Dos Based Printing

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax (More info?)

I have been trying to get some of my dos based programs to be able to print
using windows xp. so far I have not been able to make it happen. I have
tried mapping the printer to my lpt port using the net use command and also
enabled printer pooling and neither has helped. before, when i attempted to
rpint from a dos based program the program froze and i ended up having to
kill it through the device manager. now since i have mapped the lpt1 port
using the net use feature, it will try to print, and the lexmark printer
progress bar shows up and instantly goes from zero percent to one hundred
percent and it says printing started and printing completed but nothing
actually prints. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have
searched this group for dos printing and it seems every reply to anyones
quetion is always a link to bruce sanderson's article on dos printing. I
have already viewed that page and it has not helped, just wanting to get that
out of the way to eliminate an unecessary and already attempted resource.
thank you for your time and efforts

 

[Byte]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax (More info?)

Take a look here..........
Print From DOS with WindowsXP
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/printfromdos.htm

--
Some days you're the windshield,
some days you're the bug.


"Clay Powell" wrote:

> I have been trying to get some of my dos based programs to be able to print
> using windows xp. so far I have not been able to make it happen. I have
> tried mapping the printer to my lpt port using the net use command and also
> enabled printer pooling and neither has helped. before, when i attempted to
> rpint from a dos based program the program froze and i ended up having to
> kill it through the device manager. now since i have mapped the lpt1 port
> using the net use feature, it will try to print, and the lexmark printer
> progress bar shows up and instantly goes from zero percent to one hundred
> percent and it says printing started and printing completed but nothing
> actually prints. any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I have
> searched this group for dos printing and it seems every reply to anyones
> quetion is always a link to bruce sanderson's article on dos printing. I
> have already viewed that page and it has not helped, just wanting to get that
> out of the way to eliminate an unecessary and already attempted resource.
> thank you for your time and efforts

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax (More info?)

Dear Mr. Clay Powell,

> I have
> searched this group for dos printing and it seems every reply to anyones
> quetion is always a link to bruce sanderson's article on dos printing. I
> have already viewed that page and it has not helped, just wanting to get
that
> out of the way to eliminate an unecessary and already attempted resource.

your printer may be a Windows-only (AKA GDI) one.
If this is your case, then there's no way for you print from DOS simply by
redirecting the stream (by NET USE, pooling or whatever else), because the
printer cannot understand a simple DOS ascii stream, but it needs a raw
stream created by the Windows driver.

You may want to have a look at Printfil, which enables character-based
applications (incl. DOS) printing to Windows printers (incl. GDI).
More info and a free trial is available for download at
http://www.printfil.com

Kind regards,
Davide Guolo
--------------------------------------------------------------
Printfil - Windows Printing System for Applications
http://www.guolo.com/printfil
Odbc4All - Connection to ODBC Data Sources for any Application
http://www.guolo.com/odbc4all
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: microsoft.public.windowsxp.print_fax (More info?)

On Thu, 30 Jun 2005 08:36:17 -0700, "Byte"
<Byte@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>"Clay Powell" wrote:
>
>> I have
>> searched this group for dos printing and it seems every reply to anyones
>> quetion is always a link to bruce sanderson's article on dos printing. I
>> have already viewed that page and it has not helped,

>Take a look here..........
>Print From DOS with WindowsXP
>http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders/printfromdos.htm

Ahem.




--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
"My theory was a perfectly good one. The facts were misleading."
-- /The Lady Vanishes/ (1938)

 

[Haruhito]

I have similar problem with my new Canon printer and old cardio analysis software. Trick with "net use lpt" does not work. Can somebody suggest me a right way?

 

[pat mcgroin]

There was and probably still is a way that I had to use due to off site printer issues that I had. Its not elegant but it worked.
goto printer setup screen and make a duplicate entry for your printer except tell it to "print to file" not lpt1.
When you are ready to print use the new icon and it will ask you for the name of the file.
Once that is done drop into a DOS window hopefully in the same directory as the file you just created or navigate to it.
Then type copy filename >prn
eg copy santa.doc >prn
If that fails use copy santa.doc >lpt1
I cant test this right now as the kids helped my printer understand gravity but I have used this on everything from small HPs to $100k image setters
It could possibly work over a network but I have never tried so make sure the printer is local.
The whole key is to be sure to use the printer driver for the actual printer that will be used to print from when creating the file.

 

[Haruhito]

I'm sorry but I don't understand as I can apply "copy filename.doc >lpt1" command to my cardio software. It doesn't create any file but prints texts and graphics directly into printer attached to LPT1/LPT2/LPT3. There are no other options.

 

[pat mcgroin]

The file is created through the printer icon.
Goto add hardware and select new printer.
Use all of the same steps that were used to install your original printer eg. drivers etc.
When it asks where the printer is connected scroll down the list and it will say Print to file. That is what you want.

