Oracle Reports Printing Mechanism on UNIX and Windows

Printing on UNIX with Oracle Reports 10-5 uiprint.txt is the printer configuration file and Oracle Reports reads it when it creates the internal printer drivers. You should modify this file for each instance of Oracle Reports. The format of entries in uiprint.txt is: Printer:DriverType:DriverVersion:PrinterDescription:PrinterDescriptionFile: This one line entry, in prescribed format, in uiprint.txt defines a printer to be used by Oracle Reports. Each line contains five fields separated by colons. Table 10–1 describes each element of the uiprint.txt entry. Table 10–1 uiprint.txt Entry Elements Element Description Printer Specifies the name of the printer or printer queue, as used with the lpr or lp command. To get a list of all available printers, use the following command: lpstat -a To check the status of the printer, use the lpstat command: Solaris lpstat -p printername Linux lpstat -p printername HP-UX lpstat -d printername HP Tru64 lpstat -p printername IBM AIX lpstat -pprintername No space is allowed after -p on IBM AIX. DriverType Specifies the type of printer driver used for the printer. The driver can be PostScript, PCL, or ASCII. DriverVersion Specifies the version of the driver type that should be used. This can be 1 or 2 for PostScript printers, and PCL Version 5 for PCL. PrinterDescription Specifies the description of the printer, for example, the speed and the location of the printer. This information is used for display in the printer-related dialog box. 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