Proper Guide for printing Report in Dot Matrix Printers...

Question

Is there anyone that could give some proper guideness in Printing Reports (e.g. XtraReports) in Dot Matrix Printers? Or any information printing in Dot Matrix Printers. Can i just print the report as i could print in InkJet/Laser printers? Should i use Stream to LPT1, export the report as RTF and print as bytes[]? Use Escape Codes? Any info for the above targeting C# .NET? I should handle printing my business object for every property to a specific location? HOW?

I'm searching for a clear solution for a time now and yet to end up somewhere.

Thank you.

Answer 1

If it were me (and 20 years ago it would have been) I'd concentrate on writing the document in GDI properly as a good, well-structured C# program. From there Windows can render it onscreen or to just about any printer you've got drivers for.

Let Windows worry about the print drivers for actually rendering the GDI document onto paper and handling system things like what port it's connected to (USB, Parallel, etc..) and all of the nasty protocol details.

Please don't wire things to "LPT1", "COM" ports or any of that crap. Your admins and future users of your software will hate you for it.