How to Print to LPT1 in Windows XP

Q. Sam Sommer welawins@gmail.com via googlegroups.com

I have successfully converted my clipper 86 to harbour and it looks great and works fine.I am trying to hook up my parallel printer (panasonic 1150) to run on my xp computer but the usb to parallel converter cable works in virtual mode only and my software only wants to work with lpt1. Can I change my code so my parallel printer works under virtual mode and not lpt1? I do not want to use a parallel card because when I tried this the printing seems to stay in the spooler and not print all out?

Answer by Klas Engwall harbour@engwall.com via googlegroups.com to harbour-users

If you do not want to change the source code to make the application use the USB-connected printer "properly", then using local redirection in the XP computer instead is a good and quick alternative.

Go to Control Panel/Printers and share the USB-connected printer using a short name like "P1150", for example. Then open a command prompt and NET USE the "P1150" printer as LPT1. Let's say that the computer name is "MYCOMPUTER", then the command would be

NET USE LPT1 \\MYCOMPUTER\P1150 /persistent:yes

Then the printer will be accessible to any application that only wants to print to LPT1.

With "properly" I mean that you can, as an alternative, change the source code to set  printer to "Pansonic 1150 Bla Bla Bla" (whatever it is known as to Windows) instead of LPT1, or you can find out what the default printer is (if the 1150 is actually the default printer) with win_printergetdefault() instead of directly messing with the long name that was created when the printer was installed.

Regards,
Klas


Feedback from Sam Sommer welawins@gmail.com via googlegroups.com


I could not get my habour compiled clipper 86 program to see the panasonic 1150 parallel printer because the usb to parallel cable under windows XP only sees the virtual port and the code only sees the lpt1 port.

I went into printers - faxes and right clicked on the panasonic printer. Under properties then under ports I told it to enable two ports:

lpt1 and virtual usb port and you must have checked the print spooler
for two ports to be on at the same time.

I then went into advanced features and told it not to spool but to print right away.

The operating system uses usb - virtual port and the harbour program clipper 86 only sees the lpt1 port. So when the harbour app sees lpt1 is enabled it gets happy but the printer - operating system is not happy yet and when it sees the usb virtual port enabled also it starts printing right away.

Also, since my HP printer is the default printer I do not have to tell any program which printer to use since the custom code only sees the panasonic parallel printer it prints there by default and my
word processor only sees the HP printer.

Hope this can help.