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Comparing WinPrint 1 with WinPrint 2

Table of Contents

Report Viewer Changes

The most obvious change introduced with WinPrint 2 is the viewer that is used to preview a report on screen. WinPrint 2's viewer is far superior to the old WinPrint 1 viewer. Below is a list of the major differences:

  • Faster Previewing: WinPrint 2 now launches the viewer as soon as the first page has been generated. This gives users almost instant response. In WinPrint 1, the viewer is not launched until the entire report is ready.

  • Background Previewing: The WinPrint 2 viewer can be used to preview a report even as the report is being generated. For long reports, you will see the total page count incrementing in the background as you browse the pages that have already been generated.

  • Faster Paging: WinPrint 2's viewer allows you to browse from one page to another much faster than in WinPrint 1.

  • Modern Interface: The viewer's interface has been modernized.

  • More Intuitive: Operation of WinPrint 2's viewer is more intuitive than with WinPrint 1.

  • Jump to Page: The viewer now supports toolbar buttons to jump to the first page or last page of your report. It also supports jumping to an arbitrary page number.

  • Your report's Report_Title property is now displayed in the viewer's title bar. For example, the following line in your report object would cause the string to be displayed in the viewer's title bar:

    Set Report_Title to "Customer Names Report"

For more information, see Using the Report Viewer.

Report Progress

Because WinPrint 2 reports begin output as soon as the first page is ready, the viewer displays the report status in the viewer's status bar. In WinPrint 1, the report's status was displayed in a popup dialog.

To stop a report before it has been completely generated, click the stop button in the viewer's toolbar.

Image Support

The DFWriteBmp command now supports printing JPG files. For example:

DFWriteBMP "logo.jpg" 14 7 12 9 DFGR_NOPOS

In addition to JPG, WinPrint 2 also supports: - (.rle) graphics - Icons (.ico) - Windows meta files (.wmf) - Advanced Windows meta files (.emf)

Graphic File Locations

WinPrint 1 used a single registry setting to specify the location for all graphic files (bitmaps, JPEGs, etc.). WinPrint 2 uses the Workspace to find bitmaps used in your reports, providing much better control.

Users should be aware that this change can have the side effect that converted reports may now show a different bitmap due to the difference in pathing now applied to a report.