Portable Printing

JADE printing uses standard GUI objects and commands to generate the required output. You can save these objects and commands in a file for later use; that is, you can "replay" the file to generate a print preview or you can send the data to a printer.

JADE print data can be saved in the database in the following formats.

• Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), which is the default value on all operating systems

  As the contents of ActiveXControl, JadeDotNetVisualComponent, JadeRichText, and OleControl controls are displayed by the Windows Graphical Device Interface (GDI) calls, they cannot generate SVG format files. When one of these controls is printed to an SVG meta file, a picture is therefore created from the controls that are currently displayed and it is this picture that is stored in the SVG file, which may result in a slightly lower-quality display. The resolution the generated image is specified by the GeneratedImageResolution parameter in the [JadePrinting] section of the JADE initialization file. In addition, if you perform a find operation from a print preview screen, JADE cannot search in these controls.

• Windows Enhanced Meta Files (EMF)

Data can be sent to the printer in the following print data formats.

• Windows Graphical Device Interface (GDI) commands, which is the default value.

• Postscript (PS). If using Postscript printing, your printer must support Postscript level 2 or greater.

Windows can provide the GUI objects and commands, which can be replayed to provide a print preview and data for printing. Although these GUI objects and commands are saved as an SVG file by default, you can force JADE to use an EMF format for print data.

The choice of meta file format (EMF or SVG) and print data type (GDI or PS) are controlled by the PrintFileFormat and PrintDataType parameters, respectively, in the [JadePrinting] section of the JADE initialization file.

Although output to a printer can be done using GDI or PS commands, the format of the meta file (that is, EMF or SVG) determines whether you can use the Postscript data type for print output. Not all options are available under all operating systems and executables. Valid combinations for the jade.exe executable are listed in the following table.

Print File Format	PS Data Format	GDI Data Format
SVG	Yes	Yes
EMF	No	Yes

The format of the data sent to the printer depends on the format in which the command data has been saved and the operating system and executable that is used. If the commands are saved as:

• EMF, the output can be GDI format only

• SVG, printer output can be GDI or PS

For more details, see "JADE Printing Section [JadePrinting]", in the JADE Initialization File Reference.