The PC-SIG Library 10

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PRINTING CHAPTER 6 - PRINTING PRINT COMMAND _____________________________________________________________________ Edit Search >Print< Files Windows Utilities Quit Print Form Sheet Direct Codes Hardware Top _____________________________________________________________________ Press [P] in response to the Main Menu to issue any of the following commands: Print: Print a group of records. Form: Specify the format for printing records. Sheet: Define page length and margins. Specify how records are split at page boundaries. Direct: Send text or codes directly to the printer. Codes: Define the printer codes for underline and bold. Hardware: Select the printer port. Specify whether a carriage return and new line feed are sent to the printer at the end of each line. Specify whether the program pauses before printing a new page. Top: Set the printer to the top of a page. 71 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT COMMAND: PRINT MENU _____________________________________________________________________ >Print< Form Sheet Direct Codes Hardware Top Print records from a file _____________________________________________________________________ The Print Menu's Print Command is used to print a group of records to a printer, the screen or a file. The records are printed by record number and may be sorted alpha- betically. To print a group of records by a search key, use the Search Command. Press [P] to print. If more than one file is open, the program will ask you to select the file for printing. It will then ask for the range of records to print. Type the starting record number and press <Enter>. Then type the ending record number and press <Enter>. The program will then ask you: _____________________________________________________________________ From file FILENAME print records: Sort records? (Y/N) _____________________________________________________________________ If you press [N], the program will start printing the records in numerical sequence. If you pressed [Y] to sort the records, the program will begin to sort the records by the first line of text if there are no fields in the file. Otherwise, the program will display the names of the fields and ask for primary and secondary sort fields. If you want to sort by one field alone, just press <Enter> in response to the secondary field prompt. 72 PRINTING Aborting printing: To abort a printing session, press <Esc>. The program will ask you to confirm the command. Press [Y]. 73 3by5 Chapter 6 FORM COMMAND _____________________________________________________________________ Print >Form< Sheet Direct Codes Hardware Top Select print format _____________________________________________________________________ This command is used to specify a format for printing records. Formats for printing records are stored as standard 3by5 file records and are called PRINT FORMS. In response to the Print Command, press [F] for the Form Command. The program will ask you for the number of the file that contains the Print Form: ____________________________________________________________________ File: Enter number of file with Print Form. 0 = standard listing ____________________________________________________________________ Type the file number. The program will then ask for the number of the record that contains the Print Form you want to use. Type the record number and press <Enter>. The Print Form will be loaded into memory and any records printed will be printed in the format specified by that record. If you want to reset the program to the standard format for printing, type [0] <Enter>. Selecting a Print Form While Searching Alternatively, you may load a Print Form while searching. After the record is located, the Search Command Menu will be displayed at the bottom of the screen. Press [L] to load the record. 74 PRINTING STANDARD FORM The standard Print Format is to print one record after another. The record number is printed before the record, all fields are included and the record is followed by a blank line. There is a six line top margin with the name of the file on the second line and a six line bottom margin. For example: 75 3by5 Chapter 6 _____________________________________________________________________ A:\PROGRAMS.3X5 4 3by5 Starter Kit Softshell Corp. A good way to get started with free-text management systems. Features include five variable length fields per record, sort by any field and the 3by5 Reference Manager. 5 3by5 Softshell Corp. 3by5 is an information management program that offers speed, simplicity and versatility in entering, indexing and retrieving free-text and structured data. Up to 26 variable length fields per record are allowed. 