If you tell me your printer model I can check what language it supports. PCL6 printers usually also support PCL5, but PC元 printers do not. Printers that do understand text need to support a language called PCL5.
They are mostly the low cost printers, especially inkjets but also some lasers. Printers that do this are called host-based printers, where the Windows graphics engine converts the page into dots on the paper, rather than letting the printer do the conversion. Many USB-only printers do NOT understand plain text, and will just ignore it altogether. There is one proviso however - and it applies regardless of which method you use to get the data to the printer, hardware or software:Īs your program only knows about COM1, I assume it will send plain text to the printer. Here, pc_name is the name of the sharing PC, and printer_share_name is the share name you gave the printer when you set up the share.įrom then on, anything you send to COM1 will be re-routed to the printer. Now, start a command prompt and type: NET USE COM1: //pc_name/printer_share_name /persistent:yes Start by making the printer shareable (from Printer Properties > Sharing tab).
Lee Harrison's link shows this command, but here's a short description. There is a simple way to do it using standard Windows commands.
