>If I have to support reports to dot matrix as well as laser printers, do I need to develop two report layouts, one for each type of printer. Also, how can I detect what type (DM or Laser) printer is selected? TIA

Not quite sure what you're asking here. Most users run different reports to dot matrix printers [multi-part forms etc.](often straight text using the Generic/Text Only printer driver) than to lasers [presentation quality reports](often proportionally spaced, with graphics, etc.). In that case you'd definitely need different report forms for the different reports/target printers.

If you're talking about sending the exact same report to either a dot or laser, the main concern is that a dot matrix printer can print on the entire page (assuming no hard left/right margins) whereas a laser is limited on both top/bottom and side margins. You would need to design the report to the lowest common denominator, in this case the laser.

- If the report is a "laser-style" report with the fonts, graphics etc. and you have an equivalent Windows driver for the dot matrix units, it's possible to print it to a dot-matrix. The printer will print it as a bitmap, which is slow, and it won't look very good (typically very bandy).

- If the report is straight text, you can use the Generic/Text Only driver to print to a laser printer, and most units will print it (not sure about the cheap Windows GDI laser printers which don't work from DOS). The main gotcha here is that by default laser printers print 60 lines of text, vs. 66 for dot matrix units. So, limit your text reports to 60 lines (with top/bottom margins for the dot matrix) unless you want to send control codes to the laser prior to your job, which may let you adjust lines per page etc.