I have tried to resolve our printing issue with COADE via email, with absolutely NO success. I was working the problem with Loren Brown and exhausted his knowledge base for this subject, and he suggested I contact David Little. I have emailed him the problem and have heard NOTHING in response.

To refresh your memory, when printing output reports the "end" of the report is cut off. The end of the report ranges anywhere from the last line to the last several pages. Not everyone has this problem, and not all the time.

I have been told the standard response of "It's not a CAESAR problem". If so, prove it to me. Everything we've tried so far (changing settings on the network printer and using a local printer) hasn't worked.

I figured my last resort was to air my grievance where every other CAESAR user could see it. We've been dealing with this for many months. The earliest record I have of it is October 11, 2001, and I know that was the second time we tried to solve this problem. Chances are this has been lingering around since mid-summer of 2001.

If anyone else out there has this problem and has any ideas how to solve it, please post it here.

[ January 15, 2002: Message edited by: rhavard ]

It's true, I did tell him that it doesn't look like a CAESAR II problem. I have tried to duplicate this problem on our systems and couldn't. I tried to run CAESAR II on our NT network, on our Netware network, and from my machine, none exhibited the problem as described.

When first contacted last year, I suggested that they get the latest print drivers from whoever made the printers, and to disable the "Start printing immediately" switch in the printer control panel (an option that is only settable by admin people, others don't even see it). This was done, and it was reported that this change had fixed "most printers". I don't remember what made the few 'unfixed' printers different.

While Windows printing problems are more common than they ought to be, this one has always been corrected by some combination of new drivers and Windows settings. It seems that the problem is specific to the way their network is setup, perhaps a buffer/spooler overflow or limit problem. CAESAR II doesn't know where it is printing to, so if the problem of incomplete reports can't be duplicated printing to Word or a text file, it is highly unlikely that the problem lies with CAESAR II. I think this is a combination "user and network" problem, since it only happens to a couple of the printers from a handful of users ( although those specific 'handful of users may have no control over their printer assignment ).

(The email you refer to, about me not answering, is only two (workdays) old. I got them last Thursday. I honestly haven't thought of what to do to sort this thing out.) I would be more than happy to come to your site to see the problem first-hand, just let me know a convenient time.

Regards,
David Little
COADE, Inc.
Houston, TX

Richard

Ever since the issue of version 4.0, I always close the output module immediately after printing. Then I go back in and run plots etc. The module will not send the table of contents until the output is closed. If you wait then the last page or two will not be printed.

rpz

I would suggest that you do all printing through the MS Word interface. It overcomes the long standing problem of lack of printer control in Caesar. Pages can be selected for printing making this the best approach for long printouts. eg. I often print the stress summary leaving stress report in the MS Word file to save paper and make the hard copy more concise. It also has the affect of a "print preview" to give you a chance at cancelling the print when you spot that obvious mistake or forgotten load case. I would suggest saving and reopening the MS Word file before printing.

The Word.bas file supplied by Coade can be edited by the user to add footers, print date and time (as opposed to the run date), vary fonts, total number of pages in file etc.

Andrew

Andrew Weighell