This document details the basic steps in installing a new printer in the Oracle E-Business Suite. It is derived from the AIM documentation which deals with printer setup.

This document assumes that the printer has already been set up at the OS level.

Installing a New Printer

1. Printer types > Navigate – Install – Printer – Types
This window you must define a printer type for your new printer.
Use the exact name of the printer as defined at the OS Level
An example would be if you had a line printer, you may name it
“LINE” or “LN03” for the model number of the printer. This name
will be associated to the actual printer name when you register
the printer to Oracle Applications.

2. Printer > Navigate -Install – Printer – Register
You must have defined a printer type before you can register a new printer.
The value for printer name will be the operating system printer name.
Then choose the printer type that you defined in the previous step.

3. Printer types > Navigate – Install – Printer – Types
You will need to come to this form again to associate the below printer
styles to the printer type that you defined above.

4. Print Styles > Navigate – Install – Printer – Style
If you are definig new styles specifically for your printer, you would do
this here. Please review manual for the specific parameters needed to be
defined. Oracle Applications reports are designed to work with standard
shipped styles:
Portrait
Landscape
Landwide
A4
Dynamic Portrait

You may point to the seeded styles that we have, but if you have customized
reports you may have to create a new printer style to accommodate the custom
report(s).

5. Printer Driver > Navigate – Install – Printer – Driver
Oracle does provide the printer drivers for the above Styles, so unless you
are adding your own, it should not be required to define one right now.
If you are definiing your own, you must specify a unique printer driver name
and an unique user name for a given platform.

6. Lastly, if any new updates or changes have been made to any of the printer
definitions, you must bounce the concurrent manager to ensure that all changes
do take effect.

Creating an Initialization String

An Oracle Applications printer driver has two fields, the “Initialization”
and the “Reset” fields, that are used to pre and/or post append printer
control commands. The field may contain a series of commands, typically.

The initialization string is printing device dependent. Therefore, a basic string must be obtained from the vendor or from the vendor’s manuals.

The Hewlett Packer Printer Command Language (PCL) has become the pseudo-
standard for many printer makers. Currently, the language version is up to
version PCL6. Each version is moderately backward compatible with the prior
versions. That is, a newer printer can also interpret some PCL4 or PCL5e
commands.

A simple PCL string looks like: /eE/e&l1O/e(s0P/el8D/e&k4S
In Oracle Applications /e denotes the beginning of a PCL command, the escape
character. The command /eE instructs the printer to reset to the machines
default settings. Landscape paper orientation is set with the /e&l1O command.
A single digit change to the same paper orientation command can initiate a
portrait setting, /e&l0O.

Creating a Printer prt File

Each Printer Style and Printer Driver has an SRW Driver associated with
it. The SRW driver controls

a) What is SRW driver?

(1) Oracle Application reports are all generated by Oracle Reports. SRW stands for SQL*ReportWriter. SRW drivers are driver files, which are used to define output files of SRW reports into a certain format during the generation of reports. Therefore SRW drivers are only pertain to Oracle Report output files.

(2) A SRW driver controls page break, carriage return, line feed, text bold on/off, and text underline on/off instructions within the output files of Oracle Application reports. SRW drivers are designed for the DEC LN03 printer, and all printers that understand the same control characters as the LN03 printer.

(3) SRW driver files have file extension “.prt”, such as L.prt for landscape style, P.prt for Portrait Style, etc.

b) When to use SRW driver?

While submitting a report with or without a printing request involved (copies > or = 0), an output file is generated by Oracle Reports. Oracle Reports generate a requested report into an output file using the SRW driver definition for text/non-postscript reports. Therefore, a SRW driver should be always used while defining a printer for Oracle Application Reports.

c) How to define SRW driver while registering a printer for Oracle Application?

to register a printer, you need to log on to Oracle Application as a System Administrator Responsibility. SRW driver needs to be defined for both Printer Style and Printer Driver. Therefore there are two places require SRW driver being defined:

(1) In Printer Style form with navigation path:
Install -> Printer -> Styles

(2) In Printer Driver form with navigation path:
Install -> Printer -> Drivers

In the SRW field, you can define SRW drivers by
typing the SRW file name without file extension
to define the SRW driver.

d) Difference of SRW drivers for Printer Style and Printer Driver?

SRW drivers for Printer Style and Printer Driver are used at different situations depending on if a printing request to be involved. When the report is not being printed (Number of Copies = 0 and the target printer field is blank), OracleReports uses the SRW driver named by the
Printer Style in the Printer Styles form. On the other hand, when the report is to be printed (Number of Copies > 0), Oracle Reports uses the SRW driver named by Printer driver in the Printer Drivers form.

e) Where SRW driver files reside

SRW driver files reside in $FND_TOP/reports/, and they have the file extension “.prt”.

L.prt HPL.prt
P.prt HPP.prt
A.prt HPA.prt
W.prt HPW.prt
PD.prt HPPD.prt

Usually SRW drivers that file names contain “HP” are more proper for HP printers, and the ones without “HP” are for digital printers. In the driver files different letters stand for different printing style, such as “L” for landscape, “P” for Portrait, “W” for landwide. “PD” for portrait dynamic printing.

f) Common issues related with SRW drivers

(1) Lines in a reports wrapped to the next page improperly for landscape style printing.
The default for Landscape Style is rows = 66 and columns = 132 in the driver
files, which sometimes cause lines wrapped to next page improperly.
By setting rows = 57,columns = 132 in the Printer Style form

The values of rows and columns setting in the Printer Style form overwrites the width
and height values in SRW driver files. But it is a good practice to make sure the
rows and columns setting in the Printer Style form match the width and height values in
SRW driver files.

(2) Using L.prt or P.prt for HP printer cause junk characters printed on the reports.
As mentioned previously, SRW drives that the names contain “HP” are more proper for HP printers. Therefore, one should use SRW drivers that the names contain “HP” as the SRW driver files to avoid junk characters being printed on reports. Also, refer to the Header description located at the top of each .prt SRW driver file.