Sequential File Selection

Help & Support
1

Hi Guys,

I searched first, but maybe am describing my issue incorrectly.

I do graphic work in Corel Draw. When I am ready to print a project I may print up to 20-50 different files. I use Opus as my file manager.

When I select say 20 files, and assuming they are named "1" to "20". And then hit print, they print in a very random order. (Same issue is the files are name "A" thru "Z".

I have looked at file dates, file, sizes, and alphabetization. But I don't see any type of order that Opus chooses to open the files.

If I highlight and right click the same group in Windows Explorer, it prints the last name selected first and then prints the remainder of the group sequentially.

Having to 'collate' the files into order can be very time consuming. Do I have something set wrong in the preferences ?

Thanks for the insight.

Dave

2

To clarify, in both Opus and Explorer you're selecting the same files, right-clicking and then selecting Print from the context menu?

3

I usually view my folder in 'detail' view.

I hilight a group of files within a single folder which are named 'A' to 'M'.

I right click, and then choose print.

Now sensibility says that the program would begin at the top of the list and then print files A,B,C,D,E,F... etc.

However, I get the following order (Taken from actual print job list):
15,10,12,13,14,16,12,7,4,30,32,18,27,21,1,3,37

The list to print was from 1 to 40. File 37 was the last file to print of the job.

Dave

4

Which program(s) are set to handling printing for the type(s) of documents in question?

It looks like it is at least partly up to the application how this works since on my machine testing with some text files, with TextPad as the application that handles the Print action, I get a random order of print-outs in both Explorer and Opus. (On Vista at least.)

It looks like both Explorer and Opus, at least when combined with TextPad, launch all of the print operations in parallel so the results will tend to be out of order.

If you're seeing different results between Explorer and Opus for a particular program or type of document then it would be useful to know what they are so it can be investigated further.

5

I am printing Corel Draw files. I am using Corel X3 with both service packs.

Only one copy of Corel is open at a time, so it takes the files in the order that the file manager sends them to Corel.

When using Vista's 'Windows Explorer' it prints the last file first and then prints everything in order (ie E,A,B,C,D)

I am running Vista with SP1. I have a 3Ghz Quad Core with 8Gig of Ram, 4 gig of ReadyBoost, Primary Drive is a Raptor Raid 0, Secondary Drive is a Sata III Raid 0,

Please let me know what other information you may need. Thank you for trying to help.

Dave B

6

If you go to Settings -> File Types and then find the Corel Draw type, double-click the type, then double-click on the Print action. Could you attach a screenshot of what the Print action does?

(I'm most interested in seeing if it's a simple command line or a DDE action.)

7

Print -

"C:\Program Files\Corel\CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 13\PROGRAMS\CORELDRW.EXE" -DDE

DDE Message - [P("%1")]

AppName - CORELDRW_MOS

Print to -
"C:\Program Files\Corel\CorelDRAW Graphics Suite 13\PROGRAMS\CORELDRW.EXE" -DDE

DDE Message - [PT("%1,%2,%3,%4")]

Thanks again,

Dave

8

I can't test with CorelDraw itself but Word 2007 also uses DDE to print documents and I tested with that. Opus sends the files in the order they appear in the window and Word prints them in exactly that order (see screenshot below). Word also seems to wait until each file is sent to the printer before starting to process the next file.

Some programs will accept additional print requests while previous ones are still pending, and then process them in parallel leading to unpredictable results if you print several files at once. In those cases it seems that the smaller files float to the top, but the order isn't always consistent.

I might be wrong but my guess is that CorelDraw is one of those programs. The E,A,B,C,D order proves that either CorelDraw is re-ordering things or Explorer is sending them in a slightly weird order. Maybe Explorer adds a delay between sending each file, or waits for something before sending the next file (though that doesn't explains why E is printed first) but I don't know of any way to find that out in order to emulate it in Opus, and judging by the fact that Word 2007 prints files in the order that Opus sends them in, I'd say CorelDraw is processing the print requests in parallel.

Printing some documents whose size/complexity varies greatly might be a good way to test whether or not my theory is correct.