Windows Printer Drivers

[dosman]

Is there any way to download windows printer drivers to a dBase file using Clipper 4 or Clipper 5?

I only need to download 6 printer control codes.

Also, is there any way to avoid using the Windows printer spooler and print directly to the printer. I've noticed that some of the new printers (Leximark) will not work with DOS programs. It appears that the problem is with the print spooler.

I would greatly appreciate any help you can provide.

 

[UnkUser]

DOSMan,

You should be able to output to any printer that is directly connected to the parallel printer port or to the serial communications port from a DOS program. You just need to open the port for printing (LPT1:, LPT2:, COM1:, COM2:, etc.).

As far as getting printer driver information for DOS programs, you will have to get the printer language commands from the printer manufacturer in order to use them in a DOS program. This may or may not be a simple task. I have been trying to get information on a couple of older inkjet printers for several months now without much success. The manufacturers generally do not provide technical support for equipment that is no longer in production. For which printers did you need information?

 

[dosman]

I appreciate the response. I have set up a file that stores the 6 printer codes I need. When I print a report, my program just accesses this file, sends the control codes to the printer and everything works fine.

However, I need the ability to access the Windows printer codes so that the program can run on any computer with any printer. Since these codes must be standardized and stored in a Windows file there should be a way to copy the 6 codes I need from the Windows print driver file to my dBase file.

Any suggestions? Are there any commerical programs that do this?

 

[UnkUser]

Now that's a horse of a different color.

I would suspect that Microsoft has a Printer Driver Standard that they publish for the Printer Manufacturers to write the Windows Printer Drivers. You might try querying Microsoft and/or the Printer Manufacturer as a Software Developer in order to get it. That is one problem that I have not tried to solve yet; printing Windows Printer Driver commands from a DOS program.

You may want to use a Windows application development program (i.e. Visual Basic) as the user interface with the DOS portion as the database interface. This would permit you to print to any Windows Printer Driver without having to learn the Windows Printer Driver Standard. Otherwise, you will need to use the Windows application development system that is available for dBase and/or Clipper. (I believe that one exists for dBase, but I'm not sure about Clipper.)

Since you are using Clipper 4.0/5.0 to access dBase files, you may want to step up to Visual C++ with the Microsoft Jet Engine (a database access utility) in order to work with the dBase files. You will probably also want to use Crystal Reports in order to generate the database reports. I know that a scaled down version comes with VB, but I don't remember if it comes with VC++.