Print to file from DOS program in Windows

[Steve Hayes]

Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs, and
unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of getting
printed output. Manually copying stuff from the screed seems to defeat the
purpose of using a computer.

I used to have (still do, in fact) a DOS program called PRN2FILE.EXE which
woudl capture printer output to a disk file, but that does not seem to work
under Windows 95 or higher.

Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?

The main program I want to use this on is the PAF Research Data Filer (RDF)
which was distributed with PAF 2.x. It provides a useful way of keeping track
of paper research files, and I've found no other program that can do the same
job as well.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 05:19:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]>
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:

Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs, and
unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of getting

Most printers these days do not have ANY plain ASCII print
capability -- ie, no TEXT mode. Everything is graphics mode, based upon
letting Windows render into memory, then feeding the pixels to the
printer driver for mapping to printer controls. In the old days, the
application either did pure text (meaning no driver was really needed,
any Centronics compatible printer could be connected and handle the
data), or had their own low-level driver with plug-ins for various
standard printers.

Even the days of doing graphics using a printer's internal language
(such as that used on the old Epson MX-80, HP's Printer Control
Language, etc.) are gone -- those control languages aren't even
documented for new printers.

Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?

With W9x, you may still be able to boot to a pure MS-DOS mode -- but

that probably can't access your data <G>

--

==============================================================
[email protected] | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
[email protected] | Bestiaria Support Staff
==============================================================
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

[Helen Castle]

I have heard a few people mention inability to print or copy from DOS
windows in XP so have the following suggestion for copying (from my NSW BDM
CD's which I use all the time):

If the DOS program is running in a window and not full screen you can press
<Alt Space> or right click on the Title Bar and you will get a menu from
which you can choose Edit, Mark use your mouse to highlight what you want to
copy and then either press <enter> or go to Edit Copy, then you can just
paste into a notepad or wordprocessor program

To run the DOS program in a window and not full screen press <Alt Enter> and
then again to go back to full screen

I have found this is the only way I can copy what I used to be able to just
highlight and paste prior to XP.

Hope this helps
Helen Castle
Narangba Qld


"Steve Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs,
and
unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of
getting
printed output. Manually copying stuff from the screed seems to defeat the
purpose of using a computer.

I used to have (still do, in fact) a DOS program called PRN2FILE.EXE which
woudl capture printer output to a disk file, but that does not seem to
work
under Windows 95 or higher.

Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?

The main program I want to use this on is the PAF Research Data Filer
(RDF)
which was distributed with PAF 2.x. It provides a useful way of keeping
track
of paper research files, and I've found no other program that can do the
same
job as well.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop
uk

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 07:38:01 GMT, Dennis Lee Bieber <[email protected]>
wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 05:19:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:

Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs, and
unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of getting

Most printers these days do not have ANY plain ASCII print
capability -- ie, no TEXT mode. Everything is graphics mode, based upon
letting Windows render into memory, then feeding the pixels to the
printer driver for mapping to printer controls. In the old days, the
application either did pure text (meaning no driver was really needed,
any Centronics compatible printer could be connected and handle the
data), or had their own low-level driver with plug-ins for various
standard printers.

Even the days of doing graphics using a printer's internal language
(such as that used on the old Epson MX-80, HP's Printer Control
Language, etc.) are gone -- those control languages aren't even
documented for new printers.

Aye, well that just restates the problem at greater length, but doesn't
actually solve it.

Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?

With W9x, you may still be able to boot to a pure MS-DOS mode -- but
that probably can't access your data <G

I'll try to remember that next time my computer crashes and i have to reboot,
but I suspect that the problem is that the PRN2FILE program I have doesn't
work with DOS 7.x (the version that some with Win98).



--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Gene]

Steve Hayes wrote:

Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Steve,

I'm not sure if this will work but its worth a try. Obtain one of the
PDF creaters that run as a printer. If the DOS program will print to
it, you can then print the PDF to a file or copy and paste the output
from the PDF to a windows based program. Of course it all depends on
being able to print from the DOS program to the PDF but as I said, its
worth a try if you really need the info printed out.

