Print to file - what is the format?

  • Thread starter Thread starter M Skabialka
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M

M Skabialka

If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a print
option, what format will the file be in? I have been unable to find a file
extension that will show me the file contents in a readable format.
 
M said:
If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a print
option, what format will the file be in? I have been unable to find a file
extension that will show me the file contents in a readable format.
Click to expand...

"Print to file" is a close-to-useless option. The resulting *.prn file
can only be used to print to the printer that was active at the time you
selected "print to file." This is done by copying the *.prn file to the
printer, generally from a Command Prompt window.

If you want to preserve a web page, your options limited. You can

- use File > Save as and then select from various formats. Some or all
of these formats may not save satisfactorily, depending on the
complexity of the web page
or
- take a screen shot, which will only capture what is showing on the
screen, and not any portion of the web page that isn't showing
or
- print it on paper and then scan the resulting document
or
- install Adobe Acrobat and use the "convert web page to pdf" feature
(this feature may or may not be available in some of the freeware or at
least not-as-expensive-as-Adobe pdf creating applications)

If you really want to print to a file, you need to install the
"Generic/text-only Printer", but this will not give satisfactory results
when printing a web page with graphics.


--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
 
| If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a print
| option, what format will the file be in? I have been unable to find a file
| extension that will show me the file contents in a readable format.
|
You don't understand the function of the "Print to file".
This process does not give you a readable file. It is used to take advantage of a printer you do
not have connected to your computer. Example: Your relative has a fancy new color laser jet
printer, but he does not have the program required to read the file you want to print. You can
install his printer driver in your computer, then choose "print to file" using his driver software
and save the file to flash drive. You then put your flash drive in his computer and using the "cmd"
prompt, you send that file to his printer even if he does not have the software to display the file,
you copied.
 
There are various possibilities.

Install a Postscript printer driver, use file as the port. Set it as the
default. Printer the web page to this printer. Open the resulting file in
a graphics application. Possibly GSview works well for that. It's free.

Also, you can install GhostSctipt and use that to print to a file.
Display in GSview.

Also, I recall that the files will display correctly in versions of Corel
Draw. Not free.

There might well be other, easier options. It's been a while.....

Tom Ferguson
 
This only saved the header and side bar info as html, and garbage as the
text file as follows...
E&u600D&l7H&l0O&l2A&l8.0c1e0z0U*r0F*p0x0Y*c5760x7680Y*c0T*v1N*v1O*v0T*l204O%1BIN;IP0,0,8128,10837SC0,1.6933,0,-1.6933,2IR0,100,0,100WU0SP1LTPW0.04SV0;PP1CF2LO21PA0,0%1A*p1RÍÊ
  :ÿÿ
*v0N*v0T*p416x417Y*r4296s96T*t600R*r1A*b5M*b6005WÍÊ  ìÿÿ
 ÃÃÃÃéà Á  Ç÷÷÷÷ê÷ ð  >~~~~ê~ x
><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><
 
The page was a list in a table format. I am unable to select and copy, so
was hoping to output to some other format where I could capture the info.
 
M said:
The page was a list in a table format. I am unable to select and copy, so
was hoping to output to some other format where I could capture the info.
Click to expand...

Try View > Source. You'll have to edit out the HTML coding, but you
should be able to capture the data.

File > Save as [save as txt file] also may do what you want.

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
 
M Skabialka said:
If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a print
option, what format will the file be in?
Click to expand...

Whatever format the printer expects and the driver outputs. For many
(most?) HP printers that would be PCL (Printer Command Language),
their proprietary language. For many other printers it would be
PostScript. There are many others.
I have been unable to find a file
extension that will show me the file contents in a readable format.
Click to expand...

I'm not surprised. About the only thing you can do with these things
is to send them to a printer that knows the appropriate language.
 
View Source only showed me HTML code for the frame.
I will have to get the data from another source maybe, as this is turning
out to be more complex than I expected.
Thanks for the ideas.
Mich

Lem said:
M said:
The page was a list in a table format. I am unable to select and copy,
so was hoping to output to some other format where I could capture the
info.
Click to expand...

Try View > Source. You'll have to edit out the HTML coding, but you
should be able to capture the data.

File > Save as [save as txt file] also may do what you want.

--
Lem -- MS-MVP

To the moon and back with 2K words of RAM and 36K words of ROM.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_Guidance_Computer
http://history.nasa.gov/afj/compessay.htm
Click to expand...
 
If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a
print option, what format will the file be in? I have been unable
to find a file extension that will show me the file contents in a
readable format.
Click to expand...

Install the freeware "CutePDF Writer". It will install a "printer"
that will print to a .pdf file that can be viewed or printed at your
discretion with any of the free .pdf viewers. I believe you will also
have to install freeware GhostScript which is provided at the same
website.

<http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp>


HTH,
John
 
I don't know what you are trying to do but if you want to save a website then
clearly you will be better off using IE7 and above and then you can SAVE AS
.....Web archive, single file (.mht). This optin is from FILE, SAVE AS .....)

