Sending a .PRN file to the printer

Topic

New Reply

How do I send a .PRN file to the printer??? I have a
file named MyFile.PRN on a floppy disk and brought it
to another system but cannot get the file to print.

Reply | Quote

Replies

What happens if you create a shortcut to the printer on the desktop, then drag the .prn file from Explorer onto it?

Reply | Quote

This did not solve the problem. The error message
reads: “This file does not have a program associated
with it for performing this action.”

Reply | Quote

How about opening a DOS window and trying

COPY myfile.prn LPT1:

(assuming your printer is connected to your parallel port).

Reply | Quote

At a DOS prompt, COPY MyFile.PRN LPT1 resulted in
a lot of gibberish coming out of the printer.

Reply | Quote

I would suspect that is because the file has been produced for a specific printer and the data includes control codes etc.
Are you sending the file to an identical printer to that which was used on the pc that produced the file?

Reply | Quote

It was my hope that a PRN file created on
one system could be printed on another. But
if what you are saying is correct, a PRN file
is only useful if used on a system with an
identical printer. Example: create a PRN
file at home and print at another location.
The PRN file that I have is on a floppy and
I do not know what printer it was originally
“aimed” at.

Reply | Quote

Can you open it in Notepad (or any other text editor)?
Sometimes the first bit of information is the name of the printer.

Reply | Quote

PRN files are made to be used on one and only one type of printer. What is is needed to make a prn file is the driver installed on the making machine. Then the file is take to a machine with that same driver and PRINTER that uses that driver installed. Now one can print the file using the copy command as stated earlier.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

Thanks for your reply. It would seem that the print
option “send to file” is not as versatile as I thought.
Unless two systems have exactly the same printer, this
is not the way to create a printer file for exchanging
info. Back to the drawing board!!!

Reply | Quote

What is your ultimate aim?
What is the ‘info’ you are trying to transfer?

Reply | Quote

You asked about the “ultimate aim” of this. A
friend of mine has a system in which his printer
is temporarily down. (“No toner” is the error
message.) So I had him send his document to a
PRN file. This is one of the choices on the
print screen. I brought the PRN file home on a
floppy expecting to be able to print it on another
printer but as several posters have indicated, this
will not work if, among other things, the two
printers are different. So this is not the route
to go. Thanks for your help.

Reply | Quote

Only the driver need to be installed on the machine making the file. It does NOT require to have a printer attached to have the driver installed. This is what it was designed for back in the DOS days when the drivers were provided by the program not Windows.

DaveA I am so far behind, I think I am First
Genealogy....confusing the dead and annoying the living

Reply | Quote

Try this:
Get your friend to “install” the same printer as you have on their pc, and with it selected, create the prn file.
This should create a compatible file for you to print on your printer.

(I think this is what Dave A above is meaning you should try.)

Reply | Quote