ii-printers-and-print-drivers-overview

Oracle Applications can print reports on any printer that can accept requests

from the operating system command line.  That is, if a document can be printed

from the operating system command line, the same print command or program can

be used in the Oracle Applications driver.

Nearly all printers employ either a hardware and/or a software method of

controlling printing attributes like paper size, paper orientation, font size,

vertical spacing, and so on.  However, most modern printers rely on a printer

programming language for initializing or changing printing attributes as needed.

Some laser printers use the Hewlett Packer Printer Command Language (PCL) to

initialize the printer or to setup certain printing attributes.  This printing

language typically consists of sequenced commands that are concatenated together

into a string and pre-appended to the ASCII text document before it is sent to

the printer. These initialization or setup strings are utilized in the Oracle

Applications printer driver for ASCII text report printing.  Postscript

printing, on the other hand, embeds printer control information within the

document. Some printers are equipped to perform both PCL and postscript

printing.

Printer drivers defined in Oracle Applications are used to initialize the

printer with pre-selected printing attributes and to specify which operating

system command or program will handle printing.  Unlike common file drivers,

the Oracle Applications Print Drivers are typically defined via forms and the

necessary printer dependent information is stored in the system’s database.  The

majority of reports in Oracle Applications call for one of three basic printer

drivers that specify a commonly used set of printing attributes.  The driver

names typically include the word Portrait, Landscape, and Landwide that

emphasize the paper orientation and size.

A SQL* Report Write (SRW) driver is associated with each Oracle Application

printer driver.  This driver is a printer definition file that is used with

Oracle Reports at runtime.  This file is an ASCII character file that can be

copied and edited as needed.  The Oracle Applications System Administrator’s

Guide sums up both drivers quite well: “SRW drivers only pertain to Oracle

Reports output files.  An SRW driver is used during the generation of a report.

A printer driver is used when the completed output file is sent to the printer.”

Oracle predefines a handful of generic print drivers and SRW driver for certain

popular printers.  However, outside of this initial set, a custom print driver

needs to be defined within Oracle Applications. The initialization or setup

string needs to be obtained from the printer’s manufacturer. Often, such

printer-specific information can be found in the printer’s technical reference

manual or user’s guide.

IV. ORACLE APPLICATIONS POSTSCRIPT PRINTING SETUP

Postscript printing in Oracle Applications requires: a registered postscript

printer, registered postscript RDF files, predefined Oracle Applications and

Oracle Report postscript drivers, defined system environment variables, and on

some platforms, an updated Oracle Reports printer configuration file

(uiprint.txt). The following steps are for all platforms; however, any operating

system (OS) specific instruction will be denoted by the platform’s name.

On a three-tier NCA configuration, the concurrent processing server typically

resides on the database tier. Nonetheless, the concurrent processing server can

alternately resides on the middle tier. In a mixed platform installation with

both Unix and Windows servers installed, the postscript printing setup and

testing should be performed on the platform where the concurrent processing

server resides.