Gene

[Margaret Jordan]

Steve Hayes wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 07:38:01 GMT, Dennis Lee Bieber <[email protected]
wrote:


On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 05:19:50 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:


Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs, and
unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of getting

Most printers these days do not have ANY plain ASCII print
capability -- ie, no TEXT mode. Everything is graphics mode, based upon
letting Windows render into memory, then feeding the pixels to the
printer driver for mapping to printer controls. In the old days, the
application either did pure text (meaning no driver was really needed,
any Centronics compatible printer could be connected and handle the
data), or had their own low-level driver with plug-ins for various
standard printers.

Even the days of doing graphics using a printer's internal language
(such as that used on the old Epson MX-80, HP's Printer Control
Language, etc.) are gone -- those control languages aren't even
documented for new printers.


Aye, well that just restates the problem at greater length, but doesn't
actually solve it.


Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?


With W9x, you may still be able to boot to a pure MS-DOS mode -- but
that probably can't access your data <G


I'll try to remember that next time my computer crashes and i have to reboot,
but I suspect that the problem is that the PRN2FILE program I have doesn't
work with DOS 7.x (the version that some with Win98).



Assuming you are in the Command Prompt screen, try as example,

print sample.doc > c:\sample.txt
The ">" will reroute the print command to another output, such as to a
text file that can later be printed in Windows with your word processor
(make sure the output is in a known directory)

Another way is to press <Alt> <PrtScn> which will put an image of the
screen on the clipboard. Then open a graphics program and paste into a
new document. The problem with that is you have a non-editable picture
of text.

Margaret

[cwsachs.dejazzd.com]

Why not contact the helpful folks at SLC and ask the same question ?
Perhaps they have suggestions . . .

Carl Sachs

PS - For what it's worth, I DL'd and use the program "Paperless
Printer", which will print to PDF, HTML, RTF, Excel, JPG, and BMP. It's
come in handy many times.

You may also wish to check out "TopOCR", an OCR program which will
convert text in a JPG to text in word . . . pretty slick !! It'll
convert right from a digital photo.

Google should find both programs quite quickly !

Steve Hayes wrote:

Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs, and
unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of getting
printed output. Manually copying stuff from the screed seems to defeat the
purpose of using a computer.

I used to have (still do, in fact) a DOS program called PRN2FILE.EXE which
woudl capture printer output to a disk file, but that does not seem to work
under Windows 95 or higher.

Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?

The main program I want to use this on is the PAF Research Data Filer (RDF)
which was distributed with PAF 2.x. It provides a useful way of keeping track
of paper research files, and I've found no other program that can do the same
job as well.

[Herman Viaene]

Steve Hayes wrote:

Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs,
and unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of
getting printed output. Manually copying stuff from the screed seems to
defeat the purpose of using a computer.

I used to have (still do, in fact) a DOS program called PRN2FILE.EXE which
woudl capture printer output to a disk file, but that does not seem to
work under Windows 95 or higher.

Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?

The main program I want to use this on is the PAF Research Data Filer
(RDF) which was distributed with PAF 2.x. It provides a useful way of
keeping track of paper research files, and I've found no other program
that can do the same job as well.

You did not mention what printer exactly you have, but here's my 2c:
If your printer is compatible with a HP Laserjet, fair chances are your DOS
program will be able to print to it as an HP Laserjet II or III f.e. With
Epsons, there are probably similar things.
Further - it is such a long time ago - I seem to remember that any DOS
program I've known, that had a suitable printer driver for a printer, had
somehow - deeply buried sometimes in all it Ctrl-P options - an option to
generate a print file which you later could print on a machine with the
suitable printer connected, with the "copy file.prn lpt1:" command.

