Hi Guys,
I'm hoping I'm in the right forum here. I'm still trying to print my daughter's 1040 tax form. I had posted my dilemma under hardware. When I went to try something this morning, I found that windows could not open file that was a PRN file. So anyone got any ideas? Thanks, I appreciate the help. juliek
Gunslinger,
Thank you so much for the time and effort of writing such an extensive reply. (I even understood most of it! )
No, seriously, I understand it; I'm just having a difficult time getting my printer to print anything. The error message is always "there was a problem loading page". Julie
Hey JulieK, did ya see this post yet? Clicky
If you're sure you have the right printer selected, and it's printing a test page, but nothing sent TO it from programs, it sounds like possibly a printer driver problem, and your computer is somehow not "talking" to the printer. My first thing would be to look up the model number, probably on a sticker on it somewhere, and then go to the printer manufacturer's website and download the latest drivers, and install them. Even if you've already installed some drivers, just to be sure. Then go from there if it's still not working. If it's an older printer and you've installed the old drivers that came with it on a cd or something, and now you're using them on a newer operating system, that may be a problem, for example.
A .prn file is a file that has been created using the "Print to file" option in the print dialog of a program, saving the file contents in a format that printers understand, here's how to use it:
How to Print From a PRN File
When you print to a file the program outputs whatever it would have sent to the printer you have attached to your computer to a file instead. The idea is that later you might want to send this file to a similar printer on a different computer. So, the main use for a .PRN file is to copy it to a printer in order to get the output. You can open a .PRN file in any text editor but what you'll likely see is your text surrounded by a whole bunch of "junk" which represents all the various printer codes necessary to set margins, special spacing, graphics, etc.
Printing this file successfully requires a few assumptions:
For this example, we'll assume that the .PRN file is named OUTPUT.PRN and is located on a floppy disk in the A: drive. Substitute the proper path for whatever filename and drive you are using. Here are the steps...
This command does a binary (/B) copy of OUTPUT.PRN to the device PRN which is the system name for the default printer. A binary copy is used so nothing in the file is changed during the copy process.
Assuming the printers are the same and the output printer is the default device the file should now print. What you've basically done is to tell Windows to copy the output file to the default printer using a binary copy (i.e., don't add any carriage returns or line feeds and ignore all control codes; just passing them through as they are in the file).
If connected via USB...
If your printer is connected via USB then the above command needs to be modified as follows:
To get the Computer_Name open the Control Panel and select System. In the dialog that opens select the Computer Name tab. There you will find the name associated with the computer (ignore any periods after the name if there are any). To get the Printer_Share_Name open the Control Panel and select Printers and Faxes. Select the printer you need to print to and then the Share link in the left menu. If the printer has no share name then you will need to assign one.
Shortcut: Instead of the \\Computer_Name you can use \\127.0.0.1 (every computer's local network loopback address) but you still need the printer name information (tested and confirmed on Win2k and Server2003, thanks to Brad M).
Once you have both the Computer_Name and Printer_Share_Name insert these in the command above. Note the double backslash in front of the Computer_Name and the single backslash that is between the two.
Note: If the printer is a network computer then you would substitute \\Print_Server_Name (the name of the print server on the network) for \\Computer_Name in the above.