print to file?

[RedOktober]

If I print to a file, what format is that file in? Is it any use for anything?

[grue]

Usually you do it to make a Postscript file. But you'll need some other driver before.

[DaiStation]

I assume you're on Windows here? IIRC it's some mad MS intermediate printer format that you'll need windows to reinterpret for you at some later point.

[rowan]

For Windows I think it should be in raw or EMF depending on your spooler
settings. If raw then it should be in whatever language your printer uses as
generated by the driver, eg PCL, PostScript, Epson FX etc.

You can then fire this file at a printer port at a later date.

But .. d'you know? Now I'm trying to check this I can't find out where I make
it to print to file but I swear I had it rendering through whatever driver into
a file ready to fire at a printer port at work the other week..

edit: Yep, OK, on ports tab of driver properties, set port to FILE:
Just installed a Laserjet4 printer to test; the default print processor is raw not
any flavour of EMF so nothing needed changing there.
Sent a print job to it, asked for file name and sure enough, the driver's
rendered a PCL4 or whatever file that this printer understands.

I'd then be able to do something like

Code: Select all

copy myprinterfile.prt lpt1:

in cmd to send it to lpt1 or do a bit of code fu to open a network printer
port and send it there etc.

[Dungeon-Dave]

If I print to a file, what format is that file in?

Whatever is the processor (driver) for that printer.

Remember that when printing to a hardware printer, the OS first translates the file into a printer-readable format (storing it something like c:\windows\system32\spool\printers under windows, /var/spool/lpd for *nix), then squirts that contents down the wire to the hardware.

The obvious advantange of this system is that multiple copies can be printed from the one document: your Word document gets formatted once when you send it to the printer, then you can close it whilst the translated version gets squirted out several times down the printer cable/network cable.

One disadvantage is that the spool file may be printer-specific: as someone's pointed out, if it was transformed to a standardised format (like postscript) then that can be sent onto printing bureaus for making higher-quality prints. This means the bureau doesn't need Photoshop/Word/PDF stuff installed to read your unformatted document, they just need to stream the postscript file out to their printers.

[RedOktober]

Cheers chaps. I'd printed to a file once to see what happened, but couldn't make head nor tail of what was produced.

[Dungeon-Dave]

Try chucking the resulting output into a text editor of some sort - postscript should just be plain text, as it's a set of instructions to the printer... I think. Or am I getting confused with PCL?

[benedictw]

There are free printer drivers around that will let you 'print' to a PDF file. Always handy for apps that don't support the format.

[Mojo]

yep, we use http://www.cutepdf.com/ all the time and it works a treat.