Printer Ticket Alignment Problem for Chinese Words

[mica]

I got problems for printing Chinese words in sales tickets. They are not aligned properly. (Sample printout)
Instead of using "text align ='left' length='17' for printing, is it possible to print the contents similar to using table, tr, td tags of html?

[chris J.]

for the price and value to use a right alignment.

chris J.

[mica]

Hi Chris,

Thx for your feedback. The standard template already set the righ alignment for the price and value. I guess the problem is caused by the double byte size for Chinese characters comparing with single byte size for normal characters. :-(

Any clues to solve the problem?

[Yohan Choi]

I don't use Chinese, but I use Korean word, so I solved that problem by modified Printer.Ticket.xml file.. like below

#set ($longestName = 0)
#set ($longestPriceTax = 0)
#set ($shortestPriceTax = 100)
#set ($shortestValue = 100)
#set ($longestMultiply = 0)
#set ($longestValue = 0)

    #foreach ($ticketline in $ticket.getLines())

    #set ($length1 = ${ticketline.printName().length()})
    #set ($length2 = ${ticketline.printPriceTax().length()})
    #set ($length3 = ${ticketline.printMultiply().length()})
    #set ($length4 = ${ticketline.printValue().length()})

    #if ($length1 > $longestName)
    #set ($longestName = $length1)
    #end

    #if ($length2 > $longestPriceTax)
    #set ($longestPriceTax = $length2)
    #end

    #if ($length3 > $longestMultiply)
    #set ($longestMultiply = $length3)
    #end

    #if ($length4 > $longestValue)
    #set ($longestValue = $length4)
    #end

    #if ($length2 < $shortestPriceTax)
    #set ($shortestPriceTax = $length2)
    #end

    #if ($length4 < $shortestValue)
    #set ($shortestValue = $length4)
    #end

    #end

    #set ($gap1 = 2)
    #set ($gap2 = 3)
    #set ($gap3 = 3)
    #set ($maxCharName = 8)

    <line>
        <text align ="left" length="15">상품</text>
        <text align ="right" length="5">단가</text>
        <text align ="right" length="8">수량</text>
        <text align ="right" length="8">가격</text>
    </line>
    <line>
        <text>------------------------------------------</text>
    </line>

    #foreach ($ticketline in $ticket.getLines())

    #set ($Namelength = ${ticketline.printName().length()})
    #set ($PriceTaxlength = ${ticketline.printPriceTax().length()})
    #set ($Multiplylength = ${ticketline.printMultiply().length()})
    #set ($Valuelength = ${ticketline.printValue().length()})

    #if ($Valuelength > 7)
    #set ($gap1 = 1)
    #set ($gap2 = 2)
    #set ($gap3 = 1)
    #else if ($PriceTaxlength > 6)
    #set ($gap1 = 1)
    #set ($gap2 = 2)
    #set ($gap3 = 2)
    #end

    #if ($Namelength > $maxCharName)
    #set ($offset1 = (1 + ($longestPriceTax - $PriceTaxlength)))
    #else
    #set ($offset1 = ($maxCharName - $Namelength + 1) + ($longestPriceTax - $PriceTaxlength))
    #end
    #set ($offset1 = $offset1 + $gap1)
    #set ($offset2 = $longestMultiply - $Multiplylength + $gap2)

    #set ($offset3 = $longestValue - $Valuelength  + $gap3)

    <line>

        #if ($ticketline.isProductCom())
        <text>*</text>
        #else
        #if ($Namelength > $maxCharName)
        <text>${ticketline.printName().substring(0,$maxCharName)}</text>    
        #else
        <text>${ticketline.printName()}</text>  
        #end

        #foreach ($i in [1..$offset1])
        <text>　</text>
        #end

        #set ($checker = $PriceTaxlength - $shortestPriceTax)
        #foreach ($i in [0..$checker])
        <text> </text>
        #end
        #set ($checker2 = $checker/2)
        #if ($checker2 > 0)
        <text> </text>
        #end

        #end
        #set ($endPriceTax = $PriceTaxlength)
        <text>${ticketline.printPriceTax().substring(0,$endPriceTax)}</text>

        #foreach ($i in [0..$offset2])
        <text> </text>
        #end

        <text>x${ticketline.printMultiply()}</text>

        #foreach ($i in [0..$offset3])
        <text> </text>
        #end

        #set ($endValue = $Valuelength)
        <text>${ticketline.printValue().substring(0, $endValue)}</text>

    </line>
    #end
    <line>
        <text align="left" length="42">------------------------------------------</text>
    </line>

I did some modified that code written by other developer who use Chinese.

Still has some bugs....anyway you can align Chinese word on receipt .

:)

[Yohan Choi]

It prints like this

[Mark W]

I tried this but find it doesn't work well when you have product names of more than a few characters. I've found a way that's much simpler - just print each product line on 2 lines - one for the product name, the second for the prices / quantity.

I used the modified header line from the example above as you need to change the length attributes slightly so they line up.

Here is the code:

<line><text align ="left" length="15">項目</text><text align ="right" length="5">價錢</text><text align ="right" length="8">數目</text><text align ="right" length="8">價值</text></line>
        <line><text align="left" length="42">------------------------------------------</text></line>
#foreach ($ticketline in $ticket.getLines())
    <line>

    #if ($ticketline.isProductCom())
        <text align ="left" length="42">*${ticketline.printName()}</text>
    #else
        <text align ="left" length="42">${ticketline.printName()}</text>
    #end
    </line>
    <line>
        <text align ="right" length="25">${ticketline.printPriceTax()}</text>
        <text align ="right" length="7">x${ticketline.printMultiply()}</text>
        <text align ="right" length="10">${ticketline.printValue()}</text>
    </line>

    #if ($ticketline.productAttSetInstId)
        <line><text align ="left" length="42">${ticketline.productAttSetInstDesc}</text></line>
    #end
#end
    <line><text align="left" length="42">------------------------------------------</text></line>

It prints like this

[Mark W]

Hi Fanzam,

Yeah I agree about the wasting of paper and look, however in this case it was a migration from another platform with 1000+ products all with long Chinese names, so it solved it well for that.

I think it is still a good option to have anyway so worth sharing. I've also noticed some large retailers using a similar format to combat the same type of issue with long names.