RPM's Text Queue - Format Text Output

Text printing is one of the features that sets RPM Remote Print Manager apart from all other LPD products. RPM's ability to handle many text formats intelligently, while providing a simple interface, has been a key reason for administrators and other IT professionals to make the switch from their existing print server to RPM.

Filter Queue | Raw Queue

Printer

RPM lets you print to any Windows printer available to the PC; text printing goes one step further by using the printer settings you select.

For instance, open a queue and select the printer, then the orientation (Landscape or Portrait) and the paper size (e.g. Letter or A4). Save these settings and RPM will use them whenever it prints to this queue.

Margins

RPM provides the tools to set page margins, using metric and US units, points and picas. RPM also retrieves the actual printer margins and adjusts as needed.

For instance, certain HP printers have a 0.667 inch margin. Given the default text margin of 0.5 inches, RPM automatically adjusts the printed margins, font scaling, line placement, and wrapping as needed.

Banner Page

The LPD specification states that a banner page prints by default and that the print client must suppress it; however, this is not practical in many situations, so RPM supports an option not to print the banner page.

Blank Pages

By default, RPM will not print any page that contains only white space (non-printing characters). This has proved to be a significant cost savings to many of our customers.

Fonts

RPM allows the user to select any font supported by the designated printer; however, if the user specifies a non-ASCII code page, then RPM will limit the choice of fonts, if that code page uses a special character set.

RPM also gives you fine control over the font size. You can:

• Select the font and size using the Windows font dialog
• Specify the lines per inch or the lines per page (within the top and bottom margins)
• Specify the characters per inch or line length (between the left and right margins)

This makes it very easy to print if you know the number of lines or columns. Just tell RPM how many lines and/or columns to use, and let it do the rest!

Lines

RPM can wrap or truncate lines, using either the margins or the line length.

Bold & Overstrike

RPM recognizes the backspace character (Ctrl+H) as a command to overprint. RPM also recognizes line segments, which end in-line feed or form feed, using carriage return as a command to return to the left margin. This format is used by many legacy systems such as mainframes and AS/400s.