Re: Print to file from DOS program in Windows

Steve Hayes wrote: 
On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 07:38:01 GMT, Dennis Lee Bieber <wlfraed@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:


On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 05:19:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <hayesmstw@xxxxxxxxxxx>
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:


Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs, and
unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of getting


	Most printers these days do not have ANY plain ASCII print
capability -- ie, no TEXT mode. Everything is graphics mode, based upon
letting Windows render into memory, then feeding the pixels to the
printer driver for mapping to printer controls. In the old days, the
application either did pure text (meaning no driver was really needed,
any Centronics compatible printer could be connected and handle the
data), or had their own low-level driver with plug-ins for various
standard printers.

	Even the days of doing graphics using a printer's internal language
(such as that used on the old Epson MX-80, HP's Printer Control
Language, etc.) are gone -- those control languages aren't even
documented for new printers.


Aye, well that just restates the problem at greater length, but doesn't
actually solve it. 


Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?


	With W9x, you may still be able to boot to a pure MS-DOS mode -- but
that probably can't access your data <G>


I'll try to remember that next time my computer crashes and i have to reboot,
but I suspect that the problem is that the PRN2FILE program I have doesn't
work with DOS 7.x (the version that some with Win98).



Assuming you are in the Command Prompt screen, try as example,
print sample.doc > c:\sample.txt
The ">" will reroute the print command to another output, such as to a text file that can later be printed in Windows with your word processor (make sure the output is in a known directory)

Another way is to press <Alt> <PrtScn> which will put an image of the screen on the clipboard. Then open a graphics program and paste into a new document. The problem with that is you have a non-editable picture of text.

Margaret
.

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