Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!iuvax!mailrus!cornell!calvin.spp.cornell.edu!richard
From: richard@calvin.spp.cornell.edu (Richard Brittain)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Wanted: Print help
Summary: Why not just write your own formatter and hand the file to print.com
Message-ID: <1989Dec12.034853.8438@calvin.spp.cornell.edu>
Date: 12 Dec 89 03:48:53 GMT
References: <287@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
Reply-To: richard@calvin.spp.cornell.edu (Richard Brittain)
Organization: Cornell Space Plasma Physics Group
Lines: 25

In article <287@ns-mx.uiowa.edu> troj@umaxc.weeg.uiowa.edu (Kevin Trojanowski) writes:
>This doesn't quite accomplish want I want; my specific aim is to write create
>a program similar to print which allows setting of margins, page length,
>fonts (probably for an LQ-850; Laserjet a future addition), and other such
>goodies typically found on spoolers on minis and mainframes.
>
 It sounds like you are actually writing a formatting program, not a background
print spooler (which is all that print is, doing no manipulation of the document
at all).  Why don't you process the input file, producing the file full of
printer codes etc., and place it in a spool directory.  Then pass the filename
to print.com (which is already loaded of course) and you are home.

The only problem is that it will fail if the printer formatting codes happen
to include a control-Z !!!!! (thanks IBM, or was it microsoft)

I have been doing this for some time with a hacked *roff clone, and I also
recently hacked a "sideways" program to do the same thing.  The time taken
to format is always very much less then the time to print, at least on any
dot matrix printer.  To find out how to pass a filename direct to print
look up interrupt 2Fh.    Even easier, get lpr-lpq3.arc from simtel20

Richard Brittain,                   School of Elect. Eng.,  Upson Hall   
                                    Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853
ARPA: richard@calvin.spp.cornell.edu	
UUCP: {uunet,uw-beaver,rochester,cmcl2}!cornell!calvin!richard