Epson LQ870 Quickbooks Windows 2000

[Jim Spencer]

Have client that recently replaced Windows 98 PC with
Windows 2000 PC. Quickbooks now prints 7's where dots used
to print. I have tried all sorts of drivers. GEneric,
LQ510, LQ800, LQ1070 etc. to no avail. Intuit & Epson both
blame Microsoft's driver. A Windows 98 PC networked to
this 2000 printer, prints from Quickbooks fine. Epson has
no Windows 2000 driver for the LQ870. Quickbooks
recommended the LQ510 which did not help. If I use a
LQ1070 driver the dots will print, but everything prints
letter quality and takes forever as well as too small and
compressed. I've tried everything! Help.

 

[Gene]

I just posted a query re: my HP710C. Although my problem
manafests differently, we have one common problem. The
vendor has no driver for Windows 2000. Vendors have always
provided drivers for new releases of OS. This is just to
let you know, HP is no better than Epson in this regard.
They freely admit that they provided a driver to MS with
only basic print capabilities. I hope we can get a
workaround solution. Good luck! At least you let me know
that I shouldn't buy an Epson.

 

[Brian Smither]

[posted and mailed]

This is not a direct answer - sorry.

A "7" is binary code 00111110 and the "dot" (not the period, but rather an
elevated dot similar to the "times" math operator) is 10111110 in most
character sets. Note the addition of the high-order bit. I'm guessing
QuickBooks is wanting to use this dot character to draw boxes or something.

Either Win2K's print subsystem, the printer driver you are using, the
parallel port of the machine, or a dip-switch setting on the LQ is causing
the high-order bit to be dropped.

Since a W98 machine is accessing the shared resource (the LQ on the W2K
machine) and is printing fine, we *may* be able to eliminate the parallel
port and the LQ switch setting. But just to be sure, conduct an experiment
by going into the BIOS and configuring the parallel port to SPP.

Further experiments relate to any dip-switch settings. You will need the
printer's manual for this. There may be a switch (or group of switches)
that state what will be printed when a byte greater than $80 arrives: print
the lower character set in italics, use the Terminal character set (great
for drawing boxes), drop the high-order bit, etc. You will have to research
this.

Using the LQ-510 or LQ-1070 drivers:
As another experiment, your driver may have the following settings. Open
the LQ's Properties page. On the General tab, there may be a "Printing
Preferences" button - click it. On the Preferences page, Layout tab, there
may be an "Advanced" button - click it. On the Advanced Options page, there
may be a "Printer Features - Print Quality" selection. Select Draft
Quality. Click OK all the way out.

On the Properties page, you might also look at the Advanced tab, Print
Processor button. On the Print Processor page, the processor selected most
likely should be WinPrint and the datatype most likely should be RAW. But
try TEXT and see if that changes anything.

Visit this Web page if you can't get to your printer's manual right away:
http://www.uktsupport.co.uk/epson/Impact/lq870.htm