topic Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape in Operating System - OpenVMS

Truncating long print lines in landscape

simonr36555 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:01:45 GMT

I'm printing a text report with embedded PCL commands from a "super mini" computer (DEC VAX emulation) to a LJ 4050 printer. I've shrunk the text down to 16 cpi and it still won't fit on the line. Based on what I've read, I should be able to fit 160 characters on a line, and I'm trying to fit 137. It gets truncated at 132, no matter what I do.

I've included a small sample of the file with codes and a ruler.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape

Kenneth Chan_2 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:25:06 GMT

The first thing that strikes me is the top line is being printed and not being interpreted as PCL - could this be the issue?

The "box" with 001B I would suggest should be 1B (the ASCII escape character) without the preceding 00.

If you want to attach your PCL output here, I can analyse it for you - when attching a file on this form use a file extension of .txt

Ken

Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape

Kenneth Chan_2 — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 19:49:39 GMT

Apolgies, I should have read your post more carefully - the first line is deliberately there to show your PCL.

Don't have time rigt now but I'll try and construct something simple tomorrow that prints 160 charcters - I have access to a 4050 so I'll be able to test it too.

Sorry,

Ken

Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape

Kenneth Chan_2 — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 15:02:01 GMT

I checked your file example.txt on a LJ4050 connected to a linux system and it prints properly ie it does NOT truncate at 132.

I'm beginning to think that the problem may be connected to the VAX print manager/spooler - perhaps it has some line size limitation. I say this because many many years ago, we used to run VMS on a VAX and I recall that the DEC VT100 terminals had a normal screen size of 80 columns but could also run at 132 columns, could this be related?

Although your PCL code prints, I think you should add the escE sequence at the beginning and very end of the file.

I re-iterate, apart from adding escE in the appropriate places, your PCL code is OK.

Regards,

Ken

Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape

simonr36555 — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 21:41:17 GMT

The device is set to a length of 255 characters, so line length shouldn't be a problem (however, my typing is another thing).

Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape

Steven Schweda — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 12:03:35 GMT

Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape

Mark Hurcombe — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 02:41:47 GMT

It may be the form that is being used. If you're just using the standard form (default), it will have /truncate set and probably a /width=132. Set it to /notruncate.

You can use show queue/form/full to display the forms.

Also, show queue/full queue_name

where queue_name is the name of the print queue you're using

Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape

simonr36555 — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:39:44 GMT

Here is the information you requested.

ALTA::> sho que/fu crlaser
Terminal queue CRLASER, idle, on ALTA::LTA64:, mounted form DEFAULT
/AUTOSTART_ON=(ALTA::LTA64:,SNOOPY::LTA64:) /BASE_PRIORITY=4
/DEFAULT=(FORM=DEFAULT) Lowercase /OWNER=[SYSTEM] /PROCESSOR=LATSYM
/PROTECTION=(S:M,O:D,G:R,W:S) /RETAIN

Terminal LTA64:, device type RZ59, is online, allocated, record-oriented device,
    carriage control, device is spooled through an intermediate device.

    Error count                    0    Operations completed              37358
    Owner process      "SYMBIONT_10"    Owner UIC                      [SYSTEM]
    Owner process ID        20400422    Dev Prot    S:RWPL,O:RWPL,G:RWPL,W:RWPL
    Reference count                1    Default buffer size                 255

ALTA::> sho term lta64
Terminal: _LTA64:     Device_Type: Unknown       Owner: SYMBIONT_10
                                              Username: SYSTEM

   Input:    9600     LFfill: 0      Width: 255      Parity: None
   Output:   9600     CRfill: 0      Page:   66

Terminal Characteristics:
   Passall            Echo               Type_ahead         No Escape
   No Hostsync        TTsync             Lowercase          No Tab
   No Wrap            Hardcopy           No Remote          Eightbit
   No Broadcast       No Readsync        Form               Fulldup
   No Modem           No Local_echo      No Autobaud        No Hangup
   No Brdcstmbx       No DMA             No Altypeahd       Set_speed
   No Commsync        No Line Editing    Overstrike editing No Fallback
   No Dialup          No Secure server   Disconnect         Pasthru
   No Syspassword     No SIXEL Graphics No Soft Characters No Printer Port
   Numeric Keypad     No ANSI_CRT        No Regis           No Block_mode
   No Advanced_video No Edit_mode       No DEC_CRT         No DEC_CRT2
   No DEC_CRT3        No DEC_CRT4        No DEC_CRT5        No Ansi_Color
   VMS Style Input

Device spooled to _ALTA$DUA7:

As you can see, buffer size is set to maximum, which far exceeds the line length that I'm sending.

Thank you again for spending the time and effort in trying to find a resolution to this perplexing problem.

Re: Truncating long print lines in landscape

Duncan Morris — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:28:20 GMT

Check that form definition as advised by Mark!

On a typical system here:

$ sh que/form/fu default

Form name                            Number   Description
---------                            ------   -----------
DEFAULT                                   0   System-defined default
    /LENGTH=66 /MARGIN=(BOTTOM=6) /STOCK=DEFAULT /TRUNCATE /WIDTH=132

Duncan