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From: mcmahan@netcom.UUCP (Dave Mc Mahan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga,comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Sneaky printer driver
Message-ID: <12833@netcom.UUCP>
Date: 6 Jun 90 02:55:08 GMT
References: <1846.266b88f7@cc.nu.oz> <12283@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Organization: Dave McMahan @ NetCom Services
Lines: 39


 In a previous article, andy@cbmvax (Andy Finkel) writes:
>In article <1846.266b88f7@cc.nu.oz> c8748411@cc.nu.oz writes:
>>	What I want to do is to have a printer driver that has all the 
>>information sent to it from whatever package and then, rather than do all
>>the tricky convert-to-specific-printer stuff, it saves it all as ascii file.
>>That way I can do my work, print it out, divert the output onto disk, get that
>>file to my mate who, say, might have a very lovely colour printer (the bastard)
>>and he can print my file out from CLI.
>>
>
>All you need is CMD, found on your workbench disk.  This utility
>intercepts the output to the parallel or serial.device (your
>choice) and puts it into a file in binary form.  Then you
>can print it on some other amiga by copying it to PAR: or SER:

I have seen this method posted, and it will work with one minor addition.  The
original poster wanted non-printer specific stuff.  With the CMD program, the
stuff captured has already been turned into printer codes for the specific
printer installed via Preferences (assuming the program is dumping using the
preferences options and not some built-in printer drivers).  I think the 
addition of the following would make this idea work.

Before dumping the image to the printer, go get a copy of your friend's printer
driver that he uses and install it.  Use preferenes to select this new type
of printer, and THEN dump the image to the printer using the CMD program to
re-route the data to a file.  In this manner, you will have a file containing
all the proper escape and control sequences for the desired printer, and
just copying the file to the PAR: device on the friend's computer should cause
the image to come out properly.  Failure to use his printer driver in the
first place will lead to (probably) incorrect results.  This method still
does NOT give you a printer independent dump file, but it will be correct
for the desired printer.   So, what do you think?  Is it a plan?



>andy finkel		{uunet|rutgers|amiga}!cbmvax!andy

   -dave