6 3by5 Plus Softshell Corp. With the release of 3by5 Version 5.0, the features of 3by5 Plus have been incorporated into 3by5, and 3by5 Plus is no longer published. _____________________________________________________________________ 76 PRINTING Many other formats are possible. The formats are stored in standard 3by5 Print Form Files. These files have the extension "PFM". Your 3by5 master diskette has a file FORMS.PFM with sample Print Forms. The forms will be reviewed as an introduction to printing with 3by5. Once you load a Print Form into memory, you may close the file that contained the Print Form. Print Forms define the way in which text will be printed. Any text in the form will be printed. The "@" symbol is used as an instruction for printing specific information (e.g. fields, field names, file names, etc.) 77 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 1 _____________________________________________________________________ @A< _____________________________________________________________________ Record one of FORMS.PFM contains the simplest Print Form. It is designed for printing from a file with no fields or at most one field (e.g. file PROGRAMS.3X5). The "@A" on the first line indicates that the contents of field A will be printed. The field letter must be in upper case for the contents to be printed. In this case file PROGRAMS.3X5 has no fields and the entire record is considered to be field A. The "<" symbol indicates the carriage return mark that results from pressing the <Enter> key. If a field is longer than one line, the following lines of print will be adjusted downward. This Print Form will result in one record being printed after another. Assuming that the Sheet Command settings are unchanged, there will be a top margin of six blank lines and a bottom margin of six blank lines. No spaces will be printed between records. The results of using this FORM with file PROGRAMS.3X5 are shown on the next page. Note that there is a standard top margin of 6 lines and a standard bottom margin of 6 lines. Since no headers or footers were defined, there is no text in either the top or bottom margins. 78 PRINTING _____________________________________________________________________ 3by5 Starter Kit Softshell Corp. A good way to get started with free-text management systems. Features include ten variable length fields per record, sort by any field and the 3by5 Reference Manager. 3by5 Softshell Corp. 3by5 is an information management program that offers speed simplicity and versatility in entering, indexing and retrieving free-text and structured data. Up to 26 variable length fields per record are allowed. 3by5 Plus Softshell Corp. With the release of 3by5 Version 5.0, the features of 3by5 Plus have been incorporated into 3by5, and 3by5 Plus is no longer published. _____________________________________________________________________ 79 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 2 (Blank lines between records) _____________________________________________________________________ @A< < _____________________________________________________________________ Record two of FORMS.PFM contains a record format that is very similar to record one of FORMS.PFM. The only difference is that there is a carriage return on line two. This will result in a blank line being printed after each record. The results of using this FORM with file PROGRAMS.3X5 are shown on the next page. In this case the blank line with a carriage return in the form record causes a blank line to be printed between records. If there were two blank lines in the Print Form record, there would be two blank lines between records in the printout. 80 PRINTING _____________________________________________________________________ 3by5 Starter Kit Softshell Corp. A good way to get started with free-text management systems. Features include ten variable length fields per record, sort by any field and the 3by5 Reference Manager. 3by5 Softshell Corp. 3by5 is an information management program that offers speed, simplicity and versatility in entering, indexing and retrieving free-text and structured data. Up to 26 variable length fields per record are allowed. 3by5 Plus Softshell Corp. With the release of 3by5 Version 5.0, the features of 3by5 Plus have been incorporated into 3by5, and 3by5 Plus is no longer published. _____________________________________________________________________ 81 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 3 (Record numbers) _____________________________________________________________________ RECORD NUMBER: @# @A< < _____________________________________________________________________ Record three of FORMS.PFM contains a record format that is very similar to record two of FORMS.PFM. The only difference is that the first line contains the text "RECORD NUMBER:" and is followed by the symbol "@#". The text "RECORD NUMBER:" will be printed on the line before each reference and will be followed by the number of the record. The "@#" symbol can appear anywhere on a Print Form (except the header or footer). The results of using this FORM with file PROGRAMS.3X5 are shown on the next page. 82 PRINTING _____________________________________________________________________ RECORD NUMBER: 4 3by5 Starter Kit Softshell Corp. A good way to get started with free-text management systems. Features include ten variable length fields per record, sort by any field and the 3by5 Reference Manager. RECORD NUMBER: 5 3by5 Softshell Corp. 3by5 is an information management program that offers speed, simplicity and versatility in entering, indexing and retrieving free-text and structured data. Up to 26 variable length fields per record are allowed. RECORD NUMBER: 6 3by5 Plus Softshell Corp. With the release of 3by5 Version 5.0, the features of 3by5 Plus have been incorporated into 3by5, and 3by5 Plus is no longer published. _____________________________________________________________________ 83 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 4 (Headers) _____________________________________________________________________ @.