Herman Viaene

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:04:28 +1000, "Helen Castle"
<[email protected]> wrote:

I have heard a few people mention inability to print or copy from DOS
windows in XP so have the following suggestion for copying (from my NSW BDM
CD's which I use all the time):

If the DOS program is running in a window and not full screen you can press
Alt Space> or right click on the Title Bar and you will get a menu from
which you can choose Edit, Mark use your mouse to highlight what you want to
copy and then either press <enter> or go to Edit Copy, then you can just
paste into a notepad or wordprocessor program

To run the DOS program in a window and not full screen press <Alt Enter> and
then again to go back to full screen

I have found this is the only way I can copy what I used to be able to just
highlight and paste prior to XP.

Well that's useful to know!

Do you have any hints on how to past TO a DOS progtram running under Windows
XP?

I've been copying my data files back to my desktop running Win98 to do that,
when there is a convenient "paste" icon. But that isn't there in XP.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[john]

Steve Hayes wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:04:28 +1000, "Helen Castle"
[email protected]> wrote:

I have heard a few people mention inability to print or copy from DOS
windows in XP so have the following suggestion for copying (from my NSW BDM
CD's which I use all the time):

If the DOS program is running in a window and not full screen you can press
Alt Space> or right click on the Title Bar and you will get a menu from
which you can choose Edit, Mark use your mouse to highlight what you want to
copy and then either press <enter> or go to Edit Copy, then you can just
paste into a notepad or wordprocessor program

To run the DOS program in a window and not full screen press <Alt Enter> and
then again to go back to full screen

I have found this is the only way I can copy what I used to be able to just
highlight and paste prior to XP.

Well that's useful to know!

Do you have any hints on how to past TO a DOS progtram running under Windows
XP?

I've been copying my data files back to my desktop running Win98 to do that,
when there is a convenient "paste" icon. But that isn't there in XP.

Doesn't right-clicking and selecting Paste work? It does in the DOS
Command Prompt box.

[Helen Castle]

No it doesn't for NSW BDM CD's

I dont use anything else at DOS

Helen
"john" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Steve Hayes wrote:
On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:04:28 +1000, "Helen Castle"
[email protected]> wrote:

I have heard a few people mention inability to print or copy from DOS
windows in XP so have the following suggestion for copying (from my NSW
BDM CD's which I use all the time):

If the DOS program is running in a window and not full screen you can
press <Alt Space> or right click on the Title Bar and you will get a
menu from which you can choose Edit, Mark use your mouse to highlight
what you want to copy and then either press <enter> or go to Edit Copy,
then you can just paste into a notepad or wordprocessor program

To run the DOS program in a window and not full screen press <Alt Enter
and then again to go back to full screen

I have found this is the only way I can copy what I used to be able to
just highlight and paste prior to XP.

Well that's useful to know!

Do you have any hints on how to past TO a DOS progtram running under
Windows
XP?

I've been copying my data files back to my desktop running Win98 to do
that,
when there is a convenient "paste" icon. But that isn't there in XP.

Doesn't right-clicking and selecting Paste work? It does in the DOS
Command Prompt box.

[Rich256]

"Steve Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:04:28 +1000, "Helen Castle"
[email protected]> wrote:

Do you have any hints on how to past TO a DOS progtram running under
Windows
XP?

I've been copying my data files back to my desktop running Win98 to do
that,
when there is a convenient "paste" icon. But that isn't there in XP.

Not certain just what you are doing. Perhaps the old: Highlight the area

to be copied and then <Ctrl><Insert> to copy and <Shift><Insert> to paste.

[Allen]

Helen Castle wrote:

No it doesn't for NSW BDM CD's

I dont use anything else at DOS

Helen
"john" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

Steve Hayes wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:04:28 +1000, "Helen Castle"
[email protected]> wrote:


I have heard a few people mention inability to print or copy from DOS
windows in XP so have the following suggestion for copying (from my NSW
BDM CD's which I use all the time):

If the DOS program is running in a window and not full screen you can
press <Alt Space> or right click on the Title Bar and you will get a
menu from which you can choose Edit, Mark use your mouse to highlight
what you want to copy and then either press <enter> or go to Edit Copy,
then you can just paste into a notepad or wordprocessor program

To run the DOS program in a window and not full screen press <Alt Enter
and then again to go back to full screen

I have found this is the only way I can copy what I used to be able to
just highlight and paste prior to XP.

