>It's oki dotmatrix ub printer. We may want to print lots of forms at once. We have already defined report that works in DOS. Are you saying we may want to replicate its output with ??? or SAY commands?
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>I think I am. I thought from your description that that is what you are doing. I never used the DOS CREATE REPORT. I rarely use the GUI version either. The slewed (or @SAY) printing is fast for big jobs. First you don't have to create an output cursor - you can code SELECT myFile.DBF and SEEKS inline. You can control for font size changes in line, etc. You can vary line spacing at the page level. MORE CONTROL.
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>You get a lot more control with @SAY. With the report writer you have to consider whats best for the report engine rather that whats best for the project.
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>I have not seen shops that print thousands of checks or invoices a day use Report Writer engines for their output. The ones I have worked with use @SAY.
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>The best performance always comes from those core xBase features and only take a moment or so to write. The RW type reports are tedious to develop and slow out of the gate. I thought it was common knowledge that continuous output to pre-printed forms was always faster and better with @SAY.
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>I am not saying to switch. I am only saying that projects I have worked (and others I have talked too) that output to pre-printed forms usually use low-level output functions.

That may be a good alternative for us. Who also agrees that this is a good approach?