>>>Hi All,
>>>
>>>There has got to be an easier way to print more than one copy of a report.
>>>
>>>I do not want to display the REPORT FORM ... TO PRINTER PROMPT dialog. So, what I am currently doing is creating a "counting" CURSOR with XX # of records. I SELECT it just before the REPORT command and then destroy it when I am done.
>>>
>>>What a pain!
>>>
>>>I've tried PRINTJOB with _PCOPIES but that's no better than a FOR loop.
>>>
>>>I'm trying to avoid the multiple printjobs in Win95. I just want 1 printjob with X copies.
>>>
>>>There are some API calls I could make but they all tweak settings for a specific device context and that won't help VFP any.
>>>
>>>Anyone know an easier solution?
>>>
>>>Thanks,
>>>Shawn Nelson
>>
>>Shawn,
>>
>>I think that the loop may be the only solution. Consider the following:
>>
>>If you have a printer that supports multiple copies, you can set the number of desired copies via the printer's property dialog, or the Common Dialogs ActiveX printer dialog. Even when multiple copies are set this way, a REPORT command still only produces one copy, while printing from other applications will result in the chosen number.
>>
>>It's my *guess* (and I have no way of giving you anything but that) that this behavior may be by design. Many reports (at least of mine) produce a large number of pages and printing several copies (versus photocopying one) isn't terribly efficient, especially with networked printers.
>
>George,
>Another consideration in changing the printers copy count is that it prints n copies of page one followed by n copies of page two, etc, etc. As I found out recently when I did a presentation with 25 copies of an accompanying document - they had to be split and recollated manually. Shawn, I think the most efficient way would be to issue x number of REPORT commands - if the printer supports job splitting (I can't remember terminology) it can shift the output tray between jobs to make life easier.

Nigel,

Some printers do support collated copies, but many don't. Additionally, older ones don't support multiples copies at all.