 The magazine of the Melbourne PC User Group Tips ‘n Tricks for Beginners Tom Coleman |
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Everyone is good at something. It gets to be frustrating when you are not good at what you are trying to do. I am hopeless at creating Web Pages. My last few efforts put me off permanently so that now I farm out the job. There is a limit to how much new knowledge you can absorb. We need to decide that there are some things that we choose not to know. Then if it comes up we can "pass on that one". I believe that this attitude can be a real saviour when it comes to computing. No one can be good at everything so a list of priorities helps to save time and stress. However it can be an excuse to be lazy or to spend money instead of learning or developing better habits.
DOS Can Help!
No one needs to learn DOS these days. Whilst a grasp of DOS will make some things easier, or even possible, generally it is not part of today's computing requirements. That said, there are still a few tricks that are useful. For example you can spend a lot of time resolving the source of a printing problem using Windows. Some printer programs are better than others at assisting your troubleshooting a printer. If the printer works from the DOS prompt then the problem is not the printer, nor the cable, nor the port. If it does not work from DOS, then the problem is the printer, the printer cable or the printer port. If it prints from DOS then the problem is in Windows or the program you are using.
How do you print from DOS? You can go to Start | Programs| MSDOS Prompt or Start | Shut Down | Restart in MS DOS mode. Either way you will end up at the DOS prompt. It looks like this
C:\WINDOWS>
if you went through Start | Programs| MSDOS Prompt . Otherwise it will be
C:\>
Both of these prompts are followed by a flashing cursor. At the DOS prompt type in
DIR *.TXT
and press {enter}. This will give you a listing of files with a TXT extension. These files are usually plain text files, they have no formatting and they are usually easy to print. Now, if your list of files is too long for the screen just type
DIR *.TXT /P
and press {enter}. This will cause the list to pause at each screen full. And for the smartypants who know too much. Do not use DIR *.TXT /W because we want to see the size of the files. You should pick a file that is less than about 3000 bytes. The files size is the first group of numbers after the file name and extension. The idea of picking a file of less than 3000 bytes is that this will all fit on one page. There is no point in printing multiple pages if all you want to do is to see whether or not the printer prints anything.
Of course you may get the dreaded "File Not Found" message. In this case substitute *.BAT or *.INF for the *.TXT.
Test the Printer
Having chosen a file of an appropriate length (There is a nice one called SUPPORT.TXT in C:\WINDOWS in W98 SE) you can send it off to the printer with the command
COPY SUPPORT.TXT PRN
Of course, this assumes your printer is plugged in, turned on and has paper in it.
If the printer springs into action and produces the appropriate work, all well and good. However some documents, for reasons best known to troublemakers and malcontents, lack the signal to tell the printer to spit the page out. This is known as a Form Feed. The form feed signal is the ASCII number 12 which we can generate at the DOS prompt with ^L (L is the twelfth letter of the alphabet). This is also known as Control L (also written as Ctrl+L), because you make it by holding down the Control key and tapping the L key once.
You need to send the Form Feed off to the printer, so the command
ECHO ^L > PRN
will do the trick.
Translated into English this means
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Make a copy of a Form Feed and send it to the printer |
ECHO ^L > PRN |
Be Smarter Again
If you are feeling lazy, cunning or pressed for time you need not send a print job to the printer first.
The above command alone will tell you that the computer is communicating with the printer by causing it
to churn out a blank page. You can also use it on those occasions when you just want to clear the printer.
Now, you've determined whether or not the printer is working, how do you return to Windows? Type
EXIT
and press {enter}.
Reprinted from the August 2002 issue of PC Update, the magazine of Melbourne PC User Group, Australia
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