Printing in OpenEdge

Most operating systems support two general printing techniques: direct printing and spooled printing. Direct printing sends application output directly to a printer set up on the operating system. This technique of printing is frequently found on single-user systems. However, you can use direct printing in other situations (for example, printing tickets and special forms).

Spooled printing sends application output to a temporary file and places a print request in a print queue set up on the operating system. Spooling permits you to queue a print request and continue processing; the system executes the print request when a printer becomes available. A spooled device can help balance the demand on line printers if you are running applications on a time-shared system.

OpenEdge runs with most printers and, depending on the operating system in use, makes default assumptions about printer setup. OpenEdge uses the printer port or spooler named at execution time, not at compile time. Thus, precompiled OpenEdge applications work regardless of the printer port or spooler in effect.

This section provides an overview of the ABL (Advanced Business Language) language elements you can use to direct application output, which includes the: