Printer forms

The print service includes facilities to create and administer forms.

A preprinted printer form is a blank paper form that you load into your printer. An application typically generates a file that, when printed on the blank form, fills out the form.

To specify the format of forms, create a form description file.

For example, create a file called /tmp/check.desc and include all or any subset of the following information:

   Page length: 66
   Page width: 80
   Number of pages: 2
   Line pitch: 10
   Character pitch: 16
   Character set choice: any
   Ribbon color: blue
   Comment:
          Check form
   Alignment pattern:

         XXXX XXXXXXXXXXXXX XXXXXXXXX
                                     xxxxxx
         xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The print service uses the alignment pattern to line up the forms before printing begins and prompts you to perform an alignment before printing.

Depending on your printer, specify page length in lines, inches (i), or centimeters (c). Specify page width in columns, inches (i), or centimeters (c). In the example above, page length is specified as 66 lines. If the printer recognizes inches, specify the page length as 11i.