One way to speed up printing receipts on a dot-matrix printer is to print the desired (dynamic) information on a pre-printed template that contains the labels, content placeholders, logos and other static information.
The first thing I did was to adjust the report to display the values only as it has previously been printing all the dynamic and static information. I deleted all the static information and left the bare dynamic info that changes with every print out.
I then printed out the bare report on the target dot matrix printer. In the process, I made adjustments to paper guides on the printer so as to get an optimum placement. I repeated this process several times as the draft print outs revealed changes that needed to be made to the report writer design.
When the bare printout had an optimum placement, I took the printout and scanned it. I then opened the resulting image with Gimp Image Manipulation Program. Using gimp, I added layers which contained the static information e.g. text layers for labels and a transparent layer for content placeholders. I even added a layer with a white color that I would hide/show to see how the report template would look like on printed paper.
All this time, the original scanned layer was acting as a background which helped with the positioning. Thereafter, I hid this original layer (leaving the all white layer as the background) and printed the resulting report template on paper. Now it was time to test it by printing out the bare information report on the preprinted template. After a few minor adjustments and refinements made from observing the data placement on the template, the final version was ready for mass production.
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