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Regarding Printing in Q&A for DOS...
The following are two email messages from Lance Jacobs, formerly a Senior Product Support Analyst for Q&A at Symantec Corporation, to T.J. Shuflin, former President of the National Q&A User Group (www.qaug.com). The first is an October 1998 message, the second is from December 1998. These messages contain some useful tips on printing from Q&A for DOS under Windows 95/98. Please note that the links may no longer be valid. And please do not ask us to provide updated links.
From October 1998:
Here below is my current standard reply on this issue, which also includes a link to a
more detailed article in the Microsoft Knowledgebase on this issue.
Printing from a DOS program like Q&A can be rather tricky under Windows 95.
Microsoft has a lot of helpful info in their online knowledgebase that can help with that,
however.
You can access the Microsoft knowledgebase at this address:
http://www.microsoft.com/kb/default.asp
Here is the specific address for Microsoft's article that you could find helpful
troubleshooting this problem:
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q128/3/45.asp
So click on this link and go over the recommendations in this document, and see if it does
not help you solve this printing problem.
A key thing to do in this troubleshooting is to go to START, CONTROL PANEL, PRINTERS,
right click on the printer's icon, select the PROPERTIES option, and then select the
DETAILS tab. Then click on the PORT button, and clear the CHECK PORT STATUS check box.
Next, still under DETAILS, click on the button to CAPTURE PRINTER PORT. If you normally
print to LPT1:, for example, then make sure that LPT1: is being captured to your printer.
Also under the DETAILS tab, click on the SPOOL SETTINGS button. If you want to continue to
SPOOL printer data, then change the SPOOL DATA FORMAT to the RAW option. If the printer is
connected to your PC through a LAN, then there really would be no need to use SPOOLING in
Win 95, as the network's spooler could handle this. So if that is your configuration, take
the option to PRINT DIRECTLY TO THE PRINTER instead.
Doing the above will usually solve this problem. But if the above does not help, then
another thing you can try is to follow the instructions in the Microsoft document for
configuring output to the LPT1.DOS port. So if the above does not correct this, give that
a try, as doing that will then give you maximum compatibility with DOS applications.
I've preferred using the above reply, as Microsoft has continued to update their
knowledgebase article. Here below is an earlier document I was using previously, which had
more info paraphrased from the Microsoft document:
There are some basic printer compatibility issues between DOS and Windows 3.x programs
printing under Windows 95. These are outlined in Microsoft's Knowledge Base article ID:
Q128345 You can get this troubleshooting document from Microsoft either on CompuServe, or
from their WEB pages on the Internet. I would definitely recommend that you get this
article and read it over.
Here are some of the key things mentioned in the Microsoft article that you can try to get
printing to work properly on your computer.
First, clear the Check Port Status option for the printer port under Win 95. Go to the
CONTROL PANEL, PRINTERS, right click on the printer's icon, select the PROPERTIES option,
and then select the DETAILS tab. Then click on the PORT button, and clear the CHECK PORT
STATUS check box.
Next, still under DETAILS, click on the button to CAPTURE PRINTER PORT. If you normally
print to LPT1:, for example, then make sure that LPT1: is being captured to your printer.
Also under the DETAILS tab, click on the SPOOL SETTINGS button. If you want to continue to
SPOOL printer data, then change the SPOOL DATA FORMAT to the RAW option. If the printer is
connected to your PC through a LAN, then there really would be no need to use SPOOLING in
Win 95, as the network's spooler could handle this. So if that is your configuration, take
the option to PRINT DIRECTLY TO THE PRINTER instead.
When you are done making all of the above changes, click on the OK button to save them.
If problems persist, another thing to set under DETAILS is to also click on the ADD PORT
button and select OTHER. In this field, type:
LPT1.DOS
if you normally prints to printer port LPT1 This will provide further compatibility with
DOS applications. Make sure that this then shows up as the selected PORT.
Anyway, these are some of the key things to check on to best insure printing compatibility
with Win 95.
This is a common question that many users run into. You have my permission to duplicate
and use any of this text I wrote on the QAUG web site.
Best regards,
Lance Jacobs Senior Product Support Analyst [Symantec Corp.]
For Knowledge Base support articles, File Libraries, and FAQs, visit our Q&A support
page:
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/qa.html
From December 1998:
The newer HP DeskJets are a real problem to support now with
Q&A for DOS. Current models are not that compatible with the DeskJet 500 or 550c,
which Q&A 4.0 for DOS does have drivers for.
If you can afford even the least expensive HP LaserJet, or any HP LaserJet compatible
printer from another company, then that would be the best way to go. As either the HP LJ
III and HP LJ 4 printer drivers in Q&A 4.0 for DOS would work fine with them.
Q&A 4.0 for DOS can easily be run in multi-user mode. To do that, all you have to do
is purchase what we call the Q&A Network pack. This consists of a diskette that when
run will upgrade your current copy of Q&A 4.0 for DOS and make it able to run
multi-user. Each Network Pack and disk when installed will add support for 3 additional
users. So with the install of a single Q&A Network Pack, you can then run 4 users from
the software. Install 2 Network Packs, and up to 7 users can then run from the same copy.
