Re: Issuing a print command

[davidf(at)dfanning.com (David Fanning)]

Ian Dean (ian.d.dean@baesystems.com) writes:

> I have an array of text that I want hard copy output of. At the moment,
> the user can select a pull-down menu "Save" and the dialog_pickfile
> opens a file to write to. The user can then use other utilities to
> print/view this file.
> However, the user has asked for a "Print" pull-down menu option that
> will send the text to the currently setup printer.
> To achieve this, I write the text to a temporary file, close the file,
> then issue DEVICE,/PRINT_FILE  = 'fname.typ'. This only works partially.
> The output is no longer correctly formatted.

I'm not surprised by this, although I've never tried it.
IDL is a graphics-centric product and I wouldn't have
expected it to do text output very well.

In the past, when I have needed PostScript "reports"
(which in this case was some kind of graphic with a lot
of supporting text), I have been forced to use XYOUTS
to actually write the text into a PostScript file.
The output is always suburb, of course, but the pain
is in the enormous up-front amount of work you have
to do to get the page laid out properly. 

Cheers,

David

-- 
David Fanning, Ph.D.
Fanning Software Consulting
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