acrobat Reader)
- If you don't
specify a path, the PDF file will be created
in the current directory
- If you don't
specify an extension, .PDF will be added to
the specified file name
- If you'll
specify an extension different than .PDF, it
will be changed to .PDF
- If you don't
specify nothing, the PDF file will be named
as the corresponding TXT file, with .PDF
extension
For example: If the spool file name is
c:\spool\printfil.txt , then the
corresponding PDF file will be created as
c:\spool\printfil.pdf
After the file name
you can optionally insert a parameter (.T. or .F.),
separated by a "pipe" ("|" ,
ascii 124), to open the newly created PDF file by
using the standard PDF reader.
EXAMPLES
c:\spool\MyFile
- The PDF file will be named c:\spool\MyFile.pdf,
independently by the name of the ascii spool file.
c:\spool\MyFile.pdf|.F.
- Same as above.
c:\spool\MyFile.pdf|.T.
- After creating the c:\spool\MyFile.pdf file, it
will be automatically opened by using the standard
PDF reader.
|.T.
- The PDF file will be named as the corresponding TXT
file, with PDF extension. After creating the PDF
file, it will be automatically opened by using the
standard PDF reader.
|
