Parallel Printer

[waltekar]

A chap in the office says that he has a document that he wants to print but it is in DOS format and that he needs a parallel printer - it will not print on a printer he has just bought, i.e. with a USB.
I have had a look on ebay and there are a couple of paralles printers there, but in the description says parallel port, usb1.0 of something very similar. Is it therefore a parallel printer or a USB connection printer?
Please help.

[ChuckFickens]

what does he mean "in dos format" there is no such thing.

if it's a text file open it any text editor (word, wordpad, notepad) and print from windows.

[waltekar]

Apparently it is a very old shipping programme (from the 80's) not Windows based, and used to work fine at another Company when his pc was connected directly to (this time he called it a Serial) printer. It keeps asking if the printer is switched on.

[ChuckFickens]

in that case share the USB printer by going to printers in control panel then right click on it and select share follow the prompts, I'd suggest giving it a share name with no spaces.

then before trying to print to it from the dos application open a dos prompt and type

net use lpt1 \\127.0.0.1\printer name

and hit enter.

then try printing from the dos application

[waltekar]

Thanks ChuckFickens (typed very carefully!) I will get the guy to try and hopefull it will work for him. Will let you know in due course.

Thanks again.