jerryw@teksce.SCE.TEK.COM (Jerry Willard) (04/19/87)
I bought a Star PowerType printer mail-order. It works fine, but I'm having a problem getting it to work with my word processor. I use Microsoft Word. Word doesn't have a printer driver for the PowerType. Star says it's supposed to work like a Qume Sprint 5 which Word doesn't have either. I've tried every driver they have and get the best results with the Diablo 630. However, one problem remains: it prints an unwanted B at the beginning of each document. I've modified the printer driver till I'm blue in the face. I called Star, their advice got worse results. Has somebody else had this problem and solved it? I'd appreciate some help. Jerry Willard, Tektronix
tim@j.cc.purdue.edu (Timothy Lange) (04/20/87)
I suggest using the MAKEPRD program to make a text file of the Diablo .PRD file and modifying it to do what you need. To get rid of the 'B' on the first page just change the printer initialization string to what your printer needs. While you are at it, change any other settings to match your printer to get utmost efficiency. Depending on your version of Word, the program may not be called MAKEPRD but will have PRD as part of the name. This will convert any .PRD file into text and back to .PRD format. -- Timothy Lange / PC Learning Resource Center Purdue University Computing Center / West Lafayette, IN 47907 317-494-1787 / tim@j.cc.purdue.edu
daveg@hpcvra.HP.COM (Dave Guggisberg) (04/20/87)
Re: B being printed by Microsoft Word 3.1 at start of print Word tries to initialize the printer when it begins a print run. One of the things it does is set the number of lines per page. B is decimal 66. Word is trying to tell your printer to use 66 lines per page. Printers usually parse escape sequences until the sequence is completed or until the sequence becomes unrecognized. Your printer stops recognizing the sequences at the 66 so it prints a B. You can either modify the lines per page escape sequence or eliminate it from the prd file to correct the behavior. And yes I have the battle scars from my fight over the infamous B. Dave Guggisberg Hewlett-Packard Corvallis, OR hp-pcd!daveg