When you go back to Cardio and want to print you should now see 2 printers listed. Use the new one that you created. When you press print it will ask for a file name that you must give.
When it is finished you can then goto a command prompt and copy that file name to lpt1

I know this isnt a elegant fix but if you dont need Cardio that often this will at least get your files printed.

 

[Haruhito]

Ok, I added new printer and select "Print to file" option. When I go back to cardio an print analysis to LPT1 it asked nothing about destination printer. I can see "Printer not ready" message in the cardio window. Nothing more. Whether I have to use "net use lpt1" command with new printer too?

 

[Haruhito]

Also I tried to use printfil program mentioned above and it printed some parts of the cardio document but other parts were not printed but many unexpected characters instead.

 

[Paperdoc]

I will have to check in my old notes about this and reply more fully later, but I dealt with this issue successfully a while back. I remember two tricks I had to use in addtition to the "Net Use" route. Now, this was on a stand-alone computer with no network connection. And the trouble I had was that Net Use kept giving error messages because is is a network redirector and there was no network! But included in the OS (mine was Win XP) is a software network simulator that takes over processing network access requests even without a physical connection, and then Net Use etc is happy. The other trick was that Net Use really is happiest redirecting printer traffic sent to LPT1. It cannot redirect something sent by DOS to a COM port, and old DOS never understood USB's. So in Windows XP I ended up adding a printer on COM1, but telling the DOS app to print to the LPT1 port, even though the printer actually was connected to COM1. Then Net Use was able to take the traffic for LPT1 from the DOS app and redirect to the real COM1 port.

Oh, and another thing I did for safety's sake. To get this to work, I wrote a DOS batch file which sets up the redirection with Net Use, then starts the DOS app. And to avoid any confusion, my batch file first ran a Net Use command that cancelled all existing redirection, then set up the desired parameters fresh.

I'll look up more details and post in a few days.

 

[Haruhito]

Let me to clear situation. My computer has network connection. When I use "Net use" command there are no errors. When I print from the DOS Cardio program there are no errors too but my printer prints nothing or ejects balnk sheets.

 

[pat mcgroin]

Sorry I didnt get back earlier.

I didnt realize that you were on a network.
Is the printer that you are wanting to use local to any computer or is it a stand alone network printer?

When you set up the new printer did you tell it to setup as a local printer or a networked printer?
In order to use what I said you must set your new printer icon up as a local (to you) printer set to print to file.

Im sorry I should have made that more clear. That is probably why you got the printer not found message.
Then when you goto print it should ask for a file name.

By printing to a file all commands that would usually be sent to the printer by the op system are contained in the file, so the file will be larger than normal as well as being a portable and stand alone. By stand alone I mean that it will print on the same type printer as the one that you setup to print. (eg post script, HP, Linotronic, Apple etc) Also be sure that all of the preferences are set correctly prior to clicking printing, as again all commands to the printer are in the file so changing portrait to landscape for example is impossible..

You should then goto the computer that the printer actually located and either find the file over the network or have it on some kind of disk and then send that file to the printer using the copy command from above.

Im not real expeirenced with networking and/or "Net Use" but I would say to try sending this file after any modifications from your computer to the printer after the above setting change and see if it works.

I know on a network there is a address for the printer and you could possibly send it straight to the printer this way, but as I said Im not the network guy and I dont want to give any advice that I havent made work for myself. and I also cant tell you how to do that.
The way I described will however get your documents printed. I hope this isnt a prog. that you use often.
Ill check back

 

[Haruhito]

Since last week my old printer died finally and went into the trash dump I must take up this problem face to face. I contacted developer's support and make sure my new Canon "is not a DOS-compatible and cannot print plain text".

Since I cursed Microsoft wth Billy and dropped any monkey tricks with 'net use lpt' and 'copy file lpt'. I googled and found a lot of special utilities for DOS printing support: dos2usb, printfil (already tested), dosprn, dosprint etc.

I downloaded these utilities and evaluated them. I want to curse their developers too!!! It seems these people never think about compatibilities and user comfort. All these programs conflict one between another and some of them cannot uninstall correctly!

Results is not very impressive. One of these tools print text files only, another did nothing at me, next printed
correctly text part of my documents but generates garbage instead of graphics part.

At last I choose a dosprn ( http://www.dosprn.com ) utility for me. It printed my texts and charts more or less correctly and it is the most inexpensive between competitors. It is not a magnificent but it works at me at least. It seems I'll order a license.

 

[gomerpile]

bump

 

[Zoron]

Any chance of getting an updated version of your program? One that is Windows compatible?

 

[Haruhito]

Any chance of getting an updated version of your program? One that is Windows compatible?

Cardio is not supported by developers unfortunately. There are no new versions for Windows. Similar programs cost 2.500-4.500 USD

 

[Zoron]

That is unfortunate. MS has been trying to leave 16-bit programs behind for quite some time now. Part of the reason ME was so horrible was because of the 16-bit code support it included.