Does anyone know the steps I have to take to get printing on a USB connected
printer to work from my Clipper POS application? From the ads I understood
XBase was the answer to my problems, but we prefer to have a minimum of
source changes to get things work.

Clipper doesn't know about USB, but prints just on LPT-port connected
printers.

Any help is welcome.

Hi Gert,

my old Clipper apps are printing well under XP with USB printers. You have 
to activate
printerpool at the USB-printer portconfiguration. Then you can select all 
ports you want.

Hope that helps.

Guido



"Gert van der Wouden" <gwouden@planet.nl> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:720436f$1c56dc83$b4fb5@news.alaska-software.com...
> Does anyone know the steps I have to take to get printing on a USB 
> connected
> printer to work from my Clipper POS application? From the ads I understood
> XBase was the answer to my problems, but we prefer to have a minimum of
> source changes to get things work.
>
> Clipper doesn't know about USB, but prints just on LPT-port connected
> printers.
>
> Any help is welcome.
>
>
> 

Hello Gert van der Wouden

I am using this in my batch program

net use \\pc\printername lpt1:

and share the USB Printer

and done.


set printe to lpt1
set pinter on ...
etc
etc

HTH
Osvaldo Ramirez

Gert van der Wouden wrote:
> Does anyone know the steps I have to take to get printing on a USB connected
> printer to work from my Clipper POS application? From the ads I understood
> XBase was the answer to my problems, but we prefer to have a minimum of
> source changes to get things work.
> 
> Clipper doesn't know about USB, but prints just on LPT-port connected
> printers.
> 
> Any help is welcome.
> 
> 
> 
A number of printers need to print through windows driver. Even if you 
get the port configured it might not accept the characters from you 
Clipper applications. Even if you convert to xBase++ or (x)Harbour you 
may still need to print through Windows driver. You might try a product 
called Pagescript.  If you convert to xBase++ or (x)Harbour you might 
still have to convert printing routines to Windows printing methods.

Hi Gert

Gert van der Wouden wrote:
> Does anyone know the steps I have to take to get printing on a USB connected
> printer to work from my Clipper POS application? From the ads I understood
> XBase was the answer to my problems, but we prefer to have a minimum of
> source changes to get things work.
> 
> Clipper doesn't know about USB, but prints just on LPT-port connected
> printers.
> 
> Any help is welcome.

I presume you mean that you are doing this in Xbase++, not Clipper...

If it's a USB POS printer and you still talk to it using textual 
commands/printing you can just share the print spooler for the USB port 
with a name (eg, receipt) and then print with something like:

set printer to \\<your pc name>\receipt

and all the rest of your code can be as before...

You do not need to set the port for the printer to an LPT port at all.

Regan Cawkwell
Company  : Real Business Applications Ltd
Title    : Technical Support
Websites : www.rbauk.com
Email    : regan@rbauk.com
------------------------------------------------------

We are looking into using the ability of SET PRINTER TO <network printer> as 
well...
and this is what I have working:

I prompt the user with a print dialog (XbpPrintDialog), and set a var to 
class it returns (lets call it oPrinter)
Then:
SET PRINTER TO OBJECT oPrinter

This removes our dependancy on "hardcoded" printers in the app, and gives 
the user the ability to print to a different printer without getting tech 
support involved in re-configuring a locally installed printer...

Just another way,
Dan



"Regan Cawkwell" <regan@rbauk.com> wrote in message 
news:52caec3a$1e0a3c0$309ce8@news.alaska-software.com...
> Hi Gert
>
> Gert van der Wouden wrote:
>> Does anyone know the steps I have to take to get printing on a USB 
>> connected
>> printer to work from my Clipper POS application? From the ads I 
>> understood
>> XBase was the answer to my problems, but we prefer to have a minimum of
>> source changes to get things work.
>>
>> Clipper doesn't know about USB, but prints just on LPT-port connected
>> printers.
>>
>> Any help is welcome.
>
> I presume you mean that you are doing this in Xbase++, not Clipper...
>
> If it's a USB POS printer and you still talk to it using textual 
> commands/printing you can just share the print spooler for the USB port 
> with a name (eg, receipt) and then print with something like:
>
> set printer to \\<your pc name>\receipt
>
> and all the rest of your code can be as before...
>
> You do not need to set the port for the printer to an LPT port at all.
>
> -- 
> Regan Cawkwell
> Company  : Real Business Applications Ltd
> Title    : Technical Support
> Websites : www.rbauk.com
> Email    : regan@rbauk.com
> ------------------------------------------------------

Hello Gert
there are converter programs like DOSPRINT, you can print to any windows 
printer without any change of code.
regards
Rudolf

