Re: Printing from WindowXP version of emacs

[LENNART BORGMAN <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>]

From: Mathias Dahl <brakjoller@gmail.com>

> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > If we need to use external programs at all (and I know of only one
> > such case: when the printer in question is a network printer 
> that is
> > not available as a Windows share of the form 
> \\server\share\printer),> then I'd suggest a free program called 
> PrintFile32 (available from
> > http://www.lerup.com/printfile/).  Configure Emacs to use it as a
> > replacement for the Unix lpr program.
> >
> > But I'd like first to hear from the OP which of the advice he's been
> > given he tried, and what and how didn't work.  In most cases, it is
> > not necessary to use external programs, as Emacs can do the job
> > itself.
> 
> I just wanted to say that I just tested doing what the documentation
> for printer-name says; that is to set it to the name of a shared
> printer in our network.
> 
> So I set it to "//gbgfs1/gbg2b" and then called M-x lpr-buffer
> 
> It worked. 
> 
> I did not test with colors (it is no color printer) but that probably
> won't work in the same way, will it?
> 
> Btw, I first tested without setting printer-name (which on Windows XP
> has the default value PRN) and printed, and Emacs froze. Don't know
> why though.

I tested here at some printers to see if I was mistaken earlier. To avoid confusion I am testind just from a command shell. What I have done is this:

I take some printer queues on different printers which I normally use without problems. I look at the header in printer queue w32 window to find the host for the printer queue. Then I do

    c:\> copy file.txt \\host-name\queue-name

To my surprise it worked for the first queue. For the next queue I got

    The network path was not found.
        0 file(s) copied.

To be sure on what I am doing I then went to the host for the queue to find the share name instead of the queue name:


    c:\> copy file.txt \\host-name\share-name

This swallowed the job but I get no output and nothing is shown in the printer queue (where I normally see all waiting jobs). 

I believe this is what I found last time I tested about two years ago too. It seems that in some circumstances it actually could work, but not in all. That can explain why it has been so hard trying to clear this out. 

This is why I am recommending using the web browser for printing with htmlize-view.el on MS Windows. It may seem awkward but it works and the output is actually nice IMHO.