[comp.windows.ms] Printing to PS printer over NFS

A.G.Bishop@massey.ac.nz (A.G. Bishop) (02/05/91)

Hi Win-netters,

I have an intermittent problem printing to a laserwriter plus over
NFS from windows.

I am using LPT1.OS2 (before you ask.)

Is there any way that the Print manager could appear to the network
software to terminate then restart while printing a single job?

Our fancy spooler detects non-postscript files sent to postscript
printers and adds stuff (just a header, I think) to make it print the
file.
Consequently, when a postscript file is not recognised as such you
get a postscript dump.

Occasionally when printing from eg. Write or Notepad a printout will
switch to postscript dump halfway through.  This happens particularly
with fancy .WRI readme tpye files with corporate logos and such (but
not exclusively.)

The spooler takes program completion as its end-spool signal, so that
no printed output appears on the printer until you exit a Dos app.
Using the Print manager under Windows the printed output appears when
the Print manager terminates at the end of the print.

The spooler recognises postscript files by %! appearing as the first
two characters.

Any body had this problem or have any clues?  Suggested texts would
be most helpful.

Thanx - especially for reading this far.

-- 
Tony Bishop
Massey University @Palmerston North.New Zealand

dale@cec2.wustl.edu (Dale Frye) (02/07/91)

I had several problems with printing to postscript printers through a
UNIX spooler.

1: Windows puts a ^D at the start and end of the file. This caused the spooler
   to think the file was a binary file and wouldn't print it.
   If you print to an encapsulated file this problem goes away. You can't
   set the default to this however.

2: Many programs put a comment after the !% on the first line. This caused
   our printer to act like it was printing but nothing would come out, not
   even the header page. I used a disk editor to modify the driver for
   Windows, AutoCad and other programs. I changed the first two charaters
   of the comment (usually PS-Adobe) to decimal /10 /0. 

I have reported these problems to Microsoft. Hopefully they will change
things shortly.

Dale Frye