How to make a Printer Driver in PB/DLL

[Gregery D Engle]

I'm aware that a printer drive is simple a DLL, but what do
I need to do to make a Printer Driver. I'm wanting to make a
printer drive that can capture text and then format it and
save it to a file or print it.

The main reason I'm doing this is because our MRP package doesn't
have the ability to export certian screens to EXCEL or Dbase or
Access, so I want to capture the output of the print and then
make my own Access Database

Any suggestions.

Thanks

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-Greg

[Don Dickinson]

First, it should be said that Win2Kpro, WinNTx use a different (mini-driver) printer driver model than WinME and Win95 (unidriver model). This means that if you need to have a printer driver that works in either environment, you actually need two of them.

The best example I've found of writing either type of printer driver is the source code that comes with TurboPower's Async Pro toolbox for Delphi. I'm sure that there are some examples on M$'s web site, but I haven't located them.

Good luck!
--Don

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www.basicguru.com/dickinson

[Tom Hanlin]

I'd suggest buying a commercial product, unless you have an awful lot of time to spend. Printer drivers are complex and extremely cranky animals to deal with and, last I looked, there was no documentation available that wasn't horrendous. The necessary handling and order of operations tends to change with minor updates to the operating system, and you'll need separate versions for Win95/98 and NT (and possibly for WinMe/Win2k: Microsoft was threatening to revise the specs).

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Tom Hanlin
PowerBASIC Staff