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Network printer debacle

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    Network printer debacle

    Hello, my company recently got a new shipping computer (we use alpha4v7 to enter and print packing slips). We were previously using a windows 2000 computer, with a Lexmark forms printer connected to our network. The new computer will now not print properly to the forms printer. Initially it would not print at all, as alpha did not recognize the network printer. I have attempted to change alpha4 to run in Windows 95 compatibility mode, installed the network printer as a local printer (still on the net) by settings its location as the network location, and through designating it to be used on lpt1 through the net use command. All of these make the printer visible, in a way, but whenever i try to print, it tells me that the printer definition file cannot be loaded, and then if i highlight and select escape, it will print it to the printer with a few items out of alignment and random characters in various places. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

    #2
    Re: Network printer debacle

    I've handled A4 printing under Windows 7 by using a piece of freeware called PrintFile from here: http://www.lerup.com/printfile/

    It won't print A4 spool files directly for some reason so I wrote a simple basic program to preprocess A4 spool files before handing them over to PrintFile.
    PrintFile will print to any Windows printer on your system

    If this solution interests you, I would happily supply you with my Basic code

    Comment


      #3
      Re: Network printer debacle

      At this point I'm willing to give it a shot.

      Comment


        #4
        Re: Network printer debacle

        OK, it's written in QB64 but most of the code should be OK in just QBASIC I think - the line that checks if a file exists might need looking at?? THe program simply looks for A4_n.txt files, modifies the intial control characters (that's what causes the problem with PrintFile) and then writes out these same files with a txx rather than a txt suffix. PrintFile should then be set to look for txx rather than txt files. You might have to fiddle about with the lines per page and the margins. Here is the code, please get back to me if you need more info:
        REM This program converts A4 printed output for PrintFile
        SCREEN 12
        DIM outrec AS STRING * 80
        FOR n = 1 TO 99
        n$ = STR$(n)
        l = LEN(n$)
        f1$ = "c:\dos\spool\a4_" + MID$(n$, 2, l) + ".txt"
        f2$ = "c:\dos\spool\a4_" + MID$(n$, 2, l) + ".txx"
        f3$ = "c:\dos\spool\a4_" + MID$(n$, 2, l) + ".req"
        IF _FILEEXISTS(f1$) THEN
        OPEN f1$ FOR RANDOM AS #1
        GET #1, 1, outrec
        MID$(outrec, 1, 1) = CHR$(13)
        MID$(outrec, 2, 1) = CHR$(13)
        IF MID$(outrec, 4, 1) = CHR$(10) THEN MID$(outrec, 4, 1) = CHR$(13)
        PUT #1, 1, outrec
        CLOSE #1
        NAME f1$ AS f2$
        KILL f3$
        END IF
        NEXT n
        SYSTEM

        And here is the bat file I use to invoke it:
        del c:\spool\*.req
        C:\Archives\Util\qb64\BPROG11x.exe
        "C:\Program Files (x86)\PrintFile\prfile32.exe" /s:c:\dos\spool\*.txx

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