Printing from different trays

[Brian K. White]

On 4/13/20 3:13 PM, WILLIAM LUCCA via Filepro-list wrote:
> I have a client who has a laser printer set up under 2 different windows name so that they can print to one tray or another (as an example, one windows printer name is "Lower Tray" and the other is "Upper Tray").  When I print a test page to each one, the proper tray is used, however when I print directly from Filepro it is only choosing the Lower Tray even when I direct the it to the printer named "Upper Tray" (I am using WIN:Upper Tray in the Filepro printer setup).  Any thoughts as to why it is happening or a solution?
> Bill LuccaOld Tappan Computer Consultants, Inc.
>

The only way the input bins are selected is by the PJL or PCL commands 
in the print job.
When windows prints something, Windows takes generic graphics data from 
the app and constructs the actual print job, including all printer, job, 
page control commands.

FP sends it's own printer reset and all other printer, job, page control 
commands. Even if Windows had sent the command to select the input bin, 
the very first few bytes of every filepro print job (if using any of the 
hplaser print code tables) is a printer reset which would clear that out.

You could rig this up a number of different ways, but here is one:

You could create a separate copy of the print code table in fp and 
change the init sequence to include the code to select the desired bin. 
That is essentially the same idea as what they have in their desktops, 
done inside of filepro. The code to select the paper source is "ESC & l 
# H" (escape ampersand lower-ell numerical-digit upper-H) where the # is 
anything from 0 to 39.

The way to determine the number is not as straight-forward as you wish.
See page 6  (pdf page 8)
http://h10032.www1.hp.com/ctg/Manual/bpl13205.pdf
You probably want "4", so "$1b & l 4 H"

Either add that to the end of code #3, or create a new code like #150,
150::$1b &  l 4 H:alt paper source

  and add "%150" to the end of #3

Another possibility is just add the new code 150 right in your normal 
hplaser.prt (or whatever table you're using), and add the code 150 to 
the F8-Option init sequence for any form that needs to come from that 
tray, assuming it's a case where a given form always needs that tray 
like for pre-printed forms or checks. This way you only have one print 
code table and only the forms that need it trigger the alternate tray.

And... you may have to test from 0 to 9 (the numbers go higher but 
realistically what you want is probably within 0-9 for most ordinary 
small printers), and don't just assume that the first code that pulls 
paper from the right tray is the right code, because 5 minutes after you 
leave it might not pull from that tray, if you used one of the codes 
that has a highly dynamic and relative definition. Those definitions 
from the pcl manual above are generic, but different printers often have 
different meanings for the different numbers. So you may need to hunt up 
docs specific to the actual printer model. It will be the same overall 
command, just the # part may be different. Maybe "2" actually means 
"tray 2" instead of "manual input" on your printer, etc. Point being 
actual testing by trial & error is actually not necessarily a good way 
to find out.

-- 
bkw