RDLC 2008 Sideways Label Printing

Rob_Hansen

Here's something that I don't know how to pull off for NAV2009 through the RTC. Our client has purchased a Brother QL-700 label printer (picture attached) and wants to print item labels on DK1201 label stock (picture attached). The labels will be 3.5" wide and 1.1" high (so about 4 lines of text on each label). The problem is that the label roll is sideways. i.e. each label on the roll is 1.1" wide and 3.5" high. I create the layout in the appropriate size (3.5" x 1.1") but there is no way to tell the RDLC engine (that I know of) that it should be printed landscape. In NAV 2013 (RDLC 2010) there is, but not in NAV 2009. The engine interprets the size to decide how to print it. So...our labels are coming out this way:

[ Label 1 ]
[ Label 2 ]
[ Label 3 ]

When I need them to come out this way: (pretend my text is rotated)

---
L
A
B
E
L
1
---
L
A
B
E
L
2
---
L
A
B
E
L
3
---

Hopefully you can follow what i'm saying... Does anyone know how to implement this in the RDLC 2008 engine?

Rob_Hansen

A bit more detail... When the printer is manually set to Landscape through the print dialog when printing labels, they come out fine. Each time they're printed though, NAV seems to default the printer back to portrait...even if the Printer Driver is changed to Landscape as a default (through Devices and Printers). We just need some way to explicitly say the report is landscape within the RDLC settings...

clausl

Try to set it to Landscape in Report properties in Visual Studio.

/Claus Lundstrøm

Rob_Hansen

I was hoping you might reply Claus...being the RTC reporting guru that you are.

In the NAV 2013 reporting engine I have the landscape orientation option in report properties...but not in NAV 2009. I thought the engine just used the paper size setting to determine whether to print portrait or landscape? Is there a way to explicitly set the report to Landscape orientation in NAV 2009?

clausl

If you specify a standard landscape size in Report Properties in VS 2008 it will be detected as Landscape. The Portrait and Landscape buttons in Visual Studio 2010 and up is just nice UI.

I'm not sure if 3.5" x 1.1" is seen as a standard, but I assume you have set the size to 3.5" in Width and 1.1" in Height in Report Properties, and if you also are using this size in the Body, you need to remember that margins should be set to 0in.
If you have already done this, 3.5" x 1.1" is seen as custom and then you need to understand the rules for how to set the margins and orientation, because this is different if you print with or without a Request Page and/or print directly from Request Page or from Print Preview in Report Viewer.
The rules are explained here: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff477105.aspx
It is a bit confusing when and where to set orientation and margins, so find a quiet moment to read this page so you fully understand the rules.

/Claus Lundstrøm

Rob_Hansen

Thanks Claus! We'll have to test to see if printing without a request page preserves the printer driver default settings (which we have set to Landscape). I didn't realize it handled custom sizes differently depending on whether the request page is shown. Hopefully this works...although we'll need to create a separate report to provide the request page to set options to pass on to the real label report if so. That I can live with.