< @.RECORDS FROM FILE: @*< @.< @.< @.< @.< REC# @#< @A< -------------------------------------------------------------------< _____________________________________________________________________ Record four of FORMS.PFM contains a record format that is similar to record three of FORMS.PFM. The differences are: Six header lines have been added. The symbol "@." at the start of a line indicates a header or footer. If the "@." symbol is at the top of a Print Form, it indicates a header. If it is at the bottom of a Print Form, it indicates a footer. The second line of the Print Form is a header line. It contains the text "RECORDS FROM FILE:", followed by the symbol "@*". The symbol "@*" indicates that the name of the file being printed should be included at that location. Line nine of the Print Form has a dashed line. It will separate records. The results of using this FORM with file PROGRAMS.3X5 are shown on the next page. A header may contain any text you want to print. It is not necessary to include all the lines of a header. If you do not specify the text for a header line, it will be printed as a blank line. 84 PRINTING _____________________________________________________________________ RECORDS FROM FILE: A:\PROGRAMS.3X5 REC# 4 3by5 Starter Kit Softshell Corp. A good way to get started with free-text management systems. Features include ten variable length fields per record, sort by any field and the 3by5 Reference Manager. ------------------------------------------------------------------- REC# 5 3by5 Softshell Corp. 3by5 is an information management program that offers speed, simplicity and versatility in entering, indexing and retrieving free-text and structured data. Up to 26 variable length fields per record are allowed. ------------------------------------------------------------------- REC# 6 3by5 Plus Softshell Corp. With the release of 3by5 Version 5.0, the features of 3by5 Plus have been incorporated into 3by5, and 3by5 Plus is no longer published. ------------------------------------------------------------------- _____________________________________________________________________ 85 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 5 (Headers and Footers) _____________________________________________________________________ @.< @.RECORDS FROM FILE: @*< @.< @.< @.< @.< @* REC# @# @A< -------------------------------------------------------------------< @.< @.***************************************************************** _____________________________________________________________________ Record five of FORMS.PFM contains a record format that is similar to record four of FORMS.PFM. The first two footer lines have been defined: the first footer line is blank and the second contains a row of asterisks. The results of using this Print Form with file PROGRAMS.3X5 are shown on the next page. As with a header, it is necessary to only define those lines of a footer that you want to contain text (or other characters such as the asterisks above). Note that in this example, the file name and record number are printed before each record. It is shown just to demonstrate that a file name can be placed anywhere within a record and anywhere on a page. The record number was intentionally moved to the right side of the page. 86 PRINTING _____________________________________________________________________ RECORDS FROM FILE A:\PROGRAMS.3X5 A:\PROGRAMS.3X5 REC# 4 3by5 Starter Kit Softshell Corp. A good way to get started with free-text management systems. Features include ten variable length fields per record, sort by any field and the 3by5 Reference Manager. ------------------------------------------------------------------- A:\PROGRAMS.3X5 REC# 5 3by5 Softshell Corp. 3by5 is an information management program that offers speed, simplicity and versatility in entering, indexing and retrieving free-text and structured data. Up to 26 variable length fields per record are allowed. ------------------------------------------------------------------- A:\PROGRAMS.3X5 REC# 6 3by5 Plus Softshell Corp. With the release of 3by5 Version 5.0, the features of 3by5 Plus have been incorporated into 3by5, and 3by5 Plus is no longer published. ------------------------------------------------------------------- ******************************************************************** _____________________________________________________________________ 87 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 6 (Multiple Fields) _____________________________________________________________________ @.< @.@*< @.< @.< @.< @.