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I'm real tired of filling out TR-100's. DPS said we can use a stamp and I might do that, but that's a lot of stamping! We have to stamp each of the 4 copies.

Has anyone tried using an old dot matrix printer, or other type of impact printer?

Thanks,
Chas.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:I'm real tired of filling out TR-100's. DPS said we can use a stamp and I might do that, but that's a lot of stamping! We have to stamp each of the 4 copies.

Has anyone tried using an old dot matrix printer, or other type of impact printer?

Thanks,
Chas.

Try using Excel use zerox copies to practice print on. Do you have a Dotmatrix?

Liberty wrote:

Charles L. Cotton wrote:I'm real tired of filling out TR-100's. DPS said we can use a stamp and I might do that, but that's a lot of stamping! We have to stamp each of the 4 copies.

Has anyone tried using an old dot matrix printer, or other type of impact printer?

Thanks,
Chas.

Do you have a Dotmatrix?

No. I'm trying to see if anyone is using them to print the 4-part forms, before I buy one of those dinosaurs!

Chas.

Charles - I use a laser printer and an Excel template I made. You have to separate the forms and make sure you get all the sticky stuff off. Then feed 'em into your laser and select 4 copies of each one.

It took a bit of trial and error to get the forms to line up with the data, but it sure is worth it! Now all I have to write is my signature.

I have also heard of some other instructors making the students write their own TR-100s. Also saves you from writers cramp, but opens the possibility for more mistakes. And now that we have to pay for each and every TR-100, I am all about getting the mistake factor as close to zero as possible.

llwatson wrote:
I have also heard of some other instructors making the students write their own TR-100s. Also saves you from writers cramp, but opens the possibility for more mistakes. And now that we have to pay for each and every TR-100, I am all about getting the mistake factor as close to zero as possible.

Thats what I do. I tell them to pay attention to me here because if they screw up the TR100 and I have to give them another it will cost them an additional 5 bucks.

Charles,

If you go that way, I think I've got a 9-pin Panasonic and a 24-pin Panasonic wrapped in plastic around here somewhere.

Charles,

It is really pretty easy to do with a dot matrix printer... and a couple of companies still make them just for multi copy forms.

The problem is you still have to fill in the information at some point... and that takes up time.

Most of us where I teach just let the students fill them and warn them that if they screw it up they will get it back from the DPS... and watch them VERY closely... seems ok so far.

FWIW

Chuck

Charles L. Cotton wrote:I'm real tired of filling out TR-100's. DPS said we can use a stamp and I might do that, but that's a lot of stamping! We have to stamp each of the 4 copies.

Has anyone tried using an old dot matrix printer, or other type of impact printer?

Thanks,
Chas.

Charles L. Cotton wrote:No. I'm trying to see if anyone is using them to print the 4-part forms, before I buy one of those dinosaurs!

Since you'll be single-feeding them rather than using a tractor feed, you'll probably need some practice finding the exact spot to line them up on before starting. Once you have that down, 4 parts shouldn't be an issue; we used to print a 5 part form[1] with an Okidata 85[2], and it came out fine.

Joe

[1] Complete with "Yellow," "Canary," and "Goldenrod" parts, with instructions for each, but nothing to indicate which was which.
[2] IIRC, there were about 75 cu. ft. of these left in the shop when it changed to being an ISP rather than a computer shop. If you're going to be in the Stephenville area anytime soon, I can check and see if they still have any.

I've had experience getting raw print outs to work for forms on my comptuer. What I'll do is scan in the form, open up word and set it up as an image and scale it the entire size of the paper, print out, see if it looks close to the original as far as positioning and readjust. Once it's lined up right click on the image and go to Properties or Format, i i forget which. You'll find one page w/ different layouts for the image, one of which is Image Behind Text.

That's the one you want. Now go to Insert->Text box and draw some text boxes around the areas you want to input text. Enter your info. You can go to the properties of the text box to disable the borders, make them transparent.


Once you are done right click on the background image and go to properties, change the brightness & contract to 100% so it effectively disappears and all you are left with seeing is your positioned text. Now do a test print. If you need readjust the brightness/contrast on the BG image so you can see what you're doing, tweak the positions of the box, blank out the BG image again and retry. Once you have it working well load up a bunch and let your printer fly.

For the four part forms I imagine you could just separate them all so you print 4 times for each copy since you wont have the pressure of a ballpoint pen. You'd probably also want to set your printer ink settings on "low"/"economy"/"draft" so they don't over saturate those thin sheets causing them to bleed.

I hope this helps!

We make our students fill theirs out. We start off by telling them that this form is VERY important. ANY mistakes will result in them having to purchase a new form for 5 bucks. I stress that the are not to write ANYTHING until I tell them to. We go through the form line by line.

I've only had to sell one TR-100.

But here's a thought. Why worry about the multiple copies? The state only wants the first page, right? Tear off page one and the first copy, and run them through your laser or inkjet printers.

Y'all are very resourceful, but you're doing it the hard way:

Marion Stahl, the Administrative Assistant for the CHL department (ie, the one who does most of the work for you) told us in my Instructor class this week that it is permissible to make your own copy of the TR-100 and fill it out on your computer, including the number of a valid, unused TR-100 preprinted form. Then you just print four copies and have both the Instructor and Student sign each copy and you're good to go.

I'd suggest getting Adobe Acrobat Professional and creating a form, then using that form to fill in the blanks, including the TR-100 number. You could also use Word or similar. Just make it look pretty-much like a TR-100.

In fact, I might go ahead and create a PDF TR-100 form, and ask Marion to put it on the website for everyone.

~Rick Berry
Berry Firearms Instruction
Carthage, TX