Printing a .PRN file - Comments

Bob: As a long-time TOURBUS rider, I'm surprised that you didn't mention a great freeware solution to this problem: The Primo PDF printer. The software installs just like a printer driver, so there is no "external" program to run. Instead of printing to a "regular" printer, you select the PRIMO PDF printer in the Printer Dialog box. Click the radio button for "For Print" in the Output Setting box, and then click the BROWSE button to tell PRIMO where you want your file saved. Name the file in the dialog box that pops up, and click OK. Click OK again on the PRIMO interface, and the next thing you know, you have a .pdf! It works great, and it is always one of the first programs that I install on my laptop.

The other little quick and dirty printer trick that I use is an oldie, but a goodie that is a "leftover" from Win9x. It will only generate text files, but sometimes that's all you need. First you need to install the "Generic (text only)" printer driver. Navigate to Control Panel, and open Printers. Select "add a printer", and if Windows tries to find the (non-existent) hardware, just wait it out. Then, you want to create a Local Printer, and you want to selet FILE: (print to file) for the port. In the Manufacturers column, select GENERIC, and then on the PRINTERS side (the right side column) pick "Generic/Text only". Finish up by naming the printer something snappy, and easy to remember, like "Generic/Text only" and then give it a try.

Hope these are helpful to someone!

Sarah :)

Bob, there is a MUCH easier way! Before you leave the office (or anytime before you actually start printing) simply take the printer offline. You can then print to your heart's content and the print jobs will simply accumulate in the printer's queue. When you get back to the office and have the printer connected and ready, put the printer back online and your jobs will start printing!

In Win XP, right click on the printer object and select "Use Printer Offline" and "Use Printer Online" to accomplish this.

Regards,
Paul

Thanks, Paul. That's a much better solution if you're simply away from home or office for a short while. But if you need to send that PRN file to someone else for printing, you'll have to use the (unfortunately) more tedious method I outlined.

Thanks, for your tech notes on printing a PRN file! Yours were the only notes I found that covered all aspects including the technique of copying to a shared printer and how to name it. Again, thanks!

Thats great but what i want to do is

Take an existing word doc and route it to the print to file printer and have it print to a given location without the user being asked, currently their shown the common diaog box to choose the location and name of file to print out.

Are there any printer commands to do this and also strip out any leading spaces, Word seems to leave in leading spaces no matter what i do?

If you have a frequent need for sending print files to a printer another solution is FRP from Frogmore Computer Services - www.frogmorecs.com
The program costs $25 (free 30 day trial) and works great. It allows copying files to both local and network printers.

i have a prn file and need to convert it to a doc WORD file - can this be done ??

Thanks

I want to print PRN to networked printers. How does this work? I have an IP for the printers but???

I had the same problem and tried Bob's "COPY /B TMP.PRN \\Zippity\Doodah" command. It worked fine, the only problem is that you have to "unshare" your network printer after the job.

Thanks for this great information! I looked in my computer Win XP help files, in my printer help files and everywhere on the Internet. Yours was the only solution I found that actually works! I'm a happyhappygirl.