Printing Lines in Two Directions on a Page

Lines can be printed in any of four directions, depending on the type of printer being used.

The four parameters for line direction are ACROSS, DOWN, BACK, and UP. The PPFA commands used to format a line-data file with lines printed in more than one direction (as shown in the next figure) are stated in the following page definition: 

PAGEDEF ATOG
        DIRECTION ACROSS ;
  PRINTLINE  POSITION 1 IN 1 IN       /*LINES A-E   */
             REPEAT 5 ;
  PRINTLINE  POSITION .5 IN 6 IN      /*LINE  F     */
             DIRECTION UP ;
  PRINTLINE  POSITION 1 IN 6 IN ;     /*LINE  G     */

A Printout with More Than One Line Direction

A Printout with More Than One Line Direction

In this page definition, the logical page direction ACROSS is specified. This is actually the default, but its inclusion clarifies that no direction control is needed for lines A–E. The default direction of a printline is the direction specification of the logical page of which it is part. The PRINTLINE command for the record F has a DIRECTION subcommand because the direction specification changes from that of the previous line. Record G is to be printed in the ACROSS direction again. A direction is not specified, however, because the ACROSS direction is the default for all lines in this page definition.

Note: If you are building the page definition for use with the 3800 printer, and if the input data contains table reference characters, you can use the DIRECTION subcommand of the TRCREF command to specify a font that prints UP on the page, as in line F. For more information, see TRCREF Command (Traditional).
Parent topic: Using Page Definition Commands for Traditional Line Data