One of the most common, perhaps the most common, complaint about printing to a windows printer driver from microstation is the lack of control over paper sizes. Whereas a bentley printer driver allows you to define as many paper sizes as you need, and only those you need, with the names and dimensions you want, the windows printer driver requires you to use only those paper sizes published by the printer driver. Some do not support custom paper sizes, and publish a long list of sizes obtained from the operating system's forms database. Most of those sizes you do not care about, and the ones you do use are not conveniently named.

Dissertation Verlegen

Other printer drivers provide a more concise list of paper sizes, and some do support custom dimensions, but the paper size names and the procedures for defining custom sizes are rarely consistent from one printer driver to another. In microstation 8.9.3, a printer driver configuration file editor was introduced that included a user interface for defining paper sizes in a.pltcfg file. This paper size editor was available for both bentley and windows printer driver configurations, leading to the mistaken impression that microstation had begun offering the same level of support for custom paper sizes in printer.pltcfg as was available in, say, hpglrtl.pltcfg.

This is not true, and the purpose of this article is to describe the intended purpose of printer.pltcfg paper size definitions.

paper size filtering and renaming

the primary purpose of paper size definitions in a windows printer driver configuration file is to filter and rename the list of paper sizes provided by the windows driver. For example, consider the paper size list published by a typical windows laser printer driver: follow the procedure below to set the machine using the control panel when loading custom size paper onto the bypass tray. The following procedures are not required if you select driver/command from bypass tray setting priority in system of printer features see system . If you select machine settings from bypass tray setting priority in system of printer features see system , the settings made using the control panel have priority over the printer driver settings. If the printer driver is not used, select machine settings from bypass tray setting priority in system of printer features see system .

Enter the vertical size of the paper using the number keys, and then press the key. Enter the horizontal size of the paper using the number keys, and then press the key. User defined paper sizes can be specific to a single print server and are typically customized for a specific application. If a printer can handle customized paper sizes, vendors must use the printer's gpd file to specify the acceptable range of sizes.

Two methods are provided for describing acceptable size ranges for customized paper: you can specify size ranges explicitly. To use this method, your gpd file's papersize feature must include an option entry with a customsize argument. This entry must contain the following option attributes: minsize maxsize maxprintablewidth minleftmargin topmargin bottommargin centerprintable? cursororigin command you can use these gpd entries to create customized paper size descriptions only for printers having the following characteristics: the printer supports commands to explicitly select customized paper sizes typically by moving the cursor origin. The cursor origin remains fixed, relative to the upper left hand corner of the paper, for all customized paper sizes. This is typically not true for landscape mode printing, or for printers that are center fed or right hand fed.

If the paper width is less than the sum of the values specified for minleftmargin and maxprintablewidth. Command parameters specified in command entries can be calculated at print time if standard variable expressions are used, typically including the physpaperlength and physpaperwidth variables. These variables represent the actual paper size requested for the print job, as specified by an application.