printing receipt on thermal printer

[bassmonster]

Hello All,
I’m very sorry if this has been asked many times. I have done a search but still no joy.

Basically, my company is using a system designed in access 97. Our receipts that we print out in the stores are on A4 paper. As you can imagine, this is quite a waste. I have now redesigned the layout of the report so that the receipts are printed on a thermal printer. The paper width is 80mm.
My problem is that, no matter how short the sales is, the length of the receipt is always the same with a lot of white space. However, if there is an extra item on the receipt, the report comes out as 2 pages with a cut in between. What i would like is the receipt to be the length in accordance with the number of items on the receipt.

I have changed the paper size in the printer preferences to 72mm x receipt and left the paper size in the report as A4. This setting allows me to print the receipt but with the white space mentioned above. However, when i change the report page size to 72mm x receipt and try to print, i get the follow error.


The OpenReport action was cancelled.
You used a method of the DoCmd object to carry out an action in Visual Basic, but then clicked on Cancel in the dialog box.
For example, you used the Close method to close a changed form, then clicked Cancel in the dialog box that asks if you want to save the changes you made to the form.


Any help would be much appreciated.

The printer is Star TSP100.

Thank you.

Zan.

 

[RuralGuy]

How about just sending data directly to the printer using the Print command rather than using a report? How does the printer attach to the PC? Com, USB?

 

[bassmonster]

Thank you for your reply.
The printer is attached via usb connection.

Also, how do i send the data data directly to the printer as you suggested?

 

[RuralGuy]

I went and opened my big mouth and I haven't done that in years. I'll need to do a bit of research first. You should be able to Open LPT1 for Write or something like that but I'll do some testing.

 

[bassmonster]

hehe...thank you RuralGuy.
Also, the thermal printer i'm using does not have LPT1 port...

 

[RuralGuy]

LPT1 is the logical 1st printer in the operating system. It is not an actual port.

 

[bassmonster]

ah yes..of course....

just rather frustrating that i've managed to get everything else working but what should have been the most easiest part is causing me problems... :-(

 

[RuralGuy]

What OS are you running and is this printer the default printer for this system?

 

[RuralGuy]

Here's an article that may be of some help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/154078

 

[bassmonster]

the operating system is windows xp proffessional.

i'm not in anyway a programmer so please excuse me for the silly question.

The link which you provided with the vb codes, do i add those codes in the form where i click on the button to print the receipt?

 

[RuralGuy]

Not exactly. I'll try and work on a wrapper for you. Does your personal experience go back to printing acsii data?

 

[bassmonster]

I'm afraid i've not got any experience in ascii data printing .

 

[bassmonster]

Hello again Ruralguy,


I have resolved the issue 99%. I just got rid of the entries in the page footer and header and inserted in the main body of the report. receipts are now printing accordingly.

I just want to say a huge thank for you time in replying.

 

[RuralGuy]

That's great! Thanks for posting back with your success.