>Hi, anyone know of a utility for VFP6 that will print only ODD # pages, then only EVEN # pages in a report? I want to do 2-sided printing.
That's probably handled best either through the print driver options of a printer designed for automated duplexing, or by creating your output using a tool other than the Report Writer if your intent is to actually perform a manual intervention to load the paper printed with the odd pages inverted to print the even pages afterwards - you need two print streams, one stream with the initial odd page printing, at which point you need to wait until the odd page output is actually printed, the operator then manually reinserting the paper, and starting the second pass to print the even pages after that, but before anycompeting output is routed to the printer. Two separate print streams really will be required, one per pass, and you need to plan how to handle paper jams - even if it allows a reprint of the jammed page, page alignment will be off as a result, how to handle material which takes more paper than is fed from one filling of the paper, and how to ensure that the printer stops until the operator has manually reloaded the printer to start the second pass. These are issues beyond the scope of VFP's report writer interface, or even normal default Windows printer management for printers that don't handle duplexed printing on their own, since Windows doesn't really know what's on the other side of a piece of paper on its own.
If you plan to punch or bind the final output, you'll likely want to use different left and right margin settings for odd vs even pages - if you need 1" margins on the bind edge and 1/2" margins on outer edges, odd pages use 1" left margin and 1/2" right margin, while even pages use 1/2" left margins and 1" right margins.
Collation is an issue - you may need to reverse the paper order between passes to allow for the paper feed and stack mechanism.
In many cases, printers, lasers in particular, have problems running paper through the printer more than once; in some cases, at least waiting for the paper to cool off, re-absorb some moisture after having been heated, and separating the pages so that static or debris doesn't 'glue' several sheets together is needed. Poor quality stock is more likely to have problems making two passes reliably. Inkjet and DMP printers may be subject to smearing and smudging running through following the first pass, the ink may need to dry between runs, you may have roller marks on the back, page alignment may not be precise on both sides (more an issue if you intend to bookbind the output) and with some paper, the paper surface may not be suitable for printing on both sides.
One approach might be to output the report to a Word document using a tool like FRX2WORD, and then rely on Word to manage the process of printing the generated output - Word's Print dialog is set up to handle odd/even page pass printing, and can be used to selectively reprint pages to deal with paper handling errors, rather than having to re-run the whole thing from the start because page 23/24 jammed. FRX2Word uses Word automation to generate a .DOC from the VFP report output; you could then either invoke Word externally to handle the print runs, or write additional Word automation to print the document. Similar approaches could be tried with .PDF documents or Encapsulated Postscript using GhostScript, but if Word is available, it definitely can handle the emulation of duplexing if your printer and paper can handle multiple passes, and if you find that it isn't reliable, it can print the whole document on a single side without rerunning the report. You can also use the various paper-folding options to print reports with 4 pages on a single sheet of paper, with Word managing the collation for different folding schemes.