"Gert van der Wouden" <gwouden@planet.nl> schrieb im Newsbeitrag 
news:720436f$1c56dc83$b4fb5@news.alaska-software.com...
> Does anyone know the steps I have to take to get printing on a USB 
> connected
> printer to work from my Clipper POS application? From the ads I understood
> XBase was the answer to my problems, but we prefer to have a minimum of
> source changes to get things work.
>
> Clipper doesn't know about USB, but prints just on LPT-port connected
> printers.
>
> Any help is welcome.
>
>
>

Just read this and remember hitting this problem many years ago when an old 
dot matrix printer finally died.
I have dug out the source and here is how I did it in Clipper 5.1 and 
Win98SE.
I used the ability of WORDPAD to load files and print from the command line.
Since at the time I also wanted to Fax the printouts I found that the 
standard plain text printouts were
almost unreadable when faxed and so I also wrote a crude but effective .TXT 
to .RTF converter which allowed
a good solid faxable printout to be made on the USB inkjet I had . (Also the 
RTF files could be faxed directly with WinFax)
It ran seamlessly for years and did not upset the Clipper program as it ran 
in the background with no user intervention or
third party software.
It's a long time since I last used this, and it's not the most elegant 
solution but it does allow ANY printer to be used as long as
it is the default Windows printer.

Have fun!

Barry

Snippets from main routines :-

* Open file for print.
            SET DEVICE TO PRINT
            SET PRINTER TO (txfilename)
            SET PRINTER ON

 do print job here ---------------

 Close print file

        SET PRINTER TO
        SET PRINTER OFF

 Reset device to screen

        SET DEVICE TO SCREEN

 Convert plain text file to RTF if you wish

rtf_it(txfilename,rtfFileNameandPath)

 Print it to the default Windows printer

runstring="dos_prin.bat "+rtfFileNameandPath

 This loads the RTF into Wordpad and prints it in the background
         RUN (runstring)

 That's it!

The batch file dos_prin.bat is needed in the app home directory and is 
simply one line:-

wordpad.exe %1 /p

Wordpad.exe needs to be available - I put a copy in the app home directory.

If you use the rtf_it function below - it needs two text files to be 
available - RTF_HEAD.txt and RTF_TAIL.txt

************************************************
 RTF_IT
 This was devised by disecting an RTF and using the bare bones.
* It does the job it was written for - nothing more!
*
FUNCTION rtf_it ( FileSource, FileTarget )
LOCAL rt_str, pk_str, EndOfLine, Linestr, p_handle
     FileSource = UPPER(FileSource)
          * Open file for read only
            p_handle = FOPEN(FileSource)      Open file & get handle
            IF p_handle = -1
               ? 'Error'
               IF FERROR() = 2
                  ? 'File not found '+FileSource
               ENDIF
            ENDIF
rt_str = ''
rt_str = rt_str + MEMOREAD('RTF_HEAD.TXT')
          * Read chunk of 5k into pk_str.
            pk_str = FREADSTR(p_handle,5000)

       DO WHILE  LEN(pk_str)>0
          EndOfLine = AT(chr(10),pk_str)            Chars to end of line
              IF EndOfLine = 0
                 EndOfLine = LEN(pk_str)
              ENDIF
          Linestr = LEFT(pk_str,EndOfLine)        Extract line

              * Routine to replace \ with \\
              IF AT('\',Linestr)>0
                 private newline := '',ch := '',a := 0,loop :=0
                 a = LEN(linestr)
                 FOR loop = 1 to a
                   ch=substr(linestr,loop,1)
                   newline = newline+IF(ch='\','\\',ch)
                 NEXT
                 linestr=newline
              ENDIF
          rt_str = rt_str+'\par '+linestr         And add it to RTF
          pk_str = SUBSTR(pk_str,EndOfLine+1)     Chop off line used
          * Re-fill file buffer if getting low
             IF LEN(pk_str)<200
                pk_str = pk_str + FREADSTR(p_handle,2000)
             ENDIF
       ENDDO
rt_str = rt_str + MEMOREAD('RTF_TAIL.TXT')
       FCLOSE(p_handle)
       MEMOWRIT(FileTarget,rt_str)
RETURN nil

RTF_HEAD.txt:-
{\rtf1\ansi\deff0\deftab720{\fonttbl{\f0\fswiss MS Sans 
Serif;}{\f1\froman\fcharset2 Symbol;}{\f2\fmodern\fprq1 Courier 
New;}{\f3\froman Times New Roman;}}
{\colortbl\red0\green0\blue0;}
\deflang2057\pard\plain\f2\fs24\b

RTF_TAIL.txt:-
\par }

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Gert van der Wouden" <gwouden@planet.nl> wrote in message 
news:720436f$1c56dc83$b4fb5@news.alaska-software.com...
> Does anyone know the steps I have to take to get printing on a USB 
> connected
> printer to work from my Clipper POS application? From the ads I understood
> XBase was the answer to my problems, but we prefer to have a minimum of
> source changes to get things work.
>
> Clipper doesn't know about USB, but prints just on LPT-port connected
> printers.
>
> Any help is welcome.
>
>
>