< @a @A REC# @#< @b @B< @c @C< < @d @D< < _____________________________________________________________________ Record 6 of FORMS.PFM is designed for use with file ADDRESS.3X5 of your 3by5 master diskette. ADDRESS.3X5 has four fields: A: Name field B: Address field C: Phone number(s) D: Comments In this example the name of the file will be printed in the second line of the top margin. The "@a" symbol indicates that the name of the A field should be printed, while the "@A" symbol indicates that the contents of the A field should be printed. If the "@" symbol is followed by a lower case letter, the name of a field is printed; if it is followed by an upper case letter, the contents of the field are printed. The single carriage return on line 10 causes a blank line to be printed between the telephone field and the comments field. If a field contains several lines, the following lines of print will be adjusted downward. 88 PRINTING Record six of FORMS.PFM has the following Sheet Command settings: Page Length: 66 Left margin: 11 Right margin: 76 Top Margin: 6 Bottom margin: 6 Conditional: 1 The Sheet Command settings were entered into the record by using the editor's Sheet Command function key <Shift-F8>. See page 32 for more information. The Conditional New Page value of 1 indicates that if there is at least one line of text at the bottom of a page (excluding the footer lines), the next record will be printed on the current page and continued, if necessary, on the following page. This minimizes the number of pages required to print a group of records, but may result in some records being split across page boundaries. If records 1 through 10 from file ADDRESS.3X5 are printed using this Print Form, record 6 will be split across page boundaries. Sheet Command settings entered into a Print Form using the editor will over-ride the default settings defined by the Print-Sheet Command. 89 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 7 (Conditional New Page) _____________________________________________________________________ @.< @.@*< @.< @.< @.< @.< @a @A REC# @#< @b @B< @c @C< < @d @D< < _____________________________________________________________________ Record 7 of FORMS.PFM is designed for use with file ADDRESS.3X5 of your 3by5 master diskette. It has the same format as record 6, except that it has the following Sheet Command settings: Page Length: 66 Left margin: 11 Right margin: 76 Top margin: 6 Bottom margin: 6 Conditional: 0 The Conditional New Page value of 0 indicates that if there must be enough room on a page for a record to be printed, or the program will skip to the next page and print the current record. This prevents records from being printed across page boundaries, but may result in wasted space at the bottom of each page. If records 1 through 10 from file ADDRESS.3X5 are printed using this Print Form, record 6 will be printed on a new page. 90 PRINTING PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 8 (Mailing labels) _____________________________________________________________________ @A< @B _____________________________________________________________________ Record 8 of FORMS.PFM is designed for use with file ADDRESS.3X5 of your 3by5 master diskette. It will print mailing labels containing the name and address fields. As noted in Example 6, ADDRESS.3X5 has four fields: A: Name field B: Address field (street, city, state, zip, etc.) C: Phone number(s) D: Comments Record 8 has the following Sheet Command parameters that were set while editing the record: Page length = 6 (assumes five lines per label and one in between) Left margin = 10 Right margin = 50 Top margin = 0 Bottom Margin = 0 Conditional = 6 (one record per label) The above settings will eliminate the printing of a header or footer (top and bottom margins = 0). Each label will be treated as a page (Conditional New Page = Page Length). See pages 32 and 96 for information on using the Sheet Command. The format of the record is simple. On line one the name of the person in field A will be printed. On line two, the address will begin. It may be up to 5 lines long. One record is printed per page (label). 91 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM: EXAMPLE 9 (Printing Person Fields) _____________________________________________________________________ Last_name, First_name: @A< First_name Last_name: @A1< First_name only: @A2< Last_name only: @A3< < _____________________________________________________________________ Record 9 of FORMS.PFM is designed for use with record 6 of file ADDRESS.3X5 of your 3by5 master diskette. Record 6 of ADDRESS.3X5 has the name Wilkins, Robert P. in the first field which is defined as a Person Field. The contents of a Person Field are usually entered: Last_name, First_name Middle_name or Middle_initial. If the field letter is not followed by a digit, the contents of the field are printed unchanged. If the field letter is followed by the digit 1, the contents of the field are printed First_name Middle_name or Middle_intitial Last_name. If the field letter is followed by the digit 2, only the first name is printed. If the field letter is followed by the digit 3, only the last name is printed. If Record 9 of FORMS.PFM is used as the Print Form for printing Record 6 of ADDRESS.3X5, the following record will be printed: _____________________________________________________________________ Last_name, First_name: Wilkins, Robert P. First_name Last_name: Robert P. Wilkins First_name only: Robert Last_name only: Wilkins _____________________________________________________________________ 92 PRINTING APPENDING FIELDS Sometimes you may want to append several