Glad you got it working!

The last thing I would do would be to put a note in the "Comment" field of the printer definition to the effect of, "Although this is an Epson LQ-2180, the LQ-1070 driver must be used - do not change". Otherwise an enterprising NetAdmin or service person will update the driver to the "correct" one some day.

Simply relying on people to remember this, or documenting it in a paper or electronic document somewhere typically isn't good enough.

>I finally got everything working!
>
>First, I ran single sheet continuous feed paper through the clients printer (LQ-2170) and everything printed as it should.
>
>They switched to another printer, an LQ-2180, and we ran the multi-part forms and the position held perfectly, but....this printer driver didn't like the size of the detail band....so, I added another printer and assigned it as an LQ-1070 (the one I use for development)and the second problem went away with the change of drivers.
>
>So, I had a worn out tractor feed and a printer driver that apparently was not compatible with mine.
>
>Thanks again for your help.
>
>Dale S.
>
>>Hmm, that would be frustrating - having it work in test but not in production. But at least it's working in 1 place - here's what I would do:
>>
>>- go through all the property pages for that particular printer on your XP machine and print screen captures
>>- make sure you have the same version of the printer driver available at the client site
>>- make sure the client's printer emulation is as expected - check DIP switches if applicable
>>- if they're printing something really thick (like a 7-part form) that could make a slight difference to the effective length of the form. Did you test with the same thickness of form that they're using?
>>- whether it's a different Epson model or not, create a new printer definition on their machine (e.g. "Epson Lx-xxx (Bills)") for that printer and install the same driver as you're using on your machine, with the same property sheet settings as you captured earlier. Unless the Epson models are radically different they are probably compatible at the driver level
>>
>>Assuming you can go through all these steps, it *should* work at the client site.
>>
>>One other "left field" idea if nothing else works - try running the program in "compatibility mode" (e.g. Windows 98) instead of XP mode. This is just a SWAG based on the fact that at my client's site the report runs perfectly on W95 but not on W2K.
>>
>>Good luck.
>>
>>>Al,
>>>
>>>It looks like I jumped the gun on my earlier message:(
>>>
>>>I tested it this weekend on my XP Pro with Epson LQ-1070+ printer and it worked fine....but, I just got back from the client after scratching my head for four hours. It did not work on their computer (XP Pro with Epson Printer).
>>>
>>>I triple checked everything and made changes to the form, deleting the expr and tag fields but it would still creep about a 1/16 " every form.
>>>
>>>I'm about as frustrated as I've ever been. There doesn't seem to be any logic as to what's happening. Besides, about 3 thousand bills have to be printed by this weekend.
>>>
>>>If push comes to shove, I guess I could write a program using @ Says :( This was always something I could count on working consistantly.
>>>
>>>Dale
>>>
>>>>>Al,
>>>>>
>>>>>I know this is a year old thread, but I was wondering if you ever got a solution that worked, because I've been having a similar problem.
>>>>>
>>>>>Mine is also a 7" form. In searching the archives, I found one of Sergies responses where he says the paper size in the Expr field of the .frx should be 256 for a custom form. I checked mine and it had a different number so I changed it to 256 and ran the form...it came out perfect.
>>>>>
>>>>>My question is why would the number be wrong in the first place if when I initially designed the form, I had the custom form selected as the default?
>>>>>
>>>>>Anyone got any ideas?
>>>>
>>>>No, I never did get this issue fixed. I'll have to give this a try next time they want to run that particular report. Thanks.
>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>>I'm printing to a custom form 7" long using an Okidata ML520 printer in IBM mode. These are continuous, tractor-fed forms. I've set up a custom form length in the print server for this printer. When I print the report, everything works fine except the form length is very slightly off. If the form length is set to 7.00 inches it seems to print about 7.006 inches, so the print goes slightly lower each form until it's completely out of whack. If I set the form length to 6.99 inches, the printing goes slightly higher each form until it's out of whack again. For some reason this printer refuses to print a form exactly 7.00 inches long (measured).
>>>>>>
>>>>>>I tried switching to metric measurements for finer control (0.01cm vs. 0.01") but that didn't work. Form length of 17.78 cm is too long, 17.77 cm is too short.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Default measurement system for this computer is US (imperial) units.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>The computer being used replaced a former W95 box, where the exact same report to the exact same physical printer printed correctly.
>>>>>>
>>>>>>Ideas, anyone?