Re: easy way to print from xywrite

["Patricia M. Godfrey" priscamg@xxxxxxxx]

J R FOX wrote:
> This reminds me of a related question. (I'd try XySearch first, if it was back up and running . . .
> ) The (single) Par. Port in my Shuttle stopped working a while back. I may have to replace the
> part, provided there is not also something wrong on the MB. The later model Shuttle I've not quite
> gotten around to assembling has no Par. Port. (I could put a port card into its lone PCI slot, but
> would prefer to reserve that slot for something else.) In anticipation of at least the latter
> problem, I got a USB - to - Parallel adapter. And so, my question: how does one fire something out
> of the USB port with a DOS program like Xy, to see if this adapter can do what it claims to do ? I
> seem to recall there being some sort of port remapping / redirection service in Windows. But, even
> if I'm right, would Xy play ball with it ? Has anyone pulled this off ?
This has indeed been covered many times, but if XySearch is still
down...
1. You can print directly to a USB printer (no adapter needed) IF
it is HP PCL or PostScript (or a really ancient Epson ESC/P, but
I doubt there are any of them still working), using the net use
command to map the USB port to a virtual parallel port.
2. If the printer isn't HP PCL or Postscript, you can still print
to it over USB, using Postghst.prn, TYP, Ghostscript, and GSView;
 you can also generate PDFs using the same programs and Xy2PDF
in U2. My laptop has no parallel port, my desktop's printer is
USB, both are Epsons (NOT ESC/P), and I print from both all the time.
This is Win2K and up. Net Use doesn't work under 9x (unless the
printer is really attached to another PC in the network), and I
have no idea about OS/2.
I'll try and dig up the complete instructions. I have most of the
last few years' list posts on my hard drive, but SE turns up a
lot of false positives.
--
Patricia M. Godfrey
priscamg@xxxxxxxx