Re: Printing with III (XYWRITE digest 2815)

["William E. Shawcross" wshawcross@xxxxxxxx]

Continuing on with the saga of my trying to print over my LAN to a
network printer under XyWrite III+ (network edition) --

Trying to simplify my problem I installed a Generic/Text printer
(shared) with its port being the octet address of my LAN printer
(192.168.1.199), and without spooling. A test file from Notepad printed
without complaint. (This is with the LPT1 cable disconnected, so the
only connection to the printer -- an HP2100TN -- is through my LAN.)

Trying to print (TY) a simple text file with XyWrite III+ network
edition got me a "Done" message but no printing (even after an hour and
more waiting); the cursor was released OK (i.e., it didn't freeze as
happened heretofore). Before, I was getting a "Write fault" message.

I am probably overlooking the obvious, but here is my thinking for the
moment. In the regular XyWrite environment, I select either the PCL6
printer driver I gussied up for this printer or the similar PostScript
printer driver. Here is the relevant part of my WES.NET file:


;Printer Files Selected (SETP)
;®TS20,60¯
pp:2
LPT1	C:\XY\3HP2100.PRN	PCL 6 Printer
LPT1	C:\XY\POST		PostScript Printer
When I print a file from XyWrite, the file passes through the selected
XyWrite printer driver and out the LPT1 port directly to the printer
over the Centronics cable. Basically Windows doesn't get its fingers on
the data stream.

Now when one selects a shared printer, the data stream passes through
the XyWrite PRN file, then through the Windows driver for the particular
printer, and thence to the printer over the LAN. Presumably the trip
through the Windows driver has corrupted the data stream from the PRN
file and it seems understandable that the print operation would fail.


What would appear to be desirable would be one of the following:
(1) Find and install a printer under Windows that does nothing but pass
the incoming data stream out the selected port (in my case, the network
port). I could not find such a printer in the list of Windows printers
and so selected the Generic/Text driver as the simplest one available,
but without luck, as described above.

(2) Use the NET USE LTP1 command to hook directly to the printer without
going through \\servername\sharename. I have tried this a number of
ways without success. NET will allow you to use an octet address as the
argument for /USER:xx.xx.xx.xx, but no other use is documented. My
printer is, as said above, at 192.168.1.199 on thge LAN and its logical
name on the LAN is dhcppc3.

So if someone(s) could be so kind as to point out the error of my ways
(and thinking), I'd be most grateful.


Thanks! -- Bill Shawcross

Subject:
RE: Printing With III (XYWRITE digest 2815)
From:

Date:
Thu, 8 Mar 2007 07:19:49 -0800
To:


To:



-----Original Message----- From: Philip Friedman

I've tried NET USE, as per R. Holmgren, with 3+ on a W2K ThinkPad.


It works for me.


For the record, here's the printer-feed line from my Xy3 "startup.int":

DO NET USE LPT1 \\voyager\ed_8k1 /YES

...with "voyager" as the network drive name, "ed_8k1" as the printer
name, and "YES" (I believe) means "persistent".


Having said that, I should probably also include for the sake of
completeness (though it my never have a bearing on anyone else's
situation): I haven't been able to (or needed to, really) print from
XyWrite for a long time (several years). I'm not too clear on the
details as to why, but whenever the printers get switched to a different
drive (which happens pretty often) I'm not able to simply change the
drive name it Startup. Our IT dept needs to "release" something on the
system that will then allow me to re-attach to a different drive. The
real problem lies in the fact that I'm now the only one left who uses Xy
in any "official" way, coupled with the fact that there are no system
operators left who know what to "release" me from...well, I gave up long
ago trying to get Xy capable of printing. It's just not worth the fight
anymore.
-BH


------------------------------------------------------------------------

Subject:
Re: XYWRITE digest 2815
From:
Paul Breeze 
Date:
Thu, 08 Mar 2007 18:31:38 +0000
To:
xywrite@xxxxxxxx

To:
xywrite@xxxxxxxx


I have TYP for Xx3+ if anybody needs it.

Paul Breeze

Robert Holmgren wrote:
** Reply to message from "William E. Shawcross"


on Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:59:52 -0500
The original message appears to have an error in it -- NET SHARE is
needed to show the names of shared printers; NET VIEW just gives
you the name of the server.

NET SHARE displays the sharenames of local devices; NET VIEW
displays the
sharenames of remote devices. A network printer is (usually) a
"remote"
device, i.e. not physically attached to your workstation but rather
accessible
through your LAN (router|hub) or the WAN (Wide Area Network = the
Internet).

I use U2's TYN (TYpe Network) command mostly nowadays with all my
LAN printers.
HELP TYN will give you barebones info -- be sure to set up
two REG
variables (IPaddress and PrinterHostName). Printer must understand
PCL or PS.

U2's TYP (TYpe Postscript) works when nothing else does. I have a
vague
recollection that I wrote (under duress) a standalone TYP for Xy3+,
but really

can't remember -- check the archives.

[Later: For TYP for Xy3, start here:
 http://xywrite.org/msg00211.htm
and follow the thread, then go here:
 http://xywrite.org/msg00252.htm
and also read this thread too:
 http://xywrite.org/msg00256.htm
All three of these root msgs contain Xy3+ files to DL. Maybe you
can glean
something pertinent to your situation from the discussions, so I'd
rummage the
archives for info -- we've been around and around this topic many
times, but
the whole thing is like shifting sand because there are so many
different
solutions. One thing is certain, though: if you're skilled, you
can easily

make one of them work].

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------