I've found an unusual error during our testing of PDF reDirect, but I'm not sure where the problem is.  PDF reDirect prints fine from our application when we choose file > print etc, but the problem occurs when we schedule a print job through our automation applet.  The problem did not occur using the applet when using the previous pdf printer (ppf995).

Here is are examples of each.
http://users.on.net/~amosau/EXP/
As you can see, the AutomationServer print mirrors the text boxes upside down, but the label items remain correct.

I've spoken to our software provider and he's passed on this info:

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There is a “y reversal” happening in the mapping modes currently in use.
This appears to be getting handled correctly by other pdf writers, and by all screen and printer drivers we’re aware of.
So I think PDF Redirect’s handling of this situation is out of step with Windows definitions.

Specifically we are doing these calls internally setting up the CDC mapping modes…

       // Note: the reversal in y is happening in QPageView::PrepareDCNoOrigin which does this
       //            pDC->SetMapMode(MM_ANISOTROPIC);
       //            pDC->SetWindowExt(UNITSPERMETRE, UNITSPERMETRE);
       //            pDC->SetViewportExt(cxx, -cyy); // reverse y

….where UNITSPERMETRE is 10000

Note that for world to screen mappings which reflect the y coordinate, text is *not* inverted in the MM_ANISOTROPIC mode, but it would be if we were using GM_ADVANCED (which we may change to at some point).
This lack of reversal of text in this mode is in effect a peculiarity of Windows and may not be being handled correctly in their PDF Redirect CDC mode logic.
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None of that makes sense to me, but does it help pinpoint where our issue might be occurring?

Thanks
Paul

Edit: forgot to add url.

Hi Paul,

    I went through the code that your software engineer, as well as his comments. The code he makes reference to are for the coordinate system, reversing the value of "y" so that the objects are displayed down the page rather than off the page, so no issues there: I agree with his assessment.

   He also points the finger as the source of the issue to be the PDF reDirect printer driver behaviour which is different than in other products - which may be the case. PDF reDirect uses the generic postscript printer driver distributed with Windows, and published by a joint effort between Microsoft and Adobe. Therefore, I do not have access to the source code, and cannot make any changes myself.

   Here is the good news (perhaps). Microsoft issued a new version which I incorporated in the new version of PDF reDirect, which I have available as a beta version (and frankly, seems to work fine - no bug reports). You can try that version if you would like to see if that addresses the problem.

   Admittedly, this is a complete shot in the dark, with no promises that it will fix the problem, but it is worth trying. If it does not, there is very little that I can do. Your programmer could add code to flip the text when it prints to PDF reDirect though.

   You can get PDF reDirect v2.5.4 here:
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    I hope this helps,

Michel

Hi Michel
I've spoken to the dev this morning and he says:
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It is not an easy matter to change the text box drawing code because it uses text wrapping logic inside the Windows GDI to fill the box etc etc... a lot is done by the CDC Windows internals here. And also not easy to unflip the coordinates... again it is Windows itself forcing this behaviour because y=0 is at the top of a Window but all of our graphics calls use a mathematical regular coordinate system which has origin at bottom left.

There is definitely a bug to be fixed here, and it is either fixed already (give it a try as he suggests) or can be reported to Windows developer team.
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As I've already tried the beta version with no change we'll report the bug to MS to correct.

Thanks
Paul

Hi,

Those are the Microsoft printer driver files, that take the raw printer data, and convert it to a Postscript file. Yes, it is possible that they are the source of the problem.

They are a later version because PDF reDirect installed the latest version as part of the installer. You could try downloading and installing an older version of PDF reDirect (see the download page).

You can certainly try manually replacing them, but it might be tricky. As a minimum, turn off the Windows Print Spooler service, change the files, and then restart the service. Otherwise, your computer may crash. I am also not sure that it will work properly without doing a proper install.

Cheers!