fields together. For example, you may have a file with the following fields: A Last name B First name C Street address D City E State F ZIP Code You can append the last name and first name fields together to get one name. Similarly the City, State and Zip Code fields can be appended. The rule for appending fields is as follows: After the initial "@" symbol, there is a field letter. This is followed immediately by another "@" which may be followed by a character to be printed or by another field name. For example: @B@ @A will print the first name, a space, and the last name. @D@ @E@ @F will print the city, a space, the state, a space, and the ZIP Code. The ability to append fields has been added to 3by5 at the request of users who sort 3by5 records by ZIP Code or state and want to be able to print labels with the city, state and ZIP Code on one line. 93 3by5 Chapter 6 PRINT FORM CODES 3by5 used the "@' symbol to signify a Print Form command. The following codes may be used: @A designates that the contents for field A will be printed at the location of the "@" symbol. The field must be specified as an upper case letter (i.e. A - Z). @a designates that the name of the field will be printed at the location of the "@" (i.e. a - z). @# designates that the current record number will be printed at the location of the "@". The "#" symbol may be followed by a "-" sign to specify that the record number will be left justified. A "0" (zero) designates zero filling of any blank spaces. Finally, a digit from 1 to 9 may be used to specify the number of spaces in the record field. The rules are those used by the C language function printf(). @* The current file name will be printed @. The line is a header or footer @$ The sheet format control line was used in Version 4.0 Print Forms to set margins for printing. With the release of Version 5.0, Print Form margins are set using the Sheet Command while editing (see page 32). The sheet format control line created by earlier versions of 3by5 can still be read by 3by5 V5.0. This command can appear only as the first two characters of the first line. It must be followed by the page length, left margin, right, top margin, bottom margin, and Form Parameter (Y or N). For example: 94 PRINTING @$ 66 6 6 15 90 Y Each parameter is separated by one or more spaces. The order of the parameters is the same as that used by the Sheet Command. In the above example, the page length is set to 66, the top and bottom margins to 6 lines each, the left margin to column 15 and the right margin to column 90. The Form Parameter set to Y indicates that each record will be printed on a separate page. @= This symbol should appear at the end of a line. It indicates that the contents of the line are to be printed on the same line as the form line. The text will not be adjusted in an upward or downward direction. @- This symbol should appear at the end of a line. It indicates that the contents of the line should be moved up to the last printed line of text. \xxx A back slash followed by three digits is used to send a printer code. The value of the three digits is sent to the printer. For example, \027 is sent as 27 (the escape code). 95 3by5 Chapter 6 SHEET COMMAND _____________________________________________________________________ Print Form >Sheet< Direct Codes Hardware Top Set sheet margins, pause and form options _____________________________________________________________________ The Sheet Command is used to specify the number of lines per page, the left, right, top and bottom margins. It also specifies how records are split at page boudaries. Press [S] to specify the Sheet Command. The following screen will be displayed: _____________________________________________________________________ Page length: (0 - 66) 66 Left margin: (1 - 110) 11 Right margin: (11 - 120) 76 Top margin: (0 - 25) 6 Bottom margin: (0 - 25) 6 Conditional: (0 - 66) 1 <Esc> Cancel <F10> save _____________________________________________________________________ Page length is the length of the page in lines. A standard 8.5 x 11 inch page has 66 lines (6 lines per inch). A 3by5 card has 18 lines per page. Left Margin is the left margin for printing. Right Margin is the right margin for printing. Any attempt to print past the right margin results in a carriage return and new line feed. 96 PRINTING Top Margin is the number of lines the printer will leave at the top of a page before printing records. Bottom Margin is the number of lines the printer will leave at the bottom of the page. Conditional refers to Conditional New Page. It defines how the printer splits records at page boundaries. The Conditional New Page is the number of lines that must be present at the bottom of the page before the program will start printing a record. If the Conditional New Page is greater than or equal to the page length, each record is printed as a separate page. For printing 3x5 cards or large records the Page Length should be set to 18 lines and the Condition New Page set to 18. If you are printing references on standard 8.5 x 11 inch paper, most likely you will want to print several records on a page, in which case the Conditional New Page should be set between 0 and 6. If the Conditional New Page is set to 0 (zero) and there are not enough lines remaining on the current page to print the entire contents of the next record, the program will skip to the next page. Type in your new printer parameters and press enter after each value. You may use the Up and Down Arrow keys to move from one value to another. When you are finished, press <F10> to save the new values. Press <Esc> to cancel any values you have entered. 