Installing a Printer on UNIX

10-6 Publishing Reports to the Web with Oracle Reports Services Usage Note: ■ All the fields in the uiprint.txt entry must be filled and every line must end with a colon. ■ At least one entry must be defined in uiprint.txt. Alternatively, you can set the related printer variables TK_PRINTER and PRINTER. Without these, Oracle Reports is unable to perform any printer-related task. The internal printer drivers provide a drawing surface for Oracle Reports. In addition to using this surface for printing, Oracle Reports uses it internally whenever output is generated to a file. Hence, you must have a valid entry in uiprint.txt or to set one of the printer-related environment variables. To simplify the selection of printers for your users, we recommended that you list all printers accessible to users in uiprint.txt. Example: Following are two example entries for uiprint.txt: colprt14:PostScript:2:RMSC Atrium HPLaserJet5:default.ppd: colprt15PCL:5:RMSC 1st Floor HPLaser4:ui4.hpd:

10.3.2 Environment Variables

This section lists the environment variables related to printing: PrinterDescriptionFile Specifies the printer description file to be used with the printer. It can be one of the following types: ■ When using a PostScript printer, this entry contains the name of a PPD file. PPD stands for PostScript Printer Description. If Oracle Reports cannot find the specified PPD file, it uses default.ppd. Oracle Reports searches for PPD files in the following locations serially: ■ ORACLE_ INSTANCEconfigFRCompo nentfrcommomguicommon tkadminPPD ■ ORACLE_ HOMEguicommontkadmin PPD ■ When using a PCL printer, this entry contains the name of an HPD file. If Oracle Reports cannot find the specified HPD file, it uses ui4.hpd. Oracle Reports searches for HPD files in: ORACLE_HOMEguicommontkadminHPD ■ When using an ASCII printer, this entry would be set to none. This field is ignored for all ASCII printers. See Also: Section 10.3.2, Environment Variables for more information on printer-related environment variables. Table 10–1 Cont. uiprint.txt Entry Elements Element Description Printing on UNIX with Oracle Reports 10-7 ■ TK_PRINTER PRINTER ■ TK_PRINTER ■ TK_PRINT_STATUS ■ REPORTS_NO_DUMMY_PRINTER ■ TK_HPD and ORACLE_HPD ■ TK_PPD and ORACLE_PPD ■ TK_TFM and ORACLE_TFM ■ TK_AFM and ORACLE_AFM

10.3.3 Print Property Dialog Boxes

On UNIX, Oracle Reports Builder provides several dialog boxes for printer-related operations.

10.3.3.1 Page Setup dialog box

The Page Setup dialog box enables you to specify how the printed page appears. The available options depend on the type of printer driver being used. The internal printer drivers use this dialog box to get all the information necessary, for example, scale, rotation, width, and height for formatting a page on a printer.

10.3.3.2 Print Job dialog box

Each print job has unique characteristics depending on the printer driver being used. The Print Job dialog box displays just prior to print job execution and prompts you for the print job information required to send the job to the printer.

10.4 Printer-Related Files

This section explains the different printing related files. It gives an overview of these files and also provides information for editing these files for common printing needs. ■ Overview of Files ■ PPD Files ■ HPD Files ■ Font Metrics Files ■ uifont.ali ■ uiprint.txt ■ Editing the Printer-Related Files

10.4.1 Overview of Files

Table 10–2 lists files used by Oracle Reports for printing on UNIX. See Also: Appendix B, Environment Variables for more information on the environment variables that can be set in Oracle Reports.