Important Message

You are browsing the archived Lancers Reactor forums. You cannot register or login.
The content may be outdated and links may not be functional.


To get the latest in Freelancer news, mods, modding and downloads, go to
The-Starport

printing problems

This is where you can ask questions and get and give help about hardware related issues. This Forum will be moderated by Taw with help from some other experts. So feel free to ask any questions you may have about computers.

Post Wed Apr 12, 2006 9:40 am

printing problems

Lets see if I can explain my problem properly.
It is about using dot matrix printers in XP.
I have an old dot matrix printer at home, and at work we also use a dot matrix, an Epson 16 something I think.
Until recently we used Win 98 at work, recently upgraded to Win XP, I basically do part of the accounting, using Pastel, we use the printer to print invoices etc.
Today was the first time since we upgraded that I attempted to print invoices, what happens now, is that the printer thinks it is using A4 tray feed paper, instead of the smaller paper Pastel uses.
I tried the printer settings itself, it does not work.
The printer settings in Pastel was not changed.
I remembered that I had a similar problem when I tried printing with my DM at home, for some reason, Win Xp screws everything up (my assumption mind you)
My theory goes something like this:

When the printer was added to the computer, the driver was provided by ??? you get the window where you select the type of printer or make at least and then the type(not sure how to say that part) anyways, this driver, is then not the correct type of driver. It gives a longer page length than it should.
Now that I actually type it, it sounds like a bunch of crap, but the long and the short of the question, is,
How do I set the dot matrix to read or realise the correct length of the page?


Edited by - sycho warrior on 4/12/2006 11:05:16 AM

Post Thu Apr 13, 2006 9:59 am

Hi Sycho, Try getting the proper driver from either the printer maker or from driverguide.com. The drivers that windows installs for anything are crap, just a basic driver with no options specific for the hardware

Post Thu Apr 13, 2006 11:18 am

look for a WMD(heheh) driver for it, although i gotta say - finding a compatible driver for obsolete printers w/ XP is tough - if you see a VXD driver use that as a last resort, thats win98 crapola

btw... on driverguide.com you can sign in as temp/555 unless they've deactivated that again.

Post Fri Apr 14, 2006 9:40 am

Thanks a lot guys

Well, I found a driver, but they say it cannot be installed on XP
is there a way around this?
C_V you mentioned something about VDX...what is that( I'm not very up to speed with drivers etc)

Edited by - sycho warrior on 4/14/2006 11:24:57 AM

Post Sun Apr 16, 2006 3:35 pm

it's not just a driver issue, there's more going on here. XP does not screw everything up, I've used dot-matrix printers for years in NT/2K/XP although I will concur that with some applications they can be very difficult to set up. Are you using sheet feed or tractor feed? i presume tractor if you're using multi-part invoice paper. Your accounting software ought to fully support the printer and use its own default printer drivers, so check your documentation. If so, then you don't need Windows drivers, everything is done from within the programme. If it doesn't, then you need to make sure that the physical printer settings, paper size, font, feed, are also enabled in the driver settings.

that you're using an Epson is a good thing as pretty much all d-m printers use Epson emulation anyway.

Post Thu Apr 20, 2006 10:52 am

Oh, it's been fixed, now, had to create a custom page size thingy for it, the driver used to install the printer(the one XP provides) does not provide a "custom" option, so the guy we got to fix it created a new 'page' (not sure how to explain this) and now it's working fine again.


thanks to all for the advice

Return to Hardware