Re: New PostGhost and Xy2PDF frames - XyShell NOT Required

[cld@xxxxxxxx (Carl Distefano)]

Reply to note from "Robert Holmgren"  Mon, 13
Dec 2004 05:07:46 -0500

I don't do much printing with XyWrite these days, but Robert's new
U2 frame TYP seemed too good to pass up. At the moment the only
printer I have connected to my new XP machine is a cheapo USB
winprinter (it's a Dell 720 Color Printer, and it came "free" with
the system). How nifty to be able to print Xy docs via that
supposedly inaccessible (to XyWrite) USB port. So I installed
Ghostscript GPL v8.15 and GSView v4.6, loaded POSTGHST.PRN, and
fired away.

Both routines, TYP and Xy2PDF, worked like a charm. One noteworthy
point is that you can, in fact, add POSTGHST.PRN to a PP table and
load it via the SETP command! (SETP is preferable to LOAD or LP
because it conserves memory, at least if you switch among different
printer files during a XyWrite session). The fact that the PP table
doesn't recognize USB ports is no obstacle; simply assign
POSTGHST.PRN to your parallel port (mine is LPT1) in the table, like
this:

1	F:\XY4\POSTGHST.PRN	PostGhost Printer file (RJH)

In fact, you can assign the PRN file to an arbitrary port number --
2, 3, 11, anything -- whether or not it's actually configured on
your system. Xy doesn't check whether the port actually exists
before loading the PRN file. And when it comes time to print, it
doesn't matter if the port is there or not, because TYP prints to a
file, which is then handed off to Windows for delivery to the
physical printer. Just make sure that the CodePage, default LA, is
set to 850 when you issue the SETP or LOAD command.

In short, Robert has done it again: The fundamental problem of
getting XyDOS to print to a USB printer has been solved. Setup is a
one-time, painless affair, and then you're home free. It's really
quite amazing.

--
Carl Distefano
cld@xxxxxxxx