FHS 97 - Printer Setup Table

FHS 97 - Printer Setup Enhancements

The Family History System's exploitation of printer features has always been somewhat limited, and that unfortunately remains the case even in this latest update. All reports are still printed in a single fixed width font. However, there were other deficiencies in the software's provision for printer control that are addressed in this update.
In the past, a printer setup allowed only 16 printer control characters for setting up the printer at the beginning of a report. This was insufficient for setting up some devices, especially laser printers. Also, the chart symbol table of a printer setup only provided for the symbols required to print traditional ancestor charts and was lacking some symbols needed for printing box charts. The box chart symbols could be customized within the box chart program, but this didn't allow having separate sets of symbols for each printer. Finally, although it was possible to have as many as nine different printer setups, it was necessary for the user to remember the characteristics of each setup.
In the new update, each printer setup consists of:

Printer Parameters - the printer Destination (LPT1:, COM1:, File, SCRN:), Forms width (in characters), Form length (in lines), Inside and Outside margin settings, and some other option settings;
a Printer Selection Code - (from one of the user modifiable System Tables)
a set of printer control codes (which allows up to 99 control characters for each control sequence)
a set of chart symbols - providing all types of symbols required for printing box charts.
Further, each printer setup is given an 8 character identifying code and a short descriptive label. Any of the printer setups can be identified as the "default" setup, to be used at the beginning of an FHS work session.
All printer settings are saved in a "Printer Definition File" file, FHSPRINT.PDF. There is no limit to the number of setups that can be saved in a PDF file, but multiple PDF files can be created and the PDF file to be used in an FHS work session can be identified before the session begins using the DOS command: SET FHSPRINT=xxxxxxx where xxxxxxxx is the prefix for the PDF file.
Within each report program, option F2 is used to select the printer setup from a list of identifying Codes and descriptive labels. (Pressing CTRL+F2 transfers control to the Printer Setup utility for making changes to the printer definitions.)