Problem with labels to an Eltron Orion printer?

[IDEAL Software Support]

Hi There,

We are attempting to use VPE to print labels to an Eltron Orion
Thermal printer. It works well, to a certain point. To demonstrate,
this is the example code that should be drawing a box 2mm from all
edges of the label.

(The label is 1020 x 1280 (4inch by 5inch))

&& Document created etc

WITH document
.PageWidth = 1020
.PageHeight = 1280
.SetOutRect(0, 0, 1020, 1280)
.Box(20, 20, 1000, 1260)
ENDWITH

The box prints, but is cut off exactly at the 10cm mark of the label
ie,

+------------------+
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No bottom!

We believe this is not an issue with the printer driver - if I set up
that page size in Word, enter text all the way to the bottom and
print, the entire label is filled.

Is there some obscure setting I should be using? Any suggestions at
all welcome!

[IDEAL Software Support]

I already had explained once a while ago in this forum that a printer driver working with Word does not mean that the driver is bug free. In contrast: the printer driver manufacturers seem to think in the same way you did: they test their drivers with a couple of standard applications like Word, etc. and think they have done their homework.

From our experience, I can tell you that *many* printer drivers are buggy, i.e. are not conformant to the standard defined by Microsoft. This is also confirmed by Microsoft itself by the following note: "In practice, however, Dr. GUI has diagnosed plenty of ill printer drivers..."

To make long things short: If VPE clips off some part of the drawing while printing, it indicates that some values returned by the driver are not correct.

What version of VPE are you using? If >= v3.20, try PrintOptions = PRINT_ALL + PRINT_NO_AUTO_PAGE_DIMS

I'm curious if at least the physical page dimensions and the printable area are returned correctly. Please make a test and post the values for:

DevPhysPageWidth
DevPhysPageHeight
DevPrintableWidth
DevPrintableHeight
DevPrinterOffsetX
DevPrinterOffsetY

If you want, you can send a printer to our company's address and we will try to debug the problem. However, since this is most likely a problem of the printer-driver, we will charge our working time at our standard support fees, estimating a day (8 hours) of working time.

Regards
Thorsten Radde
IDEAL Software GmbH

[IDEAL Software Support]

I have to agree with Thorsten. I went through this with an Intermec
C4. The Intermec driver was very poor (although it worked with Word).
I eventually found a driver that was almost good (still needed some
work arounds on margins) from WWW.NICELABEL.COM

As I remember, Seagull Technologies seem to be the source of many
drivers for barcode printer manufacturers.

Len Doust
London UK

[IDEAL Software Support]

The values of the following

> DevPhysPageWidth
> DevPhysPageHeight
> DevPrintableWidth
> DevPrintableHeight
> DevPrinterOffsetX
> DevPrinterOffsetY

2100
2970
1980
2885
60
42

I will continue to investigate!

Bretto Callaghan

[IDEAL Software Support]

This indicates an A4 page as physical page dimensions. Do you have defined a form in Windows for the printer?`

Excerpt from our manual (help file):
Note: in order to make a printer accept the automatic selection of user defined page formats, it might be necessary to define a custom form of the desired page format (if this is required depends on the printer driver).
Example: with "Start Menu | Settings | Printers" the window with the installed printers will appear. Right-click on a blank area of the window and choose "Server Properties" from the pop-up menu. In the upcoming dialog, define a custom form of the desired dimensions. For example name it "Test" and set the width to 760 and height to 1280. In your source code, select the printer and the desired page format like this:
VPE.Device = "Epson LQ-550"
VPE.PageWidth = 760
VPE.PageHeight = 1280
That's it.

Regards
Thorsten Radde
IDEAL Software GmbH