PRN files

[Guest]

"How to print a prn file created by "print to file" option?

 

[Cindy M -WordMVP-]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?ZGhzb3JnZQ==?=,

"How to print a prn file created by "print to file" option?

that depends on which printer format was chosen at the time.
Unless it was the "Generic Text printer", or perhaps a PDF
printer, your chances are slim.

This prints to a format that, say, a print shop can use to
print a file you send. It's usually a special binary format.

Cindy Meister
INTER-Solutions, Switzerland
http://homepage.swissonline.ch/cindymeister (last update Jun
8 2004)
http://www.word.mvps.org

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[Jay Freedman]

Hi =?Utf-8?B?ZGhzb3JnZQ==?=,

that depends on which printer format was chosen at the time.
Unless it was the "Generic Text printer", or perhaps a PDF
printer, your chances are slim.

This prints to a format that, say, a print shop can use to
print a file you send. It's usually a special binary format.

I haven't looked at this since the DOS era, but it was my impression
that a .prn file is a capture of the bit stream that comes out of the
printer driver and would otherwise have gone to the port where the
printer is attached. That would be plain ASCII for the Generic Text
printer, PostScript code for a PS printer, and some (usually
proprietary) binary format for most other printers.

If it is a binary format, and if the same make/model of printer
actually is attached to the LPT1 port, then a command line in Start >
Run like

cmd /c copy /b "C:\My Docs\xyz.prn" LPT1:

will print the document. The /c switch tells the command processor
(cmd) to execute the copy command and then exit. The /b switch means
"binary copy".

The tricky part is when you have your printer attached to the USB port
instead of LPT1 (which is true for most recent printers). If that's
the case, let me point you to
http://www.askbobrankin.com/printing_a_prn_file.html for instructions
about how to replace LPT1: in the command with the printer's share
name.

--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP
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