Utility for converting PCL printer format to text?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Phred
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Phred

G'day mates,

The other day I was trying to get a copy of the output from Device
Manager under Windows ME in a Dell Dimension 4100, and couldn't find
any way to get the details apart from printing out a hard copy.

However, I really wanted an electronic copy to e-mail. But the only
option to get something on disk seemed to be the "print to file"
toggle. Of course, all that did was give me a PCL format printer
file suitable for HPLJ printers (mine's the 6L Pro model).

So the question is, is there a reliable utility (preferably freeware
of course :) that can convert back from a PCL printer file to a text
document? If so, when can I find it?

Thanks for your help.


Cheers, Phred.
 
Phred said:
G'day mates,

The other day I was trying to get a copy of the output from Device
Manager under Windows ME in a Dell Dimension 4100, and couldn't find
any way to get the details apart from printing out a hard copy.

However, I really wanted an electronic copy to e-mail. But the only
option to get something on disk seemed to be the "print to file"
toggle. Of course, all that did was give me a PCL format printer
file suitable for HPLJ printers (mine's the 6L Pro model).

So the question is, is there a reliable utility (preferably freeware
of course :) that can convert back from a PCL printer file to a text
document? If so, when can I find it?

Thanks for your help.


Cheers, Phred.
Click to expand...


See if this works for you!!!

Add a new Printer that is on a "Print to File" Port, make the Maker of
that Printer be "Generic" & the Model Type be "Generic/Text".

Go back to your Device Manager Display & Print it out using this new
Printer & save it using an appropriate File-Name, but with a .txt suffix
(i.e. Device_Display.txt).

Once saved, you should be able to open it up in NotePad.

HTH

Regards,
John
 
Phred scribebat:
However, I really wanted an electronic copy to e-mail. But the only
option to get something on disk seemed to be the "print to file"
toggle.
Click to expand...

You could install a postscript printer driver and print to file, that
would produce a Postscript file which can be read with several programs
and easily converted to PDF as well.

bye,

Onno
 
Onno Tasler said:
Phred scribebat:


You could install a postscript printer driver and print to file, that
would produce a Postscript file which can be read with several programs
and easily converted to PDF as well.
Click to expand...
To further elaborate on this, there are many free PDF creators that do
exactly this for you once installed. I know of now way to directly
convet you HP-PCL file to a readable format, if you have the opportunity
to redo this I would install PDF Creator
http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm
IMHO it is the best of breed for this exact purpose. Then once you have
a PDF file, you can email it, or print it from any PDF reader.
HK
 
H-Man said:
To further elaborate on this, there are many free PDF creators that do
exactly this for you once installed. I know of now way to directly
convet you HP-PCL file to a readable format, if you have the opportunity
to redo this I would install PDF Creator
http://sector7g.wurzel6.de/pdfcreator/index_en.htm
IMHO it is the best of breed for this exact purpose. Then once you have
a PDF file, you can email it, or print it from any PDF reader.
HK
Click to expand...

CutePDF does this (I just did it for fun, works great!):

http://www.cutepdf.com/
 
CutePDF does this (I just did it for fun, works great!):
http://www.cutepdf.com/
Click to expand...

Thanks guys for your various suggestions. I ended up doing the
simplest thing and installed a phantom "Generic/Text" printer with the
"print to file" port specified for its output. Works as I wanted. :-)


Cheers, Phred.
 
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