DOS Printer

Print from DOS to ANY windows device!

Email directly from DOS !

This page is largely obsolete as in most circumstances DOS Printer can automatically capture lpt1: printer jobs. It does this by installing a special "DOS Capture" printer which it can communicate with.

Unfortunately the generic printer driver in windows xp and windows 2000 sometimes strips out escape codes - so printing to a file may still work best under these operating systems. However, if it's just plain text, this method will work fine. It should work for most systems though - try the demo and see!

On windows 98 systems, DOS Printer is unable to access the printer queue. On these systems DOS Printer creates a special desktop shortcut which configures the freeware prn2file.com program to work with DOS Printer and then runs your DOS Program.

All you have to do is tick a button - here is a screenshot ...

DOS Printer can attempt to intercept jobs being sent to LPT1: from DOS Programs.

It does this by installing a "DOS Capture" printer driver which it can communicate with to "grab" jobs from the queue and turn then into text files.

This will not work on All systems. For example If you have DOS Programs that print Images, if you have a real printer attached to lpt1, if DOS Printer is unable to install the required printer or make the required registry changes due to some security or operating system issue. If this does not work you have 2 options:

	(1) have your dos program print to a file, and use the Monitored Printing function of DOS Printer.
	(2) check out What if your DOS program cannot print to the file below ...

What if your DOS program cannot print to the file:

There are 2 steps ...

The exact steps will very depending on what operating system you are using. The principles involved are explained here.

1. Create a new printer which prints to a file

	Go to the "Add Printers" page
	Add a "Generic Printer"
	Go to the Properties of that printer, and change the "Port" so that it prints to a file
	You can choose the "Print to File" port, and the system will ask you the filename each time, or you can create a new port with a name like "c:\temp\print.txt"
	*Right click again on the printer icon. Click Sharing* on the menu. Then click on "Shared as". Enter a network name for the printer, something like "TextPrn".**

2. Capture lpt1: (or lpt2:) output and redirect it to that printer

	You need to have TCP/IP networking installed. If your computer connects to the internet, then you will have it already installed. If not, click Here for instructions
	Enter command prompt (run command.com) and type: NET USE LPT1: \\MyPcName\textprn
	MyPcName is your network computer name. Later, you can insert this line in a batch file, just before calling your program. This will only work if your PC is connected to a network (including dialup). If you have a stand-alone PC, follow these instructions.
	Note that if your printer can accept text stream type input, you may only need to capture the port like this and redirect it to your printer - you may not need DOS Printer at all! The problem is that most modern printers need a wmf (windows metafile) as their input, and they will not accept simple DOS text.

3. You can print from your DOS Program now ! Your printing will be directed to the file you specified. Set DOS Printer to monitor for that file and you should be ok !

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