Technical Q&A's

GXPD 23 - Paper Type Menu not Updated Often (1-July-95)

Q The Paper Type menu doesn't seem to get updated as often as it should. I had planned to have the driver parse a PPD to create a DTP but this isn't working properly. The only apparent alternative for consistently showing the correct paper types is to create an application that parses a PPD and creates a new driver. What's wrong and how should I proceed?

A The storing of paper types within desktop printer files is not yet fully supported in GX. Until it is, there are two possible solutions to your problem:

1. Instead of putting the paper types in the DTP, have your driver create a stand-alone paper-type file in the extensions folder. To do this, create a resource file (type=uspt, creator=pted), and copy the needed resources into it. You can name the paper types so they are instructive, such as "ACME Printer 600 - Letter". Although these paper types would be available to all DTPs for your driver, GX will prompt the user if a paper mismatch error occur.

2. As you suggested, you can create an application that parses a PPD and creates a new driver in each case. Be careful, however, to assign a unique creator type to each driver. With this approach, you can build in custom paper types, dialogs, code, and so on for each driver.

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