08-03-2022, 10:33 PM
(08-03-2022, 09:54 PM)OldMoses Wrote: I'm not experienced in the printer control codes as I never did any of that sort of stuff back in the QBasic days. With QB64 I predefine an appropriate size image, then use _PRINTIMAGE to send it to the printer once I've put what I want on it.
I defined a _NEWIMAGE(640, 900, 32) as being a good size and aspect ratio for an 8 1/2 x 11 page of text in the default font. It gave me 80 columns by 56 rows on the page. Then positioned my text with LOCATE & PRINT. It's a simple matter to do _PUTIMAGE stuff, or other graphics commands on the image the same way. I believe that _PRINTIMAGE is scaled to fit the page so if you define a different aspect ratio it will stretch things in unnatural ways.
If you go that route just remember that you have to set background colors for plain black text on white background in the images, or you'll end up with a soggy black sheet of paper.
Thanks for your reply. If _PRINTIMAGE involves setting up a "screen" that then gets sent to the printer, I don't think that would work. Some of the print output I use requires different fonts with changes in BOLD, Italic, grey shading, boxes, 132 columns of printed text, even a change in text orientation from portrait to landscape all on the same printed page.
I was able to accomplish that using LPRINT with the appropriate printer control codes.
A