Well that's useful to know!

Do you have any hints on how to past TO a DOS progtram running under
Windows
XP?

I've been copying my data files back to my desktop running Win98 to do
that,
when there is a convenient "paste" icon. But that isn't there in XP.

Doesn't right-clicking and selecting Paste work? It does in the DOS
Command Prompt box.

As far as pasting goes, I never use anything except CTRL-V (and CTRL-C
for copying). Life's too short to spend any of it looking for Paste
icons, etc.
Allen

[Paul Blair]

Herman Viaene wrote:

Steve Hayes wrote:


Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

Most printers one buys these days do not seem to print from DOS programs,
and unless the DOS program has a built-in print-to-file there is no way of
getting printed output. Manually copying stuff from the screed seems to
defeat the purpose of using a computer.

I used to have (still do, in fact) a DOS program called PRN2FILE.EXE which
woudl capture printer output to a disk file, but that does not seem to
work under Windows 95 or higher.

Does anyone know of any similar utility that will work with Windows 98 or
higher?

The main program I want to use this on is the PAF Research Data Filer
(RDF) which was distributed with PAF 2.x. It provides a useful way of
keeping track of paper research files, and I've found no other program
that can do the same job as well.




You did not mention what printer exactly you have, but here's my 2c:
If your printer is compatible with a HP Laserjet, fair chances are your DOS
program will be able to print to it as an HP Laserjet II or III f.e. With
Epsons, there are probably similar things.
Further - it is such a long time ago - I seem to remember that any DOS
program I've known, that had a suitable printer driver for a printer, had
somehow - deeply buried sometimes in all it Ctrl-P options - an option to
generate a print file which you later could print on a machine with the
suitable printer connected, with the "copy file.prn lpt1:" command.

Herman Viaene

People, people....read the original post. Steve wants to print to a
file, not a printer!

Paul

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:18:43 -0500, Margaret Jordan <[email protected]> wrote:

Assuming you are in the Command Prompt screen, try as example,
print sample.doc > c:\sample.txt
The ">" will reroute the print command to another output, such as to a
text file that can later be printed in Windows with your word processor
(make sure the output is in a known directory)

My difficulty is in getting the program to output "sample.doc" in the first
place.

Under DOS 6.x and earlier PRN2FILE.EXE would redirect all printer output from
a program to a file.

So one would type

PRN2FILE LPT1 > OUTPUT.TXT

Then OUTPUT.TXT could be imported into a newgroup article, an e-mail message
or a word processing program.

But PRN2FILE does not appear to work under Win95 or greater.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:53:00 +0200, Herman Viaene <[email protected]> wrote:

You did not mention what printer exactly you have, but here's my 2c:
If your printer is compatible with a HP Laserjet, fair chances are your DOS
program will be able to print to it as an HP Laserjet II or III f.e. With
Epsons, there are probably similar things.

My printer is a Konica PagePro 1300W, and the manufacturers have told me
(after I bought it, of course -- they don't put this information on the box)
that "the printer is a gdi printer and it cannot print from dos based
applications".


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:57:01 GMT, Allen <[email protected]> wrote:

As far as pasting goes, I never use anything except CTRL-V (and CTRL-C
for copying). Life's too short to spend any of it looking for Paste
icons, etc.

So how do YOU get it to work in DOS programs then?

In Win98 the ONLY thing that will paste to a DOS prograsm is the special icon
for that purpose. Ctrl-V does nothing at all.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 21:53:03 GMT, "Rich256" <[email protected]> wrote:

"Steve Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...
On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 18:04:28 +1000, "Helen Castle"
[email protected]> wrote:

Do you have any hints on how to past TO a DOS progtram running under
Windows
XP?

I've been copying my data files back to my desktop running Win98 to do
that,
when there is a convenient "paste" icon. But that isn't there in XP.

Not certain just what you are doing. Perhaps the old: Highlight the area
to be copied and then <Ctrl><Insert> to copy and <Shift><Insert> to paste.

