It seems to be impossible to print an envelope in Panorama X

Panorama X
1

I have tried to set up Panorama X to print a #10 envelope. I have tried it by using printtopdf and by using Page Setup. Printtopdf generates a file vertically oriented, and nothing shows on the page, despite trying various ways of specifying orientation and page size. Page Setup also results in nothing on the page. It may be that the text is not on the printing area, but I have no idea how I would get it there.

Has anyone been able to print a #10 envelope using Panorama X? I need to generate a lot of letters with envelopes.

I am thinking at this point, I need to abandon X and go back to Panorama 6 for business work.

2

For whatever it is worth, I was able to to print an envelope in landscape orientation, as shown in this movie.

Print Landscape Envelope.gif720×480 2.13 MB

The movie shows printing to a PDF file, but it also worked when sent to the printer.

I was also able to print landscape using the printtopdf statement.

printtopdf "~/Desktop/test print.pdf","orientation","landscape"

Make sure that you set up the data tile. It didn’t work when I left that off, perhaps that is why it isn’t working for you.

3

Yes, I just found that out. I have been testing this and found that was necessary.

Incidentally, the documentation for printtopdf should have a sample file name, like you have above. It is always best to have the most complicated options demonstrated.

4

Hey, here is something cool!

First of all, in printtopdf, Height and Width do not set orientation. It seems that the long direction is the height, and the short direction is width, no matter how they are written in the procedure.

Secondly, I have envelopes in one tray, and letter paper in the second, and the choice is made accordingly. That is great!

Maybe there is some hope for me, yet!

5

Okay, another thing that I have learned is that if the Data Sheet is the active window, the Form option is ignored, and the Data Sheet is printed instead, on whatever size paper you use. I think this is a bug.

6

This is the documented behavior of this option. It says in the printtopdf documentation under the Form option:

Note: This option will only work if the current window is a form window. If the current window is a data sheet or procedure window, that window will be printed even if an alternate form has been specified.

7

One learns by making mistakes!

8

If this was true I’d be a genius!

9

I’m having the same problem. The address on the envelope prints vertical instead of lateral. Frustrating. Also having problems printing reports formatted with templates using Panorama 6. Panorama 6 was much more user friendly. The tutorial is not very helpful is resolving the above.

10

This is the command that I use to print a single #10 envelope from the form named “Envelope”:

openform "Envelope"

printtopdf "","Printer","","Form","Envelope","Height",4.125,"Width",9.5,"orientation","landscape","onerecord","true"

closewindow

The form “Envelope” has one 4.125 by 9.5 data tile with what I want on it. As I said, I have a printer with separate trays for letter paper and envelopes, and that makes the choice of which tray to use. Preview is your friend. Try it before you commit a lot of paper.

If I take out the “onerecord”,“true”, all the records get printed.

11

Are you saying you have a printer that automatically figures out which tray to use based on the paper size? If so, that’s really cool.

12

Yes, it is an Epsom Workforce. I do not know whether other multitray printers will do that, but it makes sense that they would.

13

By the way, if your printer will not do that, or if you have other problems, use printpreview, which will convert the file to a pdf and open it in Preview. Then you can print it with whatever settings you need. It is not as convenient, but it will work.