This file can then be opened in any browser ideally IE7 and above.

You get all the associated files including style sheets and images. In fact
you get the entire website!! Good way to steal somebody's ideas!

Hope this helps.
 
Expert said:
I don't know what you are trying to do but if you want to save a website
then
clearly you will be better off using IE7 and above and then you can SAVE
AS
....Web archive, single file (.mht). This optin is from FILE, SAVE AS
.....)
Click to expand...

You can do that in IE6. You don't need IE7 to do that, "expert".
 
M said:
The page was a list in a table format. I am unable to select and copy, so
was hoping to output to some other format where I could capture the info.
Click to expand...

If your goal is copying the page's text content to another application
there's a "generic text to file" printer available in Windows. Look for
it in the "Add Printer" wizard.
 
Why not just try it? Then you'll get a look at any options along the
way and see for yourself what it creates. It may be one of several, the
most common being prn.
 
M Skabialka said:
The page was a list in a table format. I am unable to select and copy, so
was hoping to output to some other format where I could capture the info.
Click to expand...


Please explain what you mean by "unable to select and copy". Is there some
kind of Javascript security on the page that disables the select and copy
options? Is "Select All" grayed out on the right-click menu? How about
"Edit" and "Select All" on your browser menu bar? How about hold Ctrl key
and press A to select all, and ctrl+C to copy? Are you viewing an ordinary
html page or a PDF document with Adobe Acrobat Reader WITHIN Internet
Explorer, that is copyright protected with ability to copy disabled?
(Is what you asking us to help you do, uh, LEGAL? :)

In the Select Printer dialog on my XP-pro SP3, I have a "Microsoft XPS
Document Writer" option, that came pre-installed on the computer. Was that
included with your setup? (See FREE Microsoft download link below.) Instead
of a Print to file, I tried a Print of a web page that has a table part, way
down the page, using the XPS writer (printer driver) selected as the
printer, and a FileSave dialog appeared for a filename, which saved with an
..xps extension. I double-clicked that file and it opened with XPSViewer,
WITHIN Internet Explorer. It was in paged format, with the information
appearing pretty much as the web page, except the table was split, with the
first part of the table at the bottom of the first page, and the rest at the
top of the second page. (Same as if printed on paper.) Back to the web page,
I used my mouse to select some text immediately before the table on the
page, then scrolled down to where I could see the bottom of the table, and
while holding SHIFT key, clicked below the table, to EXTEND the selection.
Then ctrl-P to activate the print dialog, with XPS as printer, and also, in
the "Page Range" box, clicked "Selection" and then print. The FileSave
dialog appeared, and I saved it under a different filename than the first. I
double clicked it, and the whole table appeared on one sheet in the
XPSViewer (within IE), with that little bit of text before and after the
table that I included in the selection. All the text is readable and can be
selected for copying.

I tried selecting the table from the web page, and copy, and opened
Microsoft WordPad, and pasted, and some of the html table formatting was
lost in WordPad's RTF version, but all the information was readable,
selectable, and also editable.

I opened a PDF document (about Unicode) with 3 pages, with a complete table
on page 2, and printed to XPS writer, FileSaveAs, etc. and double-clicked,
and it opened in XPSViewer within IE, and looks pretty much the same as in
Acrobat Reader. The table included hebrew characters which displayed
properly in the XPSViewer too. Everything readable and selectable. Another
PDF with a graphic diagram on one page appeared the same in XPSViewer.

The final test was with a PDF document with Document Security: "Printing:
Fully Allowed", but "Content Copying or Extraction: Not Allowed". Printed
one page to XPS, displayed the same in XPSViewer(in IE), and it was
readable, selectable and printable. However, when SelectAll and Copy, and
Paste into other text readers, such as NotePad, WordPad, and Word2007, it
appeared as unreadable Gobbledygook, as expected. (To prevent extraction,
except printing, the character set in the PDF has been scrambled for use
with special fonts that have the characters associated with different
character code numbers. The XPS file format might further complicate things
by switching to Unicode.) The XPS file itself is basically a ZIP compressed
packet with a number of different files, including .xml files and .odttf
fonts. There were a total of 17 files in the copy protected PDF page I
printed to XPS. See other replies for other printer driver options to
"capture" stuff.

XPS Viewer factoid:
The XPS Viewer is included with .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Vista.
If you don’t have .NET Framework 3.0, you can download the XPS Essentials
Pack, which is a standalone version of the XPS Viewer, by going to the View
and Generate XPS page on the Microsoft website. This version of the viewer
is compatible with Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. You
can view, copy, or print XPS documents in the XPS Essentials Pack, but you
cannot digitally sign or set permissions for a document.

View and Generate XPS
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx
To reveal hidden information on that page, click where you see: "To see the
complete feature list of Microsoft XPS Viewer click here."

FWIW. --Richard
 
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