In Win98 I Highlight the area to be copied in the Windows program, and press
Ctl-C. Then I switch to the DOs program and click on the special icon for
paste, and the text is copied at the cursor. Ctrl-V does NOT work in DOS
programs, and Win XP lacks the special pasting icon.



--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Dennis Lee Bieber]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 08:03:41 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]>
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:

In Win98 I Highlight the area to be copied in the Windows program, and press
Ctl-C. Then I switch to the DOs program and click on the special icon for
paste, and the text is copied at the cursor. Ctrl-V does NOT work in DOS
programs, and Win XP lacks the special pasting icon.

Well, in an XP command window, <right-click>"paste" seems to be as
effective as looking for some silly icon... Though I have to confess
that, if the MS-DOS program is doing fancy cursor/screen control, it may
not work (and I'm picky on that MS -- DOS alone simply means "disk
operating system", and there are a multitude of those: TRSDOS, K2FDOS,
sometimes applied to AmigaDOS [for the command line interface, AmigaOS
is proper for the overall system]).
--

==============================================================
[email protected] | Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber KD6MOG
[email protected] | Bestiaria Support Staff
==============================================================
Home Page: <http://www.dm.net/~wulfraed/
Overflow Page: <http://wlfraed.home.netcom.com/

[Robert G. Eldridge]

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:18:43 -0500, Margaret Jordan <[email protected]>
wrote:

Another way is to press <Alt> <PrtScn> which will put an image of the
screen on the clipboard. Then open a graphics program and paste into a
new document. The problem with that is you have a non-editable picture
of text.

Wouldn't it be better to run the DOS application in a window in
Windows and copy/paste the text?

For example in XP right click in the title bar of the Window and
select Edit > Mark then left click and drag/select the text to be
copied (its highlighted in yellow in my system) and then press Enter
to copy it to the clipboard and then past into your windows
application.

--
Bob

[Herman Viaene]

Steve Hayes wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:53:00 +0200, Herman Viaene <[email protected]> wrote:

You did not mention what printer exactly you have, but here's my 2c:
If your printer is compatible with a HP Laserjet, fair chances are your
DOS program will be able to print to it as an HP Laserjet II or III f.e.
With Epsons, there are probably similar things.

My printer is a Konica PagePro 1300W, and the manufacturers have told me
(after I bought it, of course -- they don't put this information on the
box) that "the printer is a gdi printer and it cannot print from dos based
applications".

Oh boy, there you're in a bad position.
The only way out I can think off: research if there is any possibility of
this printer/GDI driver emulating or converting something like HP's PLC
language or Postscript, look for such printer supported by your DOS
program, print to file from the DOS program using such printer driver and
then submit the resulting print file to lpt1:

Herman

[Margaret Jordan]

Steve Hayes wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 08:18:43 -0500, Margaret Jordan <[email protected]> wrote:


Assuming you are in the Command Prompt screen, try as example,
print sample.doc > c:\sample.txt
The ">" will reroute the print command to another output, such as to a
text file that can later be printed in Windows with your word processor
(make sure the output is in a known directory)


My difficulty is in getting the program to output "sample.doc" in the first
place.

Under DOS 6.x and earlier PRN2FILE.EXE would redirect all printer output from
a program to a file.

So one would type

PRN2FILE LPT1 > OUTPUT.TXT

Then OUTPUT.TXT could be imported into a newgroup article, an e-mail message
or a word processing program.

But PRN2FILE does not appear to work under Win95 or greater.


While I haven't run a DOS program for 15+ years, I still do use several

DOS commands. Redirection works on the command line. For example, to
print the directory of a CD, I can do DIR D:\*.* > C:\D.txt and get a
file to be printed later. This works on 2000 Pro and XP Pro, which I am
now using.

If, however, you have many commands to use to get to the output, it
could be cumbersome since you must type "blind" with no visible prompts
on the screen. If you do this often, I'd bet the input redir would also
work. Make a text file of all inputs and command:
Program < input.txt > output.txt
Otherwise, write down all inputs and type them in order. The advantage
to using regular DOS commands is that it should work, even if you are at
a computer without your utility.

