🚀 go-pugleaf

I'm looking for information on how the Windows printer API calls handle
extended ASCII and control characters, in particular tabs. We have been
unable to develop applications that work correctly, and cannot find
helpful information in Petzold, Richter, Yao, Schulman, SDK, Borland
Windows API, Windows Secrets, etc.  A reference to a good, detailed,
low-level explanation of how the print routines work will be most welcome.
Following is a detailed description from our Windows programmer, Juraj
Horacek, of the tab printing problem:


"Executive summary:  :-) 
The "standard" recommended algorithm does not work as Microsoft claims it
should.  They _do_ make some internal conversions in their own apps.


"Details:
I used the "old" Petzold's method as well as the newest, 3.1-only
implementation of printing.  I tested about 5 apps.  Here are the results:

"If you use the HP III driver and do the standard printing seqeuence you
get (in all cases) the tab translated into ascii 127 (which showed up as a
dithered/shaded box in the printout).  In the case of a dot-matrix driver
you get a dot instead of 127.  That is all fom the "recommended" public
algorithms.

"Word and Write on the other hand handle a tab differently.  In the case of
the HP driver they do a nice "shift" implemented by a HPC command (HP
Command Language) which leaves a certain blank space.  With a dot-matrix
they output several spaces.  The number of thoe spaces varies (I believe)
for different apps and different versions of the dot-matrix driver.  In
some cases they output some code for which I don't have a complete
reference."  

Thanks for any assistance!
Jon Meltzer
Institute for Academic Technology   Durham NC 27713
jonm.iat@mhs.unc.edu
Jon.Meltzer@launchpad.oit.unc.edu


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