Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!dwolfe From: dwolfe@oakhill.sps.mot.com (Dave Wolfe) Newsgroups: comp.mail.elm Subject: Re: Printing from ELM to a printer attached to a PC Message-ID: <1991Jun5.174013.16184@oakhill.sps.mot.com> Date: 5 Jun 91 17:40:13 GMT References: <1991Jun5.141703.522@cm.cf.ac.uk> Organization: Motorola Inc., Austin, Texas Lines: 39 In <1991Jun5.141703.522@cm.cf.ac.uk> cookc@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Chris Cook) writes: >I've been trying to work out a way that you can print directly from Elm to >a printer attached to a PC. Several Vt100 emulators allow you to print >direct to an attached printer by sending the sequences [5i [4i before >and after the desired section of text. Maybe I'm reading too much into this, but it sounds to me like the system running elm doesn't even know that the printer in question exists. When you print a file through the vt100 emulator w/ the escape sequences, do you just use the regular print spooler or do you have to copy the file to /dev/tty? >The printer in question is a Postscript >printer so we would have to pass it through a filter on the way. All this is >done by the local command > pspr -v filename >I've tried inserting this into the options page >PRINT = pspr -v %s >but the best I get is the message is sent to the default print queue. Sounds to me like pspr is sending its output to the print spooler and, in the absence of a specific option or environment variable, that goes in the default print queue. RTFM for pspr (if such exists) to see how to direct the output to a specific printer. If the system doesn't know about the printer connected to the PC, then you're probably going to have to direct pspr's output to a file and blow that file down the line to the PC w/ the escape sequences. A shell script should work nicely; then just set elm's print command to envoke that script. Heaven help you if something else outputs to the PC between the escape sequences, 'cuz that's going to get printed too and it probably won't be valid postscript. -- Dave Wolfe (dwolfe@oakhill.sps.mot.com) | Motorola Incorporated "[RISC is] like obscenity, | MMTG (formerly MPG) we all know what RISC is when we see it, | Austin, Texas 78735-8598 but no one can define it." Chris Torek | m/d OE112 (512)891-3246