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03.26.2008 at 04:21AM PDT, ID: 23269954
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Creating a form on a laser printer using Unix C
Tags: Unix C
I have a need to create several different forms on various laser printers/office hubs, and, of course, fill in the blanks on the forms.  These forms will have vertical and horozontal lines, and different font points, although the actual font can be something with fixed spacing like courier, or one of the variable spacing fonts.  I would rather just fill in a pre-existing form, but my users are justifiably more interested in just pressing the magic button without having to worry about loading a specific form.

I assume that, when windows does this, that it uses some sort of standard PDL.  Is this true?  Is there a way for me, a mere mortal, to, in real time, accomplish the same thing with a Unix print job.  I don't have a 100 man hours to devote to this!  I am well versed in Unix, Unix C, and printing in Unix, but have absolutely no idea how to proceed, and have never explored PDLs.  
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Question Stats
Zone: Programming
Question Asked By: rickatseasoft
Solution Provided By: fridom
Participating Experts: 3
Solution Grade: A
Views: 0
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03.26.2008 at 07:09AM PDT, ID: 21211750

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03.27.2008 at 11:14PM PDT, ID: 21228345

Rank: Master

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03.28.2008 at 05:12AM PDT, ID: 21229612

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03.28.2008 at 07:31AM PDT, ID: 21230736

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03.30.2008 at 11:05PM PDT, ID: 21243403

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03.26.2008 at 07:09AM PDT, ID: 21211750
What exactly do you mean by "form"?
Do you want to have some sort of template (form) with some fields to receive
data -- but you only want to send the data to your printer so the form with it's
fields filled with this data will get output on your printer?
 
03.27.2008 at 11:14PM PDT, ID: 21228345

Rank: Master

Hm, why not write some code which emits PDF? There are a lot of libraries out there which would allow that

Regards
Friedrich
 
03.28.2008 at 05:12AM PDT, ID: 21229612
You should be able to whip up a program that takes the input data and outputs the printed form - do that with any language you like.  Then modify the printer script to pass the data through your program before actually printing.  Here's some info on the Sys V print scripts:
http://aplawrence.com/Unixart/printing.html

I have done things like this using awk as the filter, although I was not doing it to lay out the print but to manipulate the data.  A very simple script would look like:

#!/bin/bash
shift;shift;shift;shift;shift
cat $*  | /usr/locsl/bin/YOUR_PROGRAM


YOUR_PROGRAM would take the input stream and wrap it with the form.  The output of YOUR_PROGRAM should send to stdout and would then get sent to the printer via the print script.
 
03.28.2008 at 07:31AM PDT, ID: 21230736
As I mentioned in my original question. there will be lines that are both vertical ad horozontal that will make rectangles into which I will place data entered by the user.  As these forms go to a govt agency, there is little, if any, room for creativity.  If the original form specified by the govt has a rectangular box with, for instance "Last Name" in 6 pt font, and the specification requires that the actual last name be printed in 12pt font, then I will have to create this rectangle, and print in both 6 and 12 pt font in the same box.

I have no problem with gathering, processing, or printing the data, I am stymied by the requirement that I draw the lines on a laser.  I have done some limited graphics on dot matrix type printers, but lasers seem to work differently, and I have absolutely no knowledge of the process.  Printing to lasers, changing fonts, etc. is easy, I just have no background in graphics on lasers.

The PDF idea is intriguing.  Do you know of a library that works in SCO Unix.  In the mean time, I'll see if google offers any options.

Thanks, Rick
 
03.30.2008 at 11:05PM PDT, ID: 21243403

Rank: Master

Well the standard of printing on Unices still is Postscript for one library see e.g here
http://pslib.sourceforge.net/

or maybe

http://library.gnome.org/devel/libgnomeprint/stable/libgnomeprint.html

There exists a lot of librariesf for writing in other languages also e.g in Ruby
and advise for doing so:
http://rorblog.techcfl.com/2007/11/20/easy-pdf-generation-with-ruby-rails-and-htmldoc/
http://wiki.rubyonrails.org/rails/pages/HowtoGeneratePDFs

for common lisp
http://www.cliki.net/CL-PDF

Regards
Friedrich
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