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Using a USB Printer
Right
click here
to save this document as a PDF file on your computer!
Since USB (Universal Serial Bus) printers
have become almost a standard we have had many requests from
users who wish to use them with Shop Trac. This is NOT
difficult, but it does require a few assumptions:
 | The printer in question needs to be
compatible with an existing Shop Trac printer driver or
.PD file. This means that your USB printer has to
be capable of emulating an existing fixed width font
printer. In the case of laser printers this is NOT
usually a problem as most laser printers emulate an HP
Laserjet. The HPLASER.PD file that ships with Shop
Trac is for such a printer. Shop Trac does not
(and will not) support most ink jet printers as they
normally do not have any built in fixed width fonts. |
| Using a USB printer requires Windows
2000 or later including Windows XP and Windows server
versions. This method has not been tested using
Windows 98 or Windows 95 as the proper commands are not
available with these operating systems. |
| Microsoft Networking is installed.
If you run a multi-user version of Shop Trac this will
already be the case. Printer sharing also needs to
be enabled. Networking settings are accessed from
the 'Network' icon in the 'Control Panel'. |
| The USB printer has been installed and
is working from within Windows. |
| You will need to know the network name
of the computer that is hosting the printer. In our
example we will use the computer name as SERVER |
Shop Trac cannot print to a USB port
directly as DOS has no USB support built into it. In
order to connect to a USB printer we need to connect to it
as a network printer that in turn has been mapped to a
standard LPT port. The following are
the steps to configure this printer using Shop Trac:
| Share the printer from Windows.
From the printer folder right click the printer and choose
'Properties'. From the 'Sharing' tab share and
assign a share name to this printer. For the sake of
this example we will share the printer as LASER |
| From a command prompt issue the
following command to share assign an LPT port to the
printer: (the command prompt is normally in the
'Accessories' menu. LPT Ports are numbered 1,2,3
etc. You must use a port that is NOT used by your
existing hardware. If this computer has no other
printer attached, then LPT1 should be ok. Make
changes to this command as needed.
NET USE LPT1 \\SERVER\LASER /PERSISTENT:YES
A message should indicate that
this command completed successfully. |
| Create or edit a printer driver file
using the Setup | Printers option in Shop Trac. Make
sure that the output port is set to the same port as used
with the NET USE command. The HPLASER.PD file was
designed to work with most HP Compatible printers. A
copy of this file can be downloaded
here. |
| If this printer is being shared on the
network, then the LPT port used should be available to ALL
network computers. In this case it may be best to
use a normally non-existent port such as LPT3 |
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Web Site News!
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This box will always give you the latest news
about changes to this site.
The
Shop Trac FAQ has been updated!
New
Shop Trac
Tech Tips, including the changes for the Canadian
July 2010 HST rate changes.
New 2010 price lists have been posted.
The latest
Shop Trac Update
is dated 09/15/2010, and an order form can be
downloaded here.
The Update Installation process has changed
slightly, and the new instructions are available
here.
The latest (and final)
IMS/ACTR/ACTP Update is dated
11/30/2003. |
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