Margaret

[Rich256]

"Steve Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

My difficulty is in getting the program to output "sample.doc" in the
first
place.

One thing puzzles me. What happens if you print that to a file? That file
is constructed for use by PAF 2. If you don't print using it you don't get
the proper format which is contained in the PAF program.

If printed via PAF you get a Header and numbers for the entries. Those
features are in the program and not in the data file..

That file can be loaded into any word processor but it will have extra
characters and will not be properly arranged.

If you do manage to print to file I would expect that you would get the same
strange result.

[GaryT]

Even though the CD may be running in a DOS window, it is still a read-only
CD. You can copy from it but not paste to it.

Gary

"Helen Castle" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

No it doesn't for NSW BDM CD's

I dont use anything else at DOS

Helen
"john" <[email protected]> wrote in message
snip

Doesn't right-clicking and selecting Paste work? It does in the DOS
Command Prompt box.

[Bruce Uttley]

In article <[email protected]>,
Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote:

Does anyone know of a way of printing to file from a DOS prograsm running
under Windows?

...

Printing to a file from a DOS program is usually referred to as
"capturing lpt1:". Instructions for setting this up in Windows 2000
and Windows XP can be found at:
http://www.dsbglobal.com/dosprinter/CaptureLpt1.htm
You need to look at the 2 steps described near the bottom of the
webpage after the title "What if your DOS program cannot print to
the file:".

The steps involve adding a "Generic Text Printer" and defining a
"Print to File" port for it. Then a "NET USE LPT1:" command will
redirect all output printed to LPT1: to this file (which is all
output of the PRINT command and printed output generated by
conventional DOS apps).

I wouldn't describe the steps to set this up as simple and
straight forward, but it is powerful and I can imagine the same
technique being used to satisfy other requirements. The only 'problem'
I encountered testing this was that each printed output file
replaced the target file and did not append to it. If your DOS
app is printing multiple output files then you would only be
left with the last one.

[Robert M. Riches Jr.]

On 2005-09-23, Steve Hayes <[email protected]> wrote:

That's precisely what the MS DOS program doesn't do -- print to file.

I have other programs that do, and it's simple to print to file and im port
the resultant program into something like Wordpad, and print it from there.

Bot others have explained how to copy and paste from theb secrren, and that
seems to work, though it's a bit of a schlep copying a long report one
screendul at a time, but it can be done.

Sorry if I missed this earlier in the thread, but have you
considered/tried creating a pseudo-printer within the actual
OS you're running, with this pseudo-printer defined to dump
results to a file? A friend of mine was going to do that to
work around a similar limitation in a program we were using
under W2K. I don't know the details of how to set it up,
but he apparently did.

Robert Riches
[email protected]
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 11:21:19 +0200, Herman Viaene <[email protected]> wrote:

Steve Hayes wrote:

On Thu, 22 Sep 2005 20:53:00 +0200, Herman Viaene <[email protected]> wrote:

You did not mention what printer exactly you have, but here's my 2c:
If your printer is compatible with a HP Laserjet, fair chances are your
DOS program will be able to print to it as an HP Laserjet II or III f.e.
With Epsons, there are probably similar things.

My printer is a Konica PagePro 1300W, and the manufacturers have told me
(after I bought it, of course -- they don't put this information on the
box) that "the printer is a gdi printer and it cannot print from dos based
applications".



Oh boy, there you're in a bad position.
The only way out I can think off: research if there is any possibility of
this printer/GDI driver emulating or converting something like HP's PLC
language or Postscript, look for such printer supported by your DOS
program, print to file from the DOS program using such printer driver and
then submit the resulting print file to lpt1:

That's precisely what the MS DOS program doesn't do -- print to file.

I have other programs that do, and it's simple to print to file and im port
the resultant program into something like Wordpad, and print it from there.

Bot others have explained how to copy and paste from theb secrren, and that
seems to work, though it's a bit of a schlep copying a long report one
screendul at a time, but it can be done.