If you are interested in info on ordering the Q&A Network Packs, please feel free to
contact our Customer Service Department at 1-800-441-7234.
From your description of your printer drivers, I suspect that your Q&A program file
and printer driver files are not the last release we did on version 4.0 of Q&A.
Check the dates on the files QA1.EXE and QAPRINT.CFG in your Q&A directory. These
should both have dates in Sept of 1993 for you to have the current and last rev of Q&A
4.0 for DOS. If you see dates back in 1991 or 1992, then you definitely should update your
files to get our later printer drivers.
To upgrade your program files, the file you need to download is the file QAUP.EXE from the
Q&A section of our Q&A file library. This is a self-extracting archive that will
give you a program called UPDATE that can be used to bring your existing Q&A 4.0
program files fully up to date. Place QAUP.EXE in a new directory on your hard drive. Then
run QAUP. Next, run UPDATE and it will locate your files on your hard drive and update
them for you.
A direct link to the QAUP.EXE file is at:
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/products/q&a/ver4_dos/updates/qaup.exe
The program would not give you any of the newer printer drivers nor printer font files,
though. But those can be downloaded from our file library as well. The printer driver
update, for example, is the file QA4PRT.EXE in our library. You should get that file as
well. Run it after downloading to create a new QAPRINT.CFG file. Then copy this file to
your Q&A directory, overwriting the old copy.
A direct link to the QA4PRT.EXE file is at:
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/products/q&a/ver4_dos/updates/qa4prt.exe
Then go to UTILITIES, INSTALL PRINTER in Q&A. Go ahead and re-install over your
current printer option ( Printer A, Printer B, etc ... ), and install the Basic Vanilla
non-laser driver. After doing that, then go back a second time, and install yet again.
This time, install the appropriate printer driver you want. Doing this will insure that
old driver settings are removed, and replaced by the newer driver.
In addition, you would want to also get our font file for use with this HP LJ 4 driver if
this printer was not already shown available in your copy of Q&A. To get this,
download the file HP4FON.EXE from our file library. Then place this file in your Q&A
program directory, and run it to unzip the font file. Then follow the instructions in your
manual starting on page 5-58 to assign fonts.
And you can get HP4FON.EXE at:
ftp://ftp.symantec.com/public/english_us_canada/products/q&a/ver4_dos/updates/hp4fon.exe
Once you have downloaded and installed these updates, you will have the most current (and
last) revision of Q&A 4.0 for DOS. There are a number of subtle updates and fixes
included in these updates, so they are well worth the time downloading and installing.
Good luck, and let us know if we can be of further assistance.
Lance Jacobs
Senior Product Support Analyst
for Q&A Database Software
Symantec Online Services
There are some big problems in supporting the newer HP DeskJets with Q&A for DOS. We
do not have drivers available to specifically support these newer model DeskJet printers.
In general, you will get best results using fixed width fonts. Proportional fonts will
many times run into spacing difficulties where characters are bunched together.
I can tell you that the HP DJ 550c driver is indeed the one that should still be used with
the later models as well. So the first thing to do is to make sure you see the HP DJ 550c
printer listed in Q&A, and be sure to use it.
We do have a tech note available for downloading which gives troubleshooting info on using
Q&A DOS with newer HP DJ printers. This was originally developed for the HP DJ540, but
also applies to all later HP DJ models.
You can get this tech note at this web page:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/qa1.nsf/82ccdcc52b272dba85256483006e3c73/492f1a523b30dd0588256461004a74b5?OpenDocument
All of the above are somewhat of workarounds at best, I'm afraid. If you would like better
support for the DeskJet printers, another option you could consider would be buying an
upgrade package to Q&A Windows.
So if you are also running any version of Windows, another option would be to get our
Q&A Windows cross-grade. Quite a number of users prefer to keep their Q&A
databases running in DOS, but like to use the Q&A Windows Write and Report programs to
print out their documents and reports. Since they use the Windows printer driver, they are
fully compatible, and allow you to easily add things like color and graphics into your
printouts. This is all possible because the most current release of Q&A 4.0 for DOS is
database file compatible with the Windows version. The Q&A Windows Upgrade package
even includes a patch disk that will update older revs of Q&A 4.0 to DOS to this last
release.
Users like to do this, as the database itself runs faster in the DOS version, and you can
still use macros and custom menus, which are not available in the Windows database. But
your documents will look much better in Windows, as you can use all of your Windows fonts,
and see them in full time in WYSIWYG mode.
So if you do have Windows available, this would have much to offer as a Q&A add-on and
enhancement, and give you far better looking printouts. The cross-grade sells for $89.95
when ordered direct from Symantec at 1-800-441-7234. [Symantec no longer distributes
Q&A. See Q&A Distributors Worldwide.
If you are already using Q&A for Windows, then it just uses the Windows printer driver
that HP provides. So if that is the case here, you can download the necessary Windows
printer driver for this printer from HP's web site at:
http://www.hp.com
Good luck, and let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Lance Jacobs
Senior Product Support Analyst
for Q&A Database Software
Symantec Online Services