Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!purdue!gatech!udel!princeton!phoenix!bskendig
From: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hypercard
Subject: Printing text from HyperCard (general interest)
Message-ID: <9755@phoenix.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 4 Aug 89 16:10:28 GMT
Reply-To: bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig)
Organization: Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom Project
Lines: 35

This article may be of general interest to anyone who has tried to print
straight text from a HyperCard stack before (I can't imagine that other
people haven't tried it before!).  I also marked it as 'general interest'
in the hopes that someone, somewhere, would read it...

In my stacks, I have several text fields whose contents I would like to
send to a printer (LaserWriter, actually, but it shouldn't make any
difference).  I'm looking for either a neat trick or a good XCMD that will
allow me to do this.

The PrintField XCMD by Mark Scherfling is the best I've found yet.  (It is
available from anonymous ftp to sumex-aim.stanford-edu, as is virtually
every other public-domain piece of Mac software in the known universe.)
It will print the contents of any container (field or variable, not just
a field as the author suggests) in any font, point size, and style.

Unfortunately, it chops off a good deal of the text at the beginning of each
field I attempt to print.  I'm printing rather long fields, but a good XCMD
shouldn't be bothered by the amount of text it sends to the printer.  What
PrintField seems to be doing is to start its printing at a random location
somewhere a short way into the document.  When I print the same field twice,
under otherwise identical circumstances, I get two different printouts.

I'm at a loss for ideas.  Would someone please tell me either
  - what I'm doing wrong with PrintField,
  - where I can find another, better XCMD,
  - how I can accomplish my goal without using XCMD's at all, or
  - if I should throw in the towel and become a hermit on a mountain somewhere?

Thank you.
-- 
| Brian S. Kendig       |  I feel more like I   | bskendig                   |
| Computer Engineering  |  did when I got here  | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU     |
| Princeton University  |       than I do now.  | @PUCC.BITNET               |
| Systems Engineering, NASA Space Station Freedom / General Electric WP3     |