Is printing to generic text printer and hand-coding the report possible?

Question

We have created Oracle Reports that are formatted to print to Zebra printers. We code the report in Report Layout and the text printed is for generic text printers, what our Zebra printers requires. Can this be done with APEX reports?
Example:
^xa
^ilr:val_set.grf2^fs
^fo88,132^a0,90,80^fb464,1,0,C,0^fd&<ACCESSION>^fs
^by2,3.0,32^fs
^ft64,402^BCb,32,n,n^fd&<FARMFIELD>^fs
^ft600,402^BCb,32,n,n^sn&<LOCLOW>,1,y^fs
^fo304,232^a0r,20,20^fd&<LOCTYPE>^fs
^fo334,232^a0,50,45^sn&<LOCLOW>,1,y^fs
(skipping some code here for brevity)
^pq&<LOC_ROWS>^fs
^xz
Asking whether APEX can print to generic text printers and can we code the report output
ourselves.
Thanks for any help.
dave

Answer 1

Here is a simple example of printing via pl/sql to a text file...
create or replace procedure utl_file_io is
l_fil utl_file.file_type;
l_buf varchar2(200);
begin
l_fil := utl_file.fopen('TMP', 'amar_test.t', 'W');
utl_file.put_line(l_fil, 'This is a sample text file.');
utl_file.put_line(l_fil, 'Generated from Oracle utl_file package.');
utl_file.put_line(l_fil, 'Below is the content of am1010 table.');
for rec in (select col1, col2 from am1000) loop
utl_file.put_line(l_fil, rpad(rec.col1, 15, ' ') || rec.col2);
end loop;
utl_file.put_line(l_fil, 'End of File');
utl_file.fclose(l_fil);
exception
when no_data_found then
utl_file.fclose(l_fil);
end;
This routine will generate a text file to the default directory on your server, you would need to build an Oracle directory and change the code to include the path to your file there. Getting it to the printer could be a simple shell script that copies the file out your your printer if it is on the network and can be seen..
Thank you,
Tony Miller
Webster, TX