QPC2 printing help

Discussion and advice about emulating the QL on other machines.
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JonS
Bent Pin Expansion Port
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Location: Cumbria

QPC2 printing help

Post by JonS »

Would anyone who has printing working in QPC2 be able to give some advice?

I've configured QPC2 to use the Windows default printer with par1.

PRINT par_defaultprinter$ prints the correct printer name.

SPL file to par1 does nothing.
OPEN#3;par1
LIST#3
CLOSE#3 does nothing either

Changing the default printer to Microsoft Print to PDF results in a Windows message "File saved to the document folder" and it does, but the file is zero bytes.

I'm sure it's something simple, but I don't know what that is so any help would be appreciated.


RWAP
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Re: QPC2 printing help

Post by RWAP »

It is missing a print processor (that is why the author brought out QPCPrint) - http://www.kilgus.net/qpcprint/

Basically, it will try sending the output from QL programs (be it ESC/P2, PCL or simple plain text) to whatever printer port you choose. Unfortunately, modern printers do not understand this, as they expect Windows (or OSx) to do all the work for them and just send a bitmap image.

So far as I know, Windows will not capture the output and convert it without a print processor (which basically grabs the data, reforms it into a page and then calls the Windows print routine).

Have a read of http://www.qlforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=608

There is also some more information on a couple of solutions at: http://www.rwapsoftware.co.uk/Printers2.html


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JonS
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Posts: 76
Joined: Fri Nov 11, 2011 3:54 pm
Location: Cumbria

Re: QPC2 printing help

Post by JonS »

Thanks for the links and explanation.....I'm sure I'd had printing working when I first got QPC2, but I couldn't have.


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