Hi, Doug,
The way we used to deal with this, back when SCS printers were the only kind, was to arrange to "over-print" only those characters that you wanted to appear as "bold"... (NOTE: sometimes you might have to overprint the same characters two or three times, to get the desired "bold-ness.")
Using *FCFC forms control characters, a la FORTRAN, you could control whether a line would print normally, or would overprint, or double-space, etc.
I think RPG also has a way to control this using O-specs.
COBOL has WRITE [BEFORE | AFTER] ADVANCING n LINES.
For mainframe PL/I, the idea of using those "forms control" characters is explained very well here:
http://jeff-barr.com/2009/03/15/of-pli-line-printers-punch-cards-and-carriage-control/
The same applies to FORTRAN.
You could, in theory, create a printer file with *FCFC forms control, with a record length of 133, where the first byte is the "carriage control" character, and then you should be able to control this from any high-level language.
You would need to test it, to see if it gives the desired effect with the actual printer you are using.
I hope this helps,
Mark S. Waterbury
> On Tuesday, December 19, 2023 at 02:47:27 PM EST, DEnglander--- via RPG400-L <rpg400-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I know there is a way for RPG to add hex characters to a field to allow
certain words within a field to be in color, when displaying on a 5250
session.
Does anyone know if there is a similar way to perform that function with a
PRTF that is defined as *SCS? I am specifically looking to have one "word"
[really a balance due] be bolded on the printout. Currently, the HIGHLIGHT
keyword is used, but because of the size of the field, there is a lot of
white space surrounding the number in its accompanying sentence. I was
thinking of composing a string in the program, not use HIGHLIGHT, and then
have RPG insert the Hex character for HIGHLIGHT [on] + HIGHLIGHT [off]. Is
that possible?
Thank you,
Doug
midrange.com
