Publishing Reports to the Web - Downloads - Oracle

5.7.2 PCL Printing Issues
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do fields that appear as gray on my PC print as white on a UNIX PCL
printer?
PCL color printing is not supported. When the pattern is set to transparent, PCL
printing uses the white pen (in PCL language) to draw. When the pattern is set to a
solid pattern, it uses the black pen. This behavior occurs irrespective of what color is
set for the foreground or background. PostScript printing logic is different. It uses the
foreground color set when the pattern is solid and the background color set when the
pattern is transparent.
What PCL level is supported in Oracle Reports?
The Oracle Reports PCL driver currently supports the features of PCL Level 3. It does
support HPD files for later PCL versions, but it will not honor the additional features
introduced since PCL Level 3.
5.7.3 PostScript Printing Issues
What is the work around for duplex printing on PostScript printers?
You should have a printer with a duplex option and an appropriate PPD file. The
example that follows was tested with a PPD file for the Kyocera FS-9000 printer. You
also need the UNIX sed tool named to filter the output file.
The problem with duplexing is that it is enabled at the job level, but it gets reset in the
page setup because the paper size and printer tray information are generated for every
page. To work around this problem, you need a script that removes the page level
setup information to avoid resetting the duplex setting. A side effect of this work
around is that you cannot switch the printer tray between pages.
1. Write a sed script with the following three lines:
/^%%BeginPageSetup/,$ {
/^%%BeginFeature/,/^%%EndFeature/d
}
2. Save the script to a file named duplexsed.
3. Copy duplexsed to an appropriate directory, such as ORACLE_HOME/bin.
4. Set the environment variable TK_PRINT as follows:
TK_PRINT="sed -f $ORACLE_HOME/bin/duplexsed | lpr -l -s -P'%n' -#'%c'"
export TK_PRINT
Note: Print commands differ for various kinds of UNIX. Check
your installation guide and man pages for your platform. Refer to
Environment Variables for a description of TK_PRINT.
The command stored in TK_PRINT is only executed if
DESTYPE=PRINTER. If DESTYPE=FILE, you still get a PostScript
file with page level setup information. You can run the duplexsed
script against the PostScript file to correct it.
What Postscript level is supported in Oracle Reports?
Oracle Reports supports PostScript Level 1 and 2.
Printing on UNIX with Oracle Reports 5-21