TECH TIP: Mirrored Margins for Duplex Output You can create mirrored margins for duplexed output by using the Report.OnStartPage event. As an example, try adding the following code to dm0061.pas in the main reports demo application: procedure Tfrm0061.ppOrderListStartPage(Sender: TObject); begin if (ppOrderList.AbsolutePageNo mod 2 > 0) then begin ppOrderList.Engine.Page.PrinterSetup.MarginLeft := 0.5; ppOrderList.Engine.Page.PrinterSetup.MarginRight := 0; end  Full Article…

TECH TIP: Troubleshooting problem such as “Initialization of the DLL WINNT\..\Drivers\..\HPBFDF0.DLL failed.” This error only occurs when an application is run from within Delphi with the Integrated Debugging option turned on. It is an issue that exists between the Delphi debugger and the HP driver. The solution is to add the directory of the printer driver DLL’s  Full Article…

Question “How do I print my report to the printer and a file device (PDF, Text, etc.) at the same time?” Solution Use the TppReport.OnPrintDialogClose event to create the file device and assign its Publisher and PageRequest property to the report’s. Download: PrintToPrinterAndArchive.zip PrinterToPrinterAndPDF.zip PrintToPrinterAndTextFile.zip Sample Delphi code: uses ppPDFDevice; procedure TForm1.ppReport1PrintDialogClose(Sender: TObject); begin //Create  Full Article…

Question “How do I print my report backwards from last page to first?” Solution Start by caching the pages to memory.  Next rearrange the pages as you need by manually starting and ending the print job using the TppDevice.StartJob and TppDevice.EndJob routines. Download: PrintReportBackwards.zip Sample Delphi code: var liIndex: Integer; lDevice: TppDevice; lPrinterDevice: TppPrinterDevice; lPage:  Full Article…

Question “How can I get the printer’s default settings, such as the paper name?” Solution The Printer.DefaultPrinterSetup property provides access to the printer’s default settings. Here is an example that iterates over the installed printers and populates a list box with the printer name and default paper name. Download: DefaultPrinterSetup.zip Sample Delphi code: uses ppPrintr;  Full Article…

Question “How can I configure the printer’s proprietary settings, such as the print quality, stapler, color, etc?” Solution Use the Report.PrinterSetup.DeviceSettings property to configure a Printer’s proprietary features (print quality, color, stapler, etc.). At design-time, use the Report Designer’s Object Inspector to select the PrinterSetup.DeviceSettings property. Next, press the Edit… button to display the Printer’s built-in  Full Article…

TECH TIP: Printed Paper and Exact Object Positioning ReportBuilder is designed to position objects exactly on the page. The issue is that the printer drivers often have bugs and the printer hardware itself can introduce inaccuracies. When you define a report in ReportBuilder you define the paper size and margins. The report layout contains objects  Full Article…

ReportBuilder renders to the printer using the Delphi TCanvas class and via calls to Windows GDI functions. Use the TppPrinter.SendEscape() routine to manually send ESC commands to the printer. See the ppPCL.pas file and the TppPCL topic in the ReportBuilder help for more information about controlling the printer with ESC calls.

TECH TIP: Detecting Whether Report Was Printed to the Printer The Report.AfterPrint event can be used to determine whether the report was printed to the printer (rather than preview, …). Example: procedure TForm1.ppReport1AfterPrint(Sender: TObject); begin if (ppReport1.PrinterDevice <> nil) then ShowMessage('Report was printed to the printer'); end; Note: If the user cancels the report while it  Full Article…

TECH TIP: Detecting Whether PrintDialog’s Cancel Button Was Selected When the print dialog is displayed to the user, you can determine whether the Cancel button was selected by using the  Report.OnPrintDialogClose event. Example: procedure TForm1.ppReport1PrintDialogClose(Sender: TObject); begin if ppReport1.PrintDialog.ModalResult = mrCancel then ShowMessage('Use chose to cancel the print request'); end;  

TECH TIP: Printing Copies By default ReportBuilder processes requests to print copies internally, by sending multiple copies of each page to the printer. Some printers have the ability to receive a page and generate the copies on their own. This can speed performance, particularly on slower printers. The following example shows how to delegate the  Full Article…

Modify the RBuilder\Demos\EndUser\ReportExplorer example to do this as shown below: {—————————————————————————} { TmyEndUserSolution.LoadEndEvent } procedure TmyEndUserSolution.LoadEndEvent(Sender: TObject); begin ppReport1.OnPreviewFormCreate := PreviewFormCreateEvent; ppReport1.OnPrintDialogCreate := PrintDialogCreateEvent; end; {procedure, LoadEndEvent} {—————————————————————————} { TmyEndUserSolution.PrintDialogCreateEvent } procedure TmyEndUserSolution.PrintDialogCreateEvent(Sender: TObject); begin ppReport1.PrintDialog.AllowPrintToFile := True; ppReport1.PrintDialog.TextFileName := 'c:\myReport.txt'; ppReport1.PrintDialog.DeviceType := dtReportTextFile; end;    

TECH TIP: Windows Default Printer Settings Default Printer Name You can get the name of the computers default printer by accessing ReportBuilder’s global printer list object – ppPrinters. uses ppPrintr; var lsPrinterName: String begin lsPrintername := ppPrinters.DefaultPrinterName; end; Default Printer Setup Place the following code in the OnClick event-handler of a button on a form.  Full Article…

TECH TIP: Custom Paper Sizes on Windows Windoes XP/2000/NT have a completely different printing architecture from Win 9x. This is particularly apparent when it comes to custom paper sizes. Window XP handles paper sizes via Forms that are defined at the operating system level. Open the Windows printer panel Select File | Server Properties. The  Full Article…

TECH TIP: Troubleshooting Custom Paper Sizes Some printers cannot handle custom paper sizes, or they can only handle custom paper sizes within a limited range of values. Troubleshooting Tips: To test paper sizes you can run demo 121 in the main reports demo app. This demo displays a printer settings dialog and is very useful  Full Article…

TECH TIP: Controlling the Printer The PrinterSetup Class You can control which printer is selected for a report and its associated properties at either design-time or run-time. You can also do things like print to two different printers at once or have a report that consists of multiple section type subreports with each section going  Full Article…

TECH TIP: Selecting Paper Bins for Each Page Sometimes you may want to print the first page of a report to the manual bin and then print the remaining pages to the default bin. You can use the Report.OnStartPage event to set the bin for any page. Example: procedure TForm1.ppReport1OnStartPageEvent(Sender:TObject); var lsBinName: String; begin if  Full Article…

TECH TIP: Printing to Continuous Paper Layout For continuous printing (for example a receipt) use Title/Summary and removing the Header/Footer. Set the PrintHeight of each to phDynamic. Layout the DetailBand to print a single line item. Set the margins to 0 or to the smallest that the printer driver will support (some printers have an unprintable  Full Article…

The exception ‘Canvas does not allow drawing’ is a Delphi exception that is raised when an application cannot get a valid handle to a Canvas associated with a bitmap, screen, or printer.   Trouble Shooting Memory/Resource LeaksWe recommend running the application using a tool, such as FastMM, or AQTime, that can check for memory/resource leaks.  Full Article…