_ppitch

Topic group Related topics Example

Sets the printer pitch, the number of characters per inch that the printer prints.

Syntax

_ppitch = <expC>

<expC>

The character expression "pica", "elite", "condensed", or "default".

Default

The default for _ppitch is "default", the pitch defined by your printer's settings or by setup codes or commands you sent to the printer before you started dBASE Plus. "Default" means that dBASE Plus hasn't sent any pitch control codes to the printer.

Description

Use _ppitch to set the pitch (characters per inch) on the printer. The _ppitch setting sends a control code appropriate to the current printer driver. Use the Windows Control Panel or CHOOSEPRINTER( ) to select the printer driver.

When you direct output to the printer, dBASE Plus maps each character according to the coordinate plane, a two-dimensional grid. The coordinate plane is divided into character cells whose sizes depend on the value of _ppitch. The height of each character cell is determined by the size of the font.

The following table lists _ppitch values.

If you change the value in other system memory variables such as _lmargin, _rmargin, and _ploffset, dBASE Plus takes the current value of _ppitch into consideration when calculating the cell width of the coordinate plane. This happens regardless of whether you're printing with proportional or monospaced fonts.