Printing a *.prn file

Rohinton Sidhwa

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Mar 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/17/97

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Hi All !

I'm a new user from New Delhi, India and have been following threads of
this group for some time now.
Presently I have set up a generic printer under win'95 printer options to
send output to file. This is especially important where the program used to
prepare the output is not available at the point of printing.
How is the *.prn file printed. Default printer set up under Win'95 is HP
Laserjet.
Can't print simply by dragging the file onto the printer. HEELLLPPP!!!!

I've opened the file in Notepad, but since the same has formatting, garbage
characters are displayed in a plain text
editor. (of course theres no problem in wordpad or any such program where
RTF display is possible).
Can this file be printed at printing source which has only:
a) MS-DOS or b) Unix available ???

urgently help required

rsi...@hotmail.com

Stephen F Payer

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Mar 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/17/97

to Rohinton Sidhwa

RS,

*.prn files are usually delimited text files used for
importing/exporting *data* from older (DOS based) Lotus 123
spreadsheets. If you have an older '123' installed, do /file/import and
print as worksheet.

*My* older *.prn files import nicely into Excel; might print from
there, also.

*.prn files really don't have much in the way of formatting characters;
are really just slightly modified text files; loading into
notepad/wordpad, doing some small editing, then printing, shouldn't be
too much trouble.

Luck,

Steve Payer

Jacques Bensimon

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Mar 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/17/97

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Hello, Rohinton.

The *.prn files created by printing to FILE: under Windows contain the
entire stream of characters (including setup sequences) that would normally
be sent to the printer (of a specific type) to obtain the desired printed
result: you must therefore send the unmodified file in its entirety to
your printer in order to put your document on paper correctly, and the way
to do that is to use the following command from a DOS prompt (either in a
DOS window, in MS-DOS mode, or even on a DOS machine that doesn't even have
Windows installed):

COPY /B filename.PRN PRN:
or
COPY /B filename.PRN LPTx: (where x is either 1, 2 or 3)

It is possible to create a batch file and associate a new action with .prn
files that would make the option of doing this easily accessible from the
context menu of any .prn file: post if you need details on how to do that.

Jacques Bensimon
The McGill Group
MS MVP (DTS)

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<html><head></head><BODY bgcolor=3D"#F8F8D0">Hello, =
Rohinton. The *.prn files created by printing to =
FILE: under Windows contain the entire stream of characters =
(including setup sequences) that would normally be sent to the printer =
(of a specific type) to obtain the desired printed result:  you =
must therefore send the unmodified file in its entirety to your printer =
in order to put your document on paper correctly, and the way to do that =
is to use the following command from a DOS prompt (either in a DOS =
window, in MS-DOS mode, or even on a DOS machine that doesn't even =
have Windows installed): 	COPY /B =
filename.PRN PRN: or 	COPY /B =
filename.PRN LPTx:   (where =
x is either 1, 2 or 3) It is =
possible to create a batch file and associate a new action with =
.prn files that would make the option of doing this easily =
accessible from the context menu of any .prn file:  post if =
you need details on how to do that. Jacques Bensimon The McGill Group MS MVP =
(DTS) 
</body></html>
------=_NextPart_000_01BC3317.32919F80--

Stephen F Payer

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Mar 17, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/17/97

to

Forgot to add........Or any DOS based text editor; don't really need a
WIN for this.

>
> Luck,
>
> Steve Payer

Rohinton Sidhwa

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Mar 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/18/97

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Thanks Monsieur JB

worked like a dream.
is there anyway however of retaining the formatting which ms-word does to a
file because this way I'm losing the font though am retaining features like
justifyication and the very idea of printing to a file is lost.
PS: can the dos PRINT command be used in anyway?

Jacques Bensimon <Jacques-...@msn.com> wrote in article
<01bc3341$1b67a780$99132399@jacquesb>...
Hello, Rohinton.

The *.prn files created by printing to FILE: under Windows contain the
entire stream of characters (including setup sequences) that would normally
be sent to the printer (of a specific type) to obtain the desired printed
result: you must therefore send the unmodified file in its entirety to
your printer in order to put your document on paper correctly, and the way
to do that is to use the following command from a DOS prompt (either in a
DOS window, in MS-DOS mode, or even on a DOS machine that doesn't even have
Windows installed):

COPY /B filename.PRN PRN:
or
COPY /B filename.PRN LPTx: (where x is either 1, 2 or 3)

It is possible to create a batch file and associate a new action with .prn
files that would make the option of doing this easily accessible from the
context menu of any .prn file: post if you need details on how to do that.

Jacques Bensimon
The McGill Group
MS MVP (DTS)

----------

Jacques Bensimon

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Mar 18, 1997, 3:00:00 AM3/18/97

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Rohinton Sidhwa <rsi...@hotmail.com> wrote in article
<01bc3378$7bf86620$LocalHost@default>...

>>> is there anyway however of retaining the formatting which ms-word does
to a file because this way I'm losing the font <<<

I'm only guessing, but I suspect that you can fix this by going into the
Fonts tab of your printer's Properties (the one that prints to FILE:,
before creating the .prn file) and selecting the Print TrueType as graphics
option. Of course, this assumes that you're using TrueType fonts in your
document.

As far as using the PRINT command is concerned, it should work also, but
I've never been one of its biggest fans: it tries to do some primitive
multi-tasking and can be flaky at times.

Jacques.
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Content-Type: text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

<html><head></head><BODY bgcolor=3D"#F8F8D0">Rohinton Sidhwa <rsi...@hotmail.com> =
wrote in article <01bc3378$7bf86620$LocalHost@default>... >>> is there anyway however of =
retaining the formatting which ms-word does to a file because this way =
I'm losing the font <<< I'm only =
guessing, but I suspect that you can fix this by going into the =
Fonts tab of your printer's Properties (the one that prints to =
FILE:, before creating the .prn file) and selecting =
the Print TrueType as graphics option.  Of course, =
this assumes that you're using TrueType fonts in your =
document. As far as using the PRINT command is concerned, =
it should work also, but I've never been one of its biggest fans: =
 it tries to do some primitive multi-tasking and can be flaky at =
times. Jacques.
</body></h=
tml>
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