Hi Lisa
Thanks for taking the time <s>.

>There is no reason to assume that the driver in question uses TIF as its native file format.
>But first...
>Are you assuming that the printer named "FAX" is always the same or are you verifying this in your code (not shown here)?
>I would think even in XP it would be risky to make this assumption, so I would take a step back and say "if you want a printer driver on a system and you would to expect it to be there, don't assume it's on the system". IOW this is not necessarily platform-related as a potential issue. Although it will probably be unavailable, or point to a different driver, *fewer* times on some platforms than others, it's still an issue.
>Once you know that, you take steps to make sure the printer driver you need is available, and what name it has, on the target system.


Well, the app takes care, of course, to call the specific printer, depending on the OS used. For instance, there are differences when using SET PRINTER to NAME under XP or Win98 ( for XP i have to use \\ notation ). Anyway, this is taken care of.
I have been using this method of creating TIFs for a long while now, with apps that generate hundreds of document a day, and by the printer named "FAX" i am talking about the default Fax printer installed with Win2k / WinXP. At the time, i tested with other fax printers ( WinFax, etc... ), but they did not generate TIF output using the mentioned method.
Since SBS2000 generates a default client setup for all workstations, and the fax printer is named SharedFax whether you install in Win2K or Win98, i assumed <g> this was using the same rendering mechanism and would generate TIF output consistently.


>I don't think there is any reason why a driver that writes to a TIF format can't be installed under Win98. ( it just doesn't happen by default. )

I agree with you, but while playing with the installed printer driver in Win98, i couldn't find any setting to help me tweak the rendering mechanism...


>You could also take another approach and find out what format the driver in question actually uses and do a post-process. For example, check and see if this converter handles whatever output format the Win98 fax driver uses (I have no idea): http://softsia.com/sw.php?p=n1d0

Thanks, this is a good idea, i will try it before my last resort ( see later )

>
>However, not knowing anything about the default driver, just googling quickly, it looks like this driver and fax processing have some other deficiencies. So the better approach would just be to install a more appropriate driver for your purposes.

Possibly, but in the tradition of "flash solutions" ( solutions you provide in a flash :-)) ), i have a solution i could implement immediately, and it's to assign the TIF rendering responsibility to one machine ( the 2k Server could be it ), and install in there a COM exe that will take requests from the workstations, and generate the TIF files. While this approach is a sure bet, it requires me to move into the COM every report that requires TIF rendering, which is a pain per se...

Jaime

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>>L<