Continue to Site

Welcome to MCAD Central

Join our MCAD Central community forums, the largest resource for MCAD (Mechanical Computer-Aided Design) professionals, including files, forums, jobs, articles, calendar, and more.

problem about function proprintexecute

softstone

New member
Hello all,

I have recently tried to use the printing functions of Pro/E, and have run
into some problems. Since the printer I am using is not a plotter, and
not one of the printers in the list of available printers (in the add
printer dialog), I have tried to use the MS print manager printer.
And now the problem comes... apparently, there is a problem with the
ProPrintExecute() function. If you wish to use one of the other printers
in the provided list, then all is fine, but when you choose the "MS
Printer Manager" printer (the default one), it doesn't work. There are
messages displayed in Pro-E that indicate all is going well, but nothing
actually gets sent to the printer. I have tried using other printers (in
hopes that one was compatable), but the closest I got was that it was
printing an additional blank page after every drawing.

At this point, I am using the following:
ProPrintPCFOptionsGet()
ProPrintExecute()
but, again this doesn't work for the MS Printer Manager.

I was hoping that someone may have a workaround (or a real solution) for
this problem. PTC knows of this problem, but has no advise to offer.

Possible solutions that I have tried, but do not know enough about, or
haven't implemented properly follow. Any comments/help would be
appreciated.

1. Load a macro to select the 'File->Print->OK' commands. The problem is
that the next dialog that appears is the MS print Manager one, and that is
not controlled from Pro/E. Is there anyway of pushing the OK button on
this dialog programmatically? If so, this would be the best solution, as
the default settings are what I want to use.

2. Somehow modify the info that is being sent to the printer. Possibly
eliminate the second page that is being printed. Note: the printer is an
HP Laserjet 5000N. This is probably not viable, but it is a thought
anyways.

3. Have Pro/E plot to a file instead of directly to the printer. Then
send the pliot to the printer. My problem with this solutions is 2-fold.
One, I am unclear as to how these plots are generated - i.e. is it printer
specific info etc. Two, how do I send the plot data to the printer? I
have tried the 'print' command from a DOS shell, but this just hangs (and
from what I can tell, it is only for text files).

4. Implement my own MS Print Manager class in C++ using the Microsoft
libraries. Is this even possible? How would I go about starting this, and
linking it to Pro/E?

Any help is much appreciated as I am at a real impass.

Thank you in advance,


Stone


[email protected]
 
We are plotting directly to an HP8150N. Make a plotter pcf file containing:
<UL>
<LI> plotter&nbsp ;&nbsp ; postscript</LI>
<LI>plotter_command windows_print_manager</LI>
<LI> paper_size&n bsp; B</LI>
<LI> rotate_plotting&nb sp; yes</LI>
<LI> pen_table_file&nbs p; laserjet8150n.pnt</LI>[/list]


laserjet8150.pnt: I have never attempted to take this out, not sure if it is necessary?
<UL>
<LI>pen 1 thickness .01 cm</LI>
<LI>pen 2 thickness .01 cm</LI>
<LI>pen 3 thickness .01 cm</LI>
<LI>pen 4 thickness .01 cm</LI>
<LI>pen 5 thickness .01 cm</LI>
<LI>pen 6 thickness .01 cm</LI>
<LI>pen 7 thickness .01 cm</LI>
<LI>pen 8 thickness .01 cm</LI>[/list]
 
Thanks for your reply, Donha


My idea is writing program to plot drawing file automatically just as proBacthPlot do.


Best regards,


Stone
 

Sponsor

Articles From 3DCAD World

Back
Top