Printing directly to a printer

merrymonk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Dear Monks

I need to print directly to a printer connected to my PC.
Somewhere on your site I found information that led me to believe
this is done by a command of
open(PRN, ">LPT1") - if the printer is connected to LPT1 of the PC being used
or open(PRN, '>\\printserver\printershare') if the printer is
connected to a printer on the network.
Therefore I wrote the follwing code

use strict "vars";
use Win32;
my ($port_name, $port_name_use, $res_file_open, $page_item);
print "\ngive port name for Zebra printer (eg LPT1/USB001) ";
$port_name = <STDIN>;
chomp($port_name);
$port_name_use = '>' . $port_name;
print "port name to be used is $port_name_use\n";
$res_file_open = open(PRN, $port_name_use)  ;
if($res_file_open == 1) {
$page_item = 0;
        while ($page_item < 3) {
                $page_item +=1;
                print PRN "page $page_item\n";
                print PRN "line 2\n";
                print PRN "line 3\f";
        }
        close(PRN);
} else {
        print "could not open zebra printer on port $port_name\n";
}
[download]

Sadly this just treats the name in the open as a file therefore nothing is sent to
the printer.

What changes do I have to do so that I can print directly to the printer connected to my PC?

Comment on Printing directly to a printer Select or Download Code

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Printing directly to a printer by gellyfish (Monsignor) on Apr 08, 2005 at 15:02 UTC
I think you need the colon after the device name (e.g. `LPT1:`) /J\	[reply] [d/l]
Re^2: Printing directly to a printer by merrymonk (Hermit) on Apr 08, 2005 at 16:40 UTC
Many thanks for your suggestion which I have now tried and variations such as leaving the > off at the beginning This did not print but it moved a step forward since the open failed. I also tried putting the : at the beginning but this was as originally but no file was written to. Looking at the port for the printer it describes it as a Virtual Printer Port for USB I do not know if this affects what should be done to make it work Do you have any more ideas?	[reply]
Re: Printing directly to a printer by buckaduck (Chaplain) on Apr 08, 2005 at 22:04 UTC
I copied/pasted your code as shown here and ran it on my Windows XP. It runs just fine for me. (I typed "LPT1" as my printer port; however, your printer may not be on LPT1.) buckaduck	[reply]
Re^2: Printing directly to a printer by merrymonk (Hermit) on Apr 09, 2005 at 10:03 UTC
Many thanks for trying it on your PC and letting me know what happened. I think that the port may be an issue since my printer is attached to a USB port which is described as a Virtual Printer Port for USB. I shall try some more with a printer attached to LPT1	[reply]