How to stop auto from-feed on a dot matrix printer for printing only a single line of data at a frequency of 30 seconds

[tanweer59]

Hello friends

In a particular application, it is required to print a single line of data on a dot matrix printer (continuous sheets) at a frequency of 30 seconds. That is printing is to be carried out line-by-line on the same form without a form feed.

We are facing a problem of a form feed after printing of each line. Kindly help me to solve this problem of auto form-feed. How to continuously print at a regular interval without from-feeding.

Shahid Baig

[smercurio_fc]

A dot-matrix printer? Wow. That is old.

How are you printing to the printer?

[RavensFan]

Is this printer connected to a network?

You may need to look at the printer manual to see if there is a setting for a form feed.  I remember when we had a dot matrix printer on the network about 12 years ago, there would be a network timeout setting of something like 30 seconds.  So if you didn't continue to send data, the network will end the print job and send the file to the printer which would auto form feed at the end.  Many of our basic programs had to be rewritten because they would do an LPRINT periodically, if you took along time progressing through the inputs, you would easily hit the 30 second timeout.  So all the programs had to be rewritten to save the data to be printed to a file, and only once you execute a print command, it would read the file back in and Lprint it (or a Print#1) to the LPT port.

Since the printer was on the network, and basic could only print to LPT's, we had to use a net command to capture the LPT1 port and direct it to the network queue.

I don't remember all the details, but those are the bits and pieces I do remember.  I think the answer to your problem lies in there somewhere.

Namely:

1.  Printer setting to auto form feed.

2.  Network setting that closes print job after timeout period.

[tanweer59]

I am using LbaView 8.5. Is laserjet a solution? How?

[tanweer59]

I am using the function "PrintReport.Vi" in LabView environment. My question is how to Line print without form feed in LabView environment? Is the solution possible with laserjet printer? If yes, how?

[RavensFan]

What are you trying to do?  Do you want to get a piece of paper slowly spooling out of a machine like in the old days of strip chart recorders or a stock tape ticker?

Or do you want a document that has a line by line listing of data?

If it is the former, a laserjet certainly won't help since they basically print a page of data at a time.  A dot matrix printer would, but you'd have to get the printer settings and possibly print driver settings right.  Since you are using the print report.VI, you are basically using a Windows printer driver.  You'd have to look there for those kinds of settings, and I wouldn't hold my breath hoping to find anything useful.

Assuming you want a document that lists the data line by line, you will just need to write your program so that you accumulate your data in a shift register and only send it to the printer once you've accumulated enough data to fill the page.  That will depend on the size of the font, margin settings, and the size of your paper.  So you may have to experiment to find out how much data you need to collect.  You may want to look in the example finder under Printing and Publishing such as Text Report Example.VI