From owner-ntemacs-users@cs.washington.edu Tue Feb 3 03:35:01 1998 X-VM-v5-Data: ([nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil nil] [nil "" " 3" "February" "1998" "11:02:54" "+0100" "Anders Lindgren" "andersl@csd.uu.se" nil "83" "NT Printing problem solved." "^From:" nil nil "2" nil nil nil nil] nil) Received: from joker.cs.washington.edu (joker.cs.washington.edu [128.95.1.42]) by june.cs.washington.edu (8.8.7+CS/7.2ju) with SMTP id DAA18182 for ; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 03:35:01 -0800 Received: from trout.cs.washington.edu (trout.cs.washington.edu [128.95.1.178]) by joker.cs.washington.edu (8.6.12/7.2ws+) with ESMTP id DAA37652 for ; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 03:34:59 -0800 Received: (majordom@localhost) by trout.cs.washington.edu (8.8.5+CS/7.2ws+) id DAA02551 for ntemacs-users-outgoing; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 03:05:09 -0800 (PST) Received: from june.cs.washington.edu (june.cs.washington.edu [128.95.1.4]) by trout.cs.washington.edu (8.8.5+CS/7.2ws+) with ESMTP id DAA02547 for ; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 03:05:05 -0800 (PST) Received: from groucho.csd.uu.se (groucho.csd.uu.se [130.238.12.2]) by june.cs.washington.edu (8.8.7+CS/7.2ju) with ESMTP id DAA17631 for ; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 03:05:04 -0800 Received: (from andersl@localhost) by groucho.csd.uu.se (8.8.5/8.8.5) id LAA01463; Tue, 3 Feb 1998 11:02:55 +0100 (MET) Message-ID: Lines: 83 X-Mailer: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Precedence: bulk From: Anders Lindgren Sender: owner-ntemacs-users@cs.washington.edu To: ntemacs-users@cs.washington.edu Subject: NT Printing problem solved. Date: 03 Feb 1998 11:02:54 +0100 Hi! Until now, there has been no satisfactory solution on how to print from NT-Emacs. Several attempts have been made, they can be categorized into two groups: * Defining a new set of commands used to print. * Creating a "lpr" command in some language (like perl or unix shells) that is not present in a pure Windows + Emacs environment. The first solution will fail since quite a few third-party packages use the standard printing functions. The second is not very practical since most users doesn't have perl or a Unix shell laying around. Below is a batch file named "lpr.bat" that is only based on command found the standard Windows and in the Emacs distribution. When placed in the exec path the printing facilities of Emacs should work straigh out of the box. -- Anders Lindgren ==============================8<------------------------------ @REM lpr.bat --- Simple print command for Windows. @ECHO OFF REM Copyright (C) 1998 Anders Lindgren REM REM Author: Anders Lindgren REM Keywords: print REM Date: 1998-01-29 REM This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify REM it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by REM the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) REM any later version. REM This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, REM but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of REM MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the REM GNU General Public License for more details. REM You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License REM along with GNU Emacs; see the file COPYING. If not, write to the REM Free Software Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, REM Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA. REM Commentary: REM Print program for Windows. REM REM Usage: REM lpr [file] REM REM Should no argument be given the input is read from stdin. REM REM The output is always sent to LPT1: REM REM The problem with the combination Windows and Emacs is that Emacs REM assumes that the print command (specified by `lpr-command') can REM accept input on stdin. Unfortunately, there is no command in REM Windows that can read from stdin and copy the input to a file or REM stdout. REM REM Fortunately, there is a program named `hexl' that is part of the REM standard Emacs distribution. It is normally used to convert a REM file to and from hexadecimal form. In this program we exploit the REM fact that it can read input from stdin. REM REM REM Personally I think that the lack of features to support creation of REM small automatic program is _the_ major design flaw in Windows. if "%1" == "" hexl | hexl -de > lpt1: if not "%1" == "" type %1 > lpt1: REM lpr.bat ends here.