--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 08:29:11 GMT, Dennis Lee Bieber <[email protected]>
wrote:

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 08:03:41 +0200, Steve Hayes <[email protected]
declaimed the following in soc.genealogy.computing:


In Win98 I Highlight the area to be copied in the Windows program, and press
Ctl-C. Then I switch to the DOs program and click on the special icon for
paste, and the text is copied at the cursor. Ctrl-V does NOT work in DOS
programs, and Win XP lacks the special pasting icon.

Well, in an XP command window, <right-click>"paste" seems to be as
effective as looking for some silly icon... Though I have to confess
that, if the MS-DOS program is doing fancy cursor/screen control, it may
not work (and I'm picky on that MS -- DOS alone simply means "disk
operating system", and there are a multitude of those: TRSDOS, K2FDOS,
sometimes applied to AmigaDOS [for the command line interface, AmigaOS
is proper for the overall system]).

We;;, now I've found it, thanks to the instructions from people here, and it
seems to work. Unfortunately the XP documentation is a little thin, to say the
least. And that wikll be useful for other things, as well as copying reports
one screeen as a time.




--
Steve Hayes from Tshwane, South Africa
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
E-mail - see web page, or parse: shayes at dunelm full stop org full stop uk

[Steve Hayes]

On Fri, 23 Sep 2005 14:30:15 GMT, "Rich256" <[email protected]> wrote:

"Steve Hayes" <[email protected]> wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

My difficulty is in getting the program to output "sample.doc" in the
first
place.

One thing puzzles me. What happens if you print that to a file? That file
is constructed for use by PAF 2. If you don't print using it you don't get
the proper format which is contained in the PAF program.

If printed via PAF you get a Header and numbers for the entries. Those
features are in the program and not in the data file..

That file can be loaded into any word processor but it will have extra
characters and will not be properly arranged.

If you do manage to print to file I would expect that you would get the same
strange result.

I'm replying here to everyone who replied to say thanks for the information,
some of which was useful, and some less so.

The solution was sent to me by e-mail by Keith NZ, but I'll mention it here in
case anyone else has a similar problem.

The PRN2FILE utility I was using DOES work, and thanks to Keith I've got it to
work under Win 98, and probably it will under WinXP as well.

My mistake was not running it in the same DOS session I used to open PAF.

I've now incorporated it into a batchfile as follows:

@echo off
prn2file f:\upload\pafout.txt
e:
cd \paf
paf
prn2file
f:
cd \upload
editor
exit

Which I run from an icon on my desktop.

And the result?


E:\PAF\RDFDATA\GENERAL.DAT

29 Oct 2005 Page 1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Addecott, George M 2242

W- Creighton, Doreen DAU- Addecott, Cheryl 1435 /5021 /
Photographer in Bulawayo, had polio DOC 00288 (
)

2 Creighton, Doreen F 1435

H- Addecott, George 2242 / /
DOC 00288 (
)

================================================================================

Which is what I wanted.

A bit wide for the newsgroup screen, but I could always import to WordPad, and
print using a smaller font, and as I open it in my (DOS) word processor
immediately after creating it, I can always edit it thus:

E:\PAF\RDFDATA\GENERAL.DAT

29 Oct 2005 Page 1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
1 Addecott, George M 2242
W- Creighton, Doreen DAU- Addecott, Cheryl 1435 /5021 /
Photographer in Bulawayo, had polio DOC 00288 ( )

2 Creighton, Doreen F 1435
H- Addecott, George 2242 / /
DOC 00288 ( )
===========================================================================

Which makes it more legible, and is the result I wanted to achieve.

Printing to a Text file and pulling it into Wordpad in order to print it is
not that much more difficult than printing directly, and it sure beats copying
and pasting a screen at a time, as some suggested.

Problem solved, thanks Keith NZ.

And thanks for all the other suggestions, which I'll save for future
reference.


--
Steve Hayes
E-mail: [email protected] (see web page if it doesn't work)
Web: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7734/stevesig.htm
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/7783/