...And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries... —SHAKESPEARE
What About Printer Drivers for Q&A DOS?
The function of the printer driver is to translate your formatting, fonts and enhancements (in a document, report, or print spec) into codes your printer can deal with.
If you're using a printer driver that doesn't speak the same language as your printer, you'll get wierd, garbled output.
When you "Install a Printer" in Q&A for DOS (File / Utilities / Install Printer), you're installing a printer driver.
(In Q&A for Windows you don't use a "Q&A" printer driver. You use a Windows driver designed for your printer. Windows comes with its own versions of drivers for most printers. You can also get them from the printer manufacturer. Any printer you buy today will come with a Windows driver on a diskette or CD-ROM.)
NO NEW PRINTER DRIVERS for Q&A DOS have been developed since the realease of Q&A 5.0 for DOS in 1995. (See Latest Q&A for DOS Printer Drivers on the Free Downloads page.)
A former Symantec technical engineer (who developed Q&A printer drivers) may be able to create a Q&A driver for your printer. But It'll cost you a minimum of $500. (Printer drivers are complex things.)
Otherwise, you'll have to make do with Q&A printer drivers as they are.
But it might not be all that bad. Listen up.
Laser and Inkjet Printers
For the vast majority of Q&A printing tasks, you should be able to do just fine
with one of the older Q&A printer drivers. Here are a few examples.
The most advanced Q&A HP LaserJet driver is the HPLASER4.FNT driver for the LaserJet 4 (LJ4).
The most advanced HP DeskJet driver is the HPDJ550C.FNT driver for the DeskJet 550C.
The LJ4 driver should work well for all modern LaserJet and compatible models since these printers are backward compatible with the PCL 5 Printer Control Language first introduced in the LJ4. (Today's top-of-the-line LaserJets use PCL 6 and Postscript, but they'll handle PCL 5 just fine.)
Newer LaserJets don't have any more built-in fonts than the older LaserJet 4. Likewise, most of the newer HP DeskJet printers have the same built-in fonts as the older DeskJet 550C. (Fonts in the newer DeskJets are scaleable, though, while Q&A's older DeskJet driver includes only fixed point sizes. Nevertheless, you can still tweak the Q&A driver to scale the fonts. See the tip at the end of this page.)
If your new printer is HP LaserJet compatible, it means that it can work with a Q&A LaserJet printer driver.
But "HP compatible" can mean different things. If your printer is compatible with the LJ4 or later (PCL 5) it means you can use the Q&A LJ4 driver. If it's compatible with the HP LaserJet II or III, you can use the HPLASERJ.FNT driver. But don't expect whatever Q&A printer driver you use to print fonts that aren't built into the printer.
In other words, the Q&A printer driver you're using might have a font description for CG Times, but unless your printer has a built-in CG Times font, applying CG Times in your Q&A document won't print it. (The printer will likely print its default font, which is usually some variation of Courier.)
To find out if your non-HP laser printer is LaserJet compatible, check its manual or ask the manufacturer. Most of today's laser printers support HP PCL, making them LaserJet compatible.
Note: If your LaserJet 6 is printing a "junk" page at the end of your Q&A print jobs, see the January 1999 issue of The Quick Answer for the fix. In that same issue, see the tip on page 2 about "spooling DOS print jobs." Spooling can cause an extra page to eject even on earlier model LaserJets. If your LaserJet 4 or 5 is printing a "junk page," see page 2 of the April 1999 issue.
Inkjets in particular
What about inkjets? If your new inkjet printer is an HP or compatible, you should
be able to use Q&A's HPDJ550C.FNT driver (with some exceptions as noted below). Any
printer that supports HP PCL3 should be able to use this driver. We have an HP DeskJet
870Cse, and it performs well with the 550C printer driver, including printing in color.
Fonted reports, however, sometimes give us a little trouble. But adjustments can be made.
The high-end HP DeskJets such as the 2000 support PCL 5, so you might be able to use the LaserJet 4 driver with these. (Curiously, the LJ4 driver also includes color enhancement descriptions.)
Now the HP DeskJet 700-series printers (including the 710C, 712C, 720C and 722C) and probably other low-priced HP "personal printers" are noteworthy exceptions. These printers do not support HP PCL, the printer language "spoken" by the Q&A DOS DeskJet printer drivers. The "bargain basement" printer language in these printers is far different, it's called "Printing Performance Architecture."
What's more, some of these models (notable the popular 720C and 722C) have no built-in fonts; they work only with Windows TrueType fonts. They're designed strictly for Windows programs and will not work with a DOS program such as Q&A.
