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Printer settings and fonts
For the database to work properly, you must always select a printer. Use the PRINTER button in the FileSetup form. If your computer is not connected to a printer, you should install one anyway. The installed
printer must also be connected to a printer port - even if you use a network printer.
For the different printouts, the database uses font files with filename extension .PAR. These files should
be kept in the database directory. You change or create new font files from the File-Setup menu by pressing
the PRINTER FONTS button. You come to a form where fonts and some other parameters can be
specified. You can use the OPEN FILE button for opening another font file. To save a font file to another
name - first change the font list filename at the top and then press SAVE FILE.
The LEFT MARGIN and ROWS PER INCH settings apply to printing of text files. The left margin is
specified in millimeters and you can choose 6 or 8 lines per inch. The ^1 STANDARD font is used for
printing text files. If it is a rather small font, 8 lines/inch is appropriate, else 6 lines.
The five yellow buttons with ^1 .. ^5 is used to select different fonts:
^1 STANDARD
Standard font for printing text files. Not used in printed forms, unless it is specified
with ^1. It is recommended that the standard font gives a fixed number of characters
per inch (fix font), so that it will print also space-tabulated data in nice columns.
^2 HEADLINES
Font for printing headers with larger letters. Here it is all right to use a proportional
font, but it should not be print less than about 10 characters per inch
^3 12 CHR/IN
Use a fix font that prints12 characters per inch. This is the default font for printing
field cards, labels, analysis forms, job lists, diaries and result forms. If a fixed font is
not used here, texts in these lists can sometimes be structured with ^T (tab) function.
However this takes time and doesn’t work an all kinds of lists.
^4 17 CHR/IN
Use a fix font that prints 16.5 - 17 characters per inch. It is used for condensed print
of diaries and result forms (but can be used in other lists by calling ^4)
^5 BARCODES
If you don’t wish to print bar codes, leave this font empty. Otherwise you must use a
font that has a density of 8-10 character per inch. The program is designed to print
alpha-numeric data as bar codes. Examples of bar code types that allows this are:
Code 3of9, Code 93 and Code 128. Mark the box ”*text*” to automatically print
asterisks around the bar code (Code 3of9 requires this as start/stop markers). You
can also enter an ASCII code for printing space as bar codes (if other than 32).
In Windows, you cannot always see if a font is fix or proportional. For example, Times New Roman is
proportional (size 14 is good for font no. 2 above) and Courier New is fix. The size 10 corresponds to 12
chr./inch for fix fonts, size 7 or 8 to 17 chr./inch. The mentioned fonts comes with the Windows installation
and are True Type fonts. They should look the same on the screen as on the printed paper. It can often
speed up the printing of forms if in-built printer forms are used, for example Line Printer (17 chr./inch) on HP
printers. OCR fonts may be an alternative to barcode printing in some cases.
When printing all other things than text files, Superbase creates temporary printing forms. Besides selecting
the fonts above, you can also set a relative page length and offset. The normal page length is A4 with some
7-10 mm top, right and low paper margins. By entering a value of less or more than 100 in the PAGE
LENGTH field the form length will be adjusted to the given percentage of the normal A4 length. Entering a
negative or positive number in the OFFSET field will move the printed forms to the left or right (normally
with the number of millimeters entered). This is needed, because the database in a few cases doesn’t fully
comply with the installed Windows printer drivers.
Remember to save your font file before leaving the font setup form with the CLOSE button.
Picture/multimedia files: The program can handle the following file formats. However there are always
differences in file formats so it is possible that some types cannot be read even if they ought to:
.AVI
.BMP
.CGM
.DRW
.DXF
.EPS
.FIF
.GIF
.IMG
.JPG
Video for Windows file (sound)
Windows bitmap-file
Computer Graphics Metafile
Micrografx Drawing file
AutoCAD file
Encapsulated PostScript
Fractal Image Format
Graphics Interchange Format
GEM image file
JPEG image
.MDI
.PCD
.PCT
.PCX
.TGA
.TIF
.WAV
.WMF
.WPG
MIDI - Musical Instrument Digital Interface
Kodak Photo CD Image
Macintosh Picture file
PC Paintbrush
Truevision TARGA file
Tagged Image file
Waveform file (sound)
Windows Metafile
WordPerfect graphics file