00282: How to print images via a non-Windows BBx

Title:

How to print images via a non-Windows BBx

Description:

To print an image from a non-windows version of BBx, you can either use a third-party package that offers this capability (via an scall), or save the file in a stand-alone PCL file. The first step in converting the graphic via the latter method is saving an existing image into a stand-alone PCL file. The PCL file contains not only the image, but size/positioning information and all the necessary printer PCL instruction codes to print the image. This is what makes the file stand-alone. One way to do this is to open up the file in a graphics package. When it’s loaded into the graphics package, you can print the image to a file rather than a printer. This is usually an option with Windows-based graphics packages. Once you have the PCL file, you can print the image by simply copying the file to the printer: 

DOS: copy pclfile lpt1: 
UNIX: lp pclfile 

The second step is to print the file from BBx. To do this, you can simply use an SCALL to a system command as in the examples above. Or, a better way would be to open the file in BBx, read through the file specifying a byte size, and writing the information out to the printer that is opened on another channel.

Last Modified: 03/31/1998 Product: PRO/5 Operating System: Unix DOS

BASIS structures five components of their technology into the BBx Generations.