For these reasons, avoid purchasing any of these printers for use with Q&A. And if you do buy a printer for use with Q&A, be sure you check its specifications. Is it designed to be used only with Windows programs? Does it support some printer language other than PCL? Does it lack any built-in fonts (doesn't even have Courier and Times)? If the answer to any of these questions is "Yes," don't buy the printer. If in doubt, buy it only from an outlet that will let you return it for a full refund if you're dissatisfied for any reason.
Q&A Printer Drivers (*.FNT files)
When you installed Q&A, did you select all the printer drivers? If you
did, there should be a whole slew of *.FNT files in your Q&A program files directory.
If there are only a few, it means you probably didn't select all the available drivers
when you installed Q&A. You can go back and do a Selective install from your
Q&A diskettes. You might find some printer drivers on the list for the manufacturer of
your printer and its type (laser or inkjet). If your printer isn't HP compatible, you
might find one of these drivers will work with your new printer.
For example, some printers are IBM Proprinter-compatible, and you can probably use the Q&A Proprinter driver with them.
You might have to experiment with several Q&A printer drivers to find one that works best.
Do you have the latest set of Q&A printer drivers? (See Latest Q&A for DOS Printer Drivers on the Free Downloads page.)
Some Troubleshooting Tips on
Printing
from Q&A DOS in Windows 9x
Two email messages from a (now former) Symantec Senior Product Support Analyst for
Q&A (October and December 1998) outline the steps to ensure your Windows Printer
Properties are correctly set up to print from DOS programs such as Q&A, and cover
printing to HP DeskJet (inkjet) printers from Q&A DOS running in Windows. Read these messages.
Modifying Your Q&A Printer Driver
Using Q&A's built in Utilities / Modify Font File facilities, you can
modify any Q&A printer driver. (You can even create a new printer driver from scratch
if you have the printer's control language and know what you're doing.)
For example, if your new LaserJet comes with a font that isn't supported by the older Q&A LJ4 driver, you can add that font description to the LJ4 driver, then use the font just like any other in your Write documents.
The tip at the bottom of this page, from the November 1998 Quick Answer gives you an example of how you can use Q&A's Modify Font File facilities to make an older Q&A printer driver more useful.
If you need to print documents (even merge documents) or reports in Q&A for DOS that contain graphic elements such as a photo, your signature, or a custom letterhead logo, check out FORMagic.
If you need the kind of sophisticated output that only a
Windows word processor can deliver, you can use your Q&A data in a program such as
Microsoft Word for Windows. See the May 1999 issue of The Quick Answer ("The
Easy Way to Mail Merge Your Q&A Data in MS Word for Windows"). See also the
February 1998 issue ("Using Your Q&A Data in Word/WinFax Fax Merges"), the
August 1998 issue ("Merge-Print Invoices and Other Complex Forms in Your Windows Word
Processor") and the December 1997 issue ("Exporting Data to Windows
Programs")
Modernize that Old Printer Driver
When using an older Q&A printer
driver with your new printer, you can teach that old dog new tricks.
I have an HP DeskJet 870Cse. Like all modern DeskJets, the 870Cse’s internal fonts are scaleable to any point size.
But because there’s no Q&A driver for the 870Cse, I’ve been using the old DeskJet 550C Q&A driver. Problem is, it doesn’t contain any scaleable font descriptions—they’re all fixed point sizes. Among the Univers descriptions, for example, there’s no 9, 11, or 13 point size, and the largest one is a measly 14 points. What I really wanted was a Universe Bold font I could scale to any point size. Now I have it. You can, too. Here’s how.
1. From Q&A’s Main menu, select Utilities / Modify font file, and press Enter on the Font File Name line. From the list of printer drivers, select the HPDJ550C.FNT file.
2. Press F-10 to move through the font descriptions until you came to the one named Univers 14 Pt Bold. Press Shift-F5 to make a copy of it.
3. Change the name on the copy to Univers Bld Scaleable and changed its abbreviation to UNBldS.
4. Move to the On codes line and change the 14 in the printer control code to * (replace the 14 with an asterisk).
5. Move to the Point Size line and change the 14 to S (for Scaleable), then press Shift-F10 to save your changes.
You now have a scalable Universe Bold font you can use in your Q&A documents. (You can scale other proportional fonts the same way. Monospace fonts like Courier and Letter Gothic can be scaled, too, but the technique differs.) The new font description will appear at the end of your font selection list. Ignore any Q&A complaints that the new font has ". . . characters that are too small."
Tom Marcellus
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Last modified: December 11, 2006