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pc emulator print to local print

 
Kelly Cox
Frequent Advisor

pc emulator print to local print

I am having trouble printing a job to a local printer using windows xp. The print job works fine if the printer is accessed via a VMS print que using ip.

The problem is all the escape sequences either disappear or are printed as raw text. The print job is sending landscape, underline, and compress escape sequences.

I have tried 3 different emulators and multiple models of HP laser printers and ink jets. The results are basically the same each time. If I send to the VMS queued printer the report looks correct. If I change the printer to be local the report is NOT compressed, NOT landscape, and NO underlines on the headings. The VMS output file is the same both ways.

I have tried turning off spooling on the windows side and told it to use direct printing.

Any help or suggestions would be highly appreciated.
19 REPLIES 19
Hakan Zanderau ( Anders
Trusted Contributor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

First a question.....
Why send the job through the PC if it works sending it direct to the printer ?

When sending the job through the PC, the printdriver will try to format the job......

You need to tell the PC to "don't touch !"

This can be done by using /PASSALL when printing the job on VMS.
Don't make it worse by guessing.........
Kelly Cox
Frequent Advisor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

i have users that do not have access to queued printers. They showed me the trouble and I am trying to find a solution. I can duplicate the issue in my office using a pc and emulator. To test and be sure it was not something in the VMS report output I tried sending from the same pc and same 3 emulators to different queued printers and it works fine.

Only when going from pc to local printer does it fail. I can even use the same printer i used when it went through a VMS queue and direct ip connection.

I am just hoping that some of you out there that use pc's a LOT have solved this already. I RARELY USE PC'S. Unlike this years april fools article....my desktop REALLY IS VMS 8.2.
Doug Phillips
Trusted Contributor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

Kelly,

So is your program using the print-controller escape sequences [5i and [4i to print locally? The emulator will respond to those, but it seems like the windows driver is then "eating" your imbedded setup and format sequences.

I've had some luck using the "generic" windows printer. This sometimes works and sometimes doesn't -- a typical Windows phenomenon.

The Reflection emulator that I often use has a "bypass windows print driver" check box that also sometimes works and sometimes doesn't, or sometimes it'll work for awhile and then fail. Just like Windows.
Kelly Cox
Frequent Advisor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

Yes, i am using the 5i / 4i sequences. they are working correctly.
Doug Phillips
Trusted Contributor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

Kelly,

Your problem is with the Windows driver, so you can either get the Generic driver to work, or use an emulator that can bypass the Windows print driver. There are probably other local-printing solutions, but they would likely involve converting the report into something your windows driver understands.

Doug
Kelly Cox
Frequent Advisor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

Thanks Doug, 2 of the 3 emulators I've tried have a flag for 'bypass windows driver'...but that did not help. I've tried latest hyperterm, smartterm, and qvt. I also tried basic windows telnet.
Doug Phillips
Trusted Contributor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

Have you added a Generic /Text printer on LPT1 and tried that? If you can't make that work, you could be fighting a losing battle.

I've moved all specially formatted reports that come from VMS off to networked printers because I couldn't rely on Windows printing. XP seems especially frustrating. You can buy print-server devices for less cost than the time you'll spend fighting Windows.

I have one client where we were doing exactly what you are trying to do by using the Generic /Text driver. That stopped working for some reason and we've never been able to make it work there again. I love troubleshooting and I'm pretty good at it but with Windows, the point of deminishing returns comes very quickly. I moved the reports to the network.

For years I did controller-port local printing with embedded PCL codes here at my desk using the Reflection "bypass printer driver" switch, but it stopped working reliably with XP. It sometimes works for awhile if I remove and re-add the printer using an older driver, then update the driver. The very-latest Reflection version might solve this, but I'm too cheap to spend the money since all of the VMS stuff works now. I never did get PowerTerm to print right.

There are print capture programs you can buy, Snagit comes to mind, but I haven't looked at them for years. You select that printer in your emulator and it captures the report, displays, reformats it, lets you save it or print it and so forth.

Your problem is caused by the way Windows handles printers. Maybe someone else has the magic answer.
Phil.Howell
Honored Contributor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

Have you tried...
Add a local printer, and create a new port for it of type "HP standard TCP/IP port"
Enter the printer ip address and a port name, it should create it using the RAW protocol.
Then you can try this with both the correct HP printer driver and with generic/text.

If that doesn't work, you could
Create a local printer on LPT1 generic/text
at a cmd prompt enter
NET USE LPT1: \\server\printer
then COPY LPT1:

Phil
Vladimir Fabecic
Honored Contributor

Re: pc emulator print to local print

I had a customer that wanted to print to local printer from PC terminal emulator (using local printer as standard output).
The only solution that worked was VRQ Reflection with option "bypass window driver". They also had esc sequences. Had to play a little bit with parameters butit worked.
The only problem was that Reflection is very expensive.
In vino veritas, in VMS cluster