97 3by5 Chapter 6 DIRECT COMMAND _____________________________________________________________________ Print Form Sheet >Direct< Codes Hardware Top Type text or printer codes directly to printer _____________________________________________________________________ The Direct Command allows you to type a line of text and have it printed directly to the printer after you press <Enter>. Codes may be inserted by using a back slash followed by three decimal digits for the code. For example, the line \027\071<Enter> will send codes 27 and 71 to the printer and will turn on bold printing on an IBM or Epson dot matrix printer. Press <Esc> when you are finished sending text or codes directly to the printer. 98 PRINTING CODES COMMAND _____________________________________________________________________ Print Form Sheet Direct >Codes< Hardware Top Set printer codes for underline and bold _____________________________________________________________________ The Codes Command allows you to specify the printer codes for printing bold text and for underlining. 3by5 bold and underline commands are set for the IBM or Epson dot matrix printer. If you have another printer, you can specify the codes that will be sent to the printer for printing bold text and for underlining. Press [D] and the following prompt will appear: _____________________________________________________________________ Bold on: \027\071 Type command sequence and press <Enter>. _____________________________________________________________________ This is the command sequence to start bold printing on IBM and Epson dot matrix printers. You may type in any code sequence up to 20 characters in length. Each code character is formed by a "\" followed by three decimal digits. After you press <Enter>, the program will prompt you for the command sequence to stop bold printing: "Bold off: \027\072" You may type a new command sequence or press <Enter> to retain the current command sequence. After you press <Enter>, the program will prompt you for the command sequence to start underlining: "Underline on: \027\045\001" You may type a new command sequence or press <Enter> to retain the current command sequence. 99 3by5 Chapter 6 After you press <Enter>, the program will prompt you for the command sequence to stop underlining: "Underline off: \027\045\000" You may type a new command sequence or press <Enter> to retain the current command sequence. See your printer manual to determine the proper codes for bold printing and underlining. 100 PRINTING HARDWARE COMMAND _____________________________________________________________________ Print Form Sheet Direct Codes >Hardware< Top Set hardware parameters _____________________________________________________________________ The Printer Hardware Command is used to specify the printer port (0 - 3), whether a new line feed should be transmitted to the printer after each carriage return, and whether the printer should pause after each page. The default printer port is #1 and the default end of line is to send a carriage return and new line feed. Press [H] for the Hardware Command. The program will display the following: _____________________________________________________________________ Printer 1 New Line Feed Y Pause N Printer number (0=Screen 1=Printer 1 2=Printer 2 3=Print File _____________________________________________________________________ The default printer is number 1. If you want to direct printing to the screen, just type [0] and all printing will be directed to the screen. If you want to print to an ASCII print file, press [3]. The program will ask for the number of the open file to which printing will be directed. Select a non-3by5 file. The program will move to the New Line Feed prompt. If your printer performs a new line feed after each carriage return, type [N] in response to the New Line Feed prompt. The program will move to the Pause prompt. Press [Y] if you want the printer to pause after each page is printed. This will allow you to insert another sheet of paper. 101 3by5 Chapter 6 TOP COMMAND _____________________________________________________________________ Print Form Sheet Direct Codes Hardware >Top< Set printer to top of page _____________________________________________________________________ The Top Command is used to direct 3by5 that you are setting the printer to the top of a new page. It is used if the paper is not aligned properly, if you change paper while printing, or if you abort printing and want to start on a new page. Press [T] and the program will prompt you: _____________________________________________________________________ Set printer to top of page. Press <Enter> to continue. _____________________________________________________________________ Manually position the paper to the top of the page, and press <Enter>. 102 PRINTING This page reserved for notes. 103 3by5 Chapter 6 104