Printing on PC printers

[ptripp]

In article <9816 at udenva.cair.du.edu> Richard Neitzel writes:
>Help! Can someone tell me how I can get nroff to format text to print
>correctly for either of my IBM PC printers. I have an HP Laserjet and
>an IBM PC Graphics printer. I'm trying to capture files via Smarterm-
>240. If need be, I can also bring up Kermit to capture the file. Any help
>will greatly appreciated, since this would let me do all my printing
>at home "offline".

You should be able to do what you want to do.  A couple possisble
scenarios are:

	1. If nroff will output to a file rather than a device, but do
	   so as though it were writing to the device, then the resulting
	   file could be downloaded via Kermit as a binary file, then
	   that file could be copied to the printer port as a binary
	   file with the command:

		copy file lpt1 /b

	   for example, if your printer is connected to the first 
	   parallel port.

	2. The other option would be to let nroff output directly to
	   the screen as normal (the stdout device) as though it were
	   outputting to the printer connected to the terminal, and 
	   let Smarterm echo what it receives to the printer.  The only
	   problem here is the possibility of Smarterm intercepting some
	   control sequences for interpretation as terminal commands
	   rather than printer commands.  If your files are fairly
	   simple as far as not having bold or underline or other printer
	   commands to do non-standard text, then you should have no
	   problems echoing the file directly to the printer or capturing
	   the file then using the MS-DOS PRINT command or a simple

		copy file prn

	   command to print the file on either of your printers.


A lot depends on the nroff files that you want to print and the capabilities
of nroff and Smarterm.  Does nroff support the LaserJet and the IBM Graphics
printers?

Another option, which I would consider, but may not be practical if you have
already invested a lot of time formatting a document in nroff, is to do
everything on the micro.  You could use a micro-based word or text processor,
such as WordPerfect, and output directly to the LaserJet or the Graphics
printer.  WordPerfect will import plain text files.

Hope this is of some help.  Someone with more knowledge of nroff may be
willing to offer some suggestions, also.

Phil Tripp		ptripp at udenva