Re: Printing In Columns?
On Thursday 03 January 2002 12:10 am, you wrote:
>
> Hi All,
> I want to print data in columns using a proportional font as I think
> this looks much better. To do this I would need to 1st specify the font
> and size, then determine the length of a line on the printer then divide
> this by the number of columns and also a gutter measurement and then
> trim the data to fit in the column. Finally working out where to print
> the 2nd or 3rd column etc.
>
> Can anyone help with this? I know it would be easier with
> non-proportional font but as always I want my cake and to eat it too.
>
> Any Ideas?
>
You can expand the printPage() function in my printer.e file (posted to RDS
a few days ago) to do what you want, with one caveat: you will never get
columns of numbers to look right if they are printed in a proportional font.
Other than that, just change the 0 in the line below to whatever x location
you want to begin printing the line.
setPenPos(Printer, 0, posY) -- locate to beginning of next line
wPuts(Printer,doc[1]) -- print the first line
doc = doc[2..length(doc)] -- remove the printed line
posY += fontY -- add the font height to the current position
I might modify the routine to expect a sequence of strings:
{"Tony Steward","Programmer","tony at locksdownunder.com"}
rather than a single string, and set up an array of "tab stops" to
hold the origin of each column.
As an alternative, I might just append a tab character, and parse the
line based on that character:
"Tony Steward/tProgrammer/ttony at locksdownunder.com"
Whenever I hit a '/t', I'd change the 0 to whatever the next tab stop was set
for. strtok.e would be useful here.
If you want to get really fancy, you could pass both X and Y coordinates, and
stick text anywhere on the page you want - in any font style. If you get to
this point, you're doing page layouts, not reports, so the printer.e file
wouldn't be much use.
Regards,
Irv
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