Re: Printing from WindowXP version of emacs

[Lennart Borgman]

Eli Zaretskii wrote:

> > Date: Wed, 21 Dec 2005 08:49:13 +0100
> > From: Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman.073@student.lu.se>
> > CC: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> >
> >    
> >
> > > Go to this URL:
> > >
> > > http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prdl_pif_dwfo.asp
> > >
> > > and then look in the section Printing Processes.
> > >
> > >
> > >      
> > Thanks, but that was on of the pages I have been reading. It is a good 
> > overview to start with. I am however looking for something about where 
> > in that picture something like
> >
> >    c:\> copy file.txt \\host-name\queue-name
> >
> > ties in. (Or dito using LPT1 etc.)
> >    
>
> AFAIU, these queues are watched by the spooler, which sends the text
> to a printer processor for the designated printer.  The printer
> processor converts the text into a data stream suitable for the
> printer hardware (e.g., a stream of PCL commands), and then sends that
> data stream back to the spooler.  The spooler then sends the data to
> the relevant printer monitor, which actually controls the printer's
> hardware port.
It think I saw something like this for ASCII input only. Actually the 
printer processor first calls GDI which produces EMF that is send to the 
printer driver. So this can print text (only ASCII actually if I 
remember correctly). That should mean that the above "copy" should work.

However I do not remember that I saw anything about exactly when this 
works. Do you have an exact link where you found this? Obviously my test 
fails for some printers (most of those I have tried actually) so there 
must be something more.

Last time I looked into this I stopped about here because I thought it 
was not worth the trouble. As far as I can see it will only handle ASCII 
text when it works. I have seen very little that makes me believe that 
GDI can handle PostScript and convert that to EMF in the above scenario. 
Have you seen something suggesting this? (The only thing I have seen was 
something that could have been that for NT4 (another print job format), 
but I am not sure and it seems to be gone in later MS Windows versions.)