printing Esc-P

[Axel Berger]

My last printer capable of printing text without needing to have them
explained pixel by pixel has just died. Is there a simple software for
DOS or Win98 translating Esc-P for a fixed width font to whatever
"modern" printer drivers need?

Alternatively can I import Esc-P into OpenOffice? Not a lot is done
there, a few words printed bold and the Heading double size.

Danke
Axel

[Hot-Text]

Post by Axel Berger
My last printer capable of printing text without needing to have them
explained pixel by pixel has just died. Is there a simple software for
DOS or Win98 translating Esc-P for a fixed width font to whatever
"modern" printer drivers need?
Alternatively can I import Esc-P into OpenOffice? Not a lot is done
there, a few words printed bold and the Heading double size.

you can go to Esc-P website and get the drive for it there

like http://www.epson.com/cgi-bin/Store/support/SupportIndex.jsp?BV_UseBVCookie=yes

Type all or a portion of the product name.

portion of the product name
Results 1 through 1 of 1 for "ESC" within Products
Epson B808342 (IEEE-1394 FireWire Scanner Interface Card)

So Type all the product name.

[MotoFox]

And it came to pass that Axel Berger delivered the following message unto
the people, saying~

Post by Axel Berger
My last printer capable of printing text without needing to have them
explained pixel by pixel has just died. Is there a simple software for DOS
or Win98 translating Esc-P for a fixed width font to whatever "modern"
printer drivers need?
Alternatively can I import Esc-P into OpenOffice? Not a lot is done there,
a few words printed bold and the Heading double size.
Danke
Axel

Not sure what exactly you mean, but I'll bite anyways. DOS already has
simple text printing support built in, so all you really need to do is
connect the printer to the parallel port, pipe the text file to a place
where DOS expects the printer to be found, and have at it. For example, my
Epson dot-matrix printer, a 2008 LQ-590 (ESC-P is a designator meaning
"Epson Stylus Class-Parallel", incidentally) can be used directly from DOS
in this manner.

Examples:
:\>type foo.txt > prn
:\>type foo.txt > lpt1 (LPT1 and PRN are the same thing on modern
implementations of DOS.)
:\>type foo.txt > com1 (if you're unlucky enough to have a serial printer)

You can do this either from straight DOS or from a DOS box under Win32. It
also assumes you actually use the parallel port for printing instead of
USB (yecccht.) DOS doesn't support USB printing (that I know of, anyways)
and I really can't say I blame it either!

(F.W.I.W., I'm also cross-posting this to
microsoft.public.win98.gen-discussion just so Señor Crackpipe "98 Guy"
doesn't blow a gasket about it, although he undoubtedly will, knowing him.
Whatever. His schizophrenia is his own issue to deal with, not mine.)

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Post by MotoFox
And it came to pass that Axel Berger delivered the following message unto
the people, saying~

Post by Axel Berger
My last printer capable of printing text without needing to have them
explained pixel by pixel has just died. Is there a simple software for DOS

[]

Post by MotoFox
Not sure what exactly you mean, but I'll bite anyways. DOS already has
simple text printing support built in, so all you really need to do is

[]
I _think_ he means he no longer has a plain text printer, i. e. one with
the fonts in the printer, and was wondering if there's a simple software
character generator available. (I suspect there isn't.)

[I have dot-matrix printers you could have, but you'd have to be in
Kent, England!]

[MotoFox]

And it came to pass that J. P. Gilliver (John) delivered the following
message unto the people, saying~

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I _think_ he means he no longer has a plain text printer, i. e. one with
the fonts in the printer, and was wondering if there's a simple software
character generator available. (I suspect there isn't.)

Got it.

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
[I have dot-matrix printers you could have, but you'd have to be in Kent,
England!]

Well, I'll have to think about it. I mean, the West Coast to England is a
bit of a drive, and with gas/petrol prices the way they are..... ;o)

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Post by J. P. Gilliver (John)
I _think_ he means he no longer has a plain text printer,
i. e. one with the fonts in the printer, and was wondering
if there's a simple software character generator available.
(I suspect there isn't.)

I think the driver for my Lexmark Z12 had some settings for
printing from DOS inside Windows, though I've never had the
need to use them.

Quite a few old ink jets also support plain text, it might be
best to look for one of these as the cartridges are still
available for some models.

[Anton Shepelev]

My last printer capable of printing text without
needing to have them explained pixel by pixel has
just died. Is there a simple software for DOS or
Win98 translating Esc-P for a fixed width font to
whatever "modern" printer drivers need?

I have found the following (commercial) programs
that seem to do what you need:

http://www.araisa.com/
http://www.printfil.com/english.htm
http://www.dosprn.com/dos-print.htm

although I am not sure they support Windows 98.

Anton

[Axel Berger]

Post by Anton Shepelev
I have found the following (commercial) programs
http://www.araisa.com/
http://www.printfil.com/english.htm
http://www.dosprn.com/dos-print.htm

Thanks, that's great to know and I'll save the info. For the time being
I have found that just deleting all codes and printing naked text
without extras in a monospaced font is sufficient for my needs, anything
more was just bells and whistles anyway.

I have also looked at a manual and it seems a rather simple scriptable
search and replace will probably suffice to translate Esc/P into RTF. So
I'll probably not spend any money on the problem.

Danke
Axel

[MotoFox]

And it came to pass that Axel Berger delivered the following message unto
the people, saying~

Post by Axel Berger
I have also looked at a manual and it seems a rather simple scriptable
search and replace will probably suffice to translate Esc/P into RTF. So
I'll probably not spend any money on the problem.

But what's ESC-P? Are you saying you have an Epson parallel printer or is
this some sort of formatting language like Postscript?

[Axel Berger]

Post by MotoFox
But what's ESC-P? Are you saying you have an Epson parallel
printer or is this some sort of formatting language like Postscript?

No I'm saying I used to have several Canon parallel port printers using
variants of Epson's Esc/P language and all of them have died. Result,
none of my old DOS programs can print any more. Printing to file has
always been possible, but I need a way to make use of such files.
Thankfully I no longer have need of graphics printed that way.