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Print to Any Windows Printer: Jaws PDF Method


Consider other methods | An alternative to the Ghostscript method | Set up Jaws PDF Creator and Acrobat | Advanced font management | Fax to Windows fax software | Drivers and how to use them | Home page


Consider using other methods first

Since this page was first posted, other methods have been devised for printing from WPDOS to any Windows printer. Some of these methods are easier to set up than this one, and some are more flexible. Consider using one of this site's other methods before you take the trouble to set up this one.


An alternative to this site's method of printing to any Windows printer

The method on this page will allow you to print from WPDOS to any printer supported by Windows. As in this site's method of printing to any Windows printer using Ghostscript, this method will be useful to you only if your printer is not supported by a full-featured WordPerfect printer driver. See the Ghostscript page for further details.

One limitation of this and all other any-printer methods is that it does not let you select different paper trays for different pages in your print jobs. All pages will be printed from the default input tray (which is defined by the Windows driver for your printer).

This method combines three programs: the superb freeware program PrintFile, by Peter Lerup; Jaws PDF Creator, a commercial product by Global Graphics Software; and the freely downloadable Adobe Reader, by Adobe Systems. As in this site's Ghostscript method, WordPerfect is set up to use a PostScript printer driver, and "prints" to a printfile on disk instead of to a physical printer. The PrintFile program sends the file to Jaws PDF Creator, which converts it into the PDF format, and sends the resulting PDF file to Adobe Reader, which prints it.

This site's Ghostscript method uses freely available software. The Jaws method on this page uses software that costs US$80. However, the Jaws/Adobe Reader method has these advantages over the Ghostscript method:

But the Jaws/Acrobat method also suffers from these disadvantages:

Jaws PDF Creator is a full-featured, highly customizable PostScript interpreter that generates compact, high-quality PDF files. The software is available from Global Graphics Software, for US$84 (downloadable).

Note: If you use version 3.0 or earlier of Jaws PDF Creator, you should immediately upgrade to version 4.0 or later; later versions remove annoying bugs in 3.0 and earlier versions that prevent the method on this page from working smoothly. All notes on this page that refer to version 3.0 have been removed.


Set up Jaws PDF Creator and Adobe Acrobat Reader for printing from WPDOS

Before you begin: You must be able to print from Windows applications to your printer. If you have not tested your printer, press Ctrl-P now and print from this page to your printer. If nothing prints, then stop and install the software that came with your printer. When your printer works with Windows applications, return to this page.

(1) Download and install Adobe Reader if you do not already have a copy. Launch Adobe Reader and find the Preferences menu (in most versions, under Edit/Preferences). Find the Startup preferences page (or Options in some versions), and remove the checkbox next to "Display splash screen."

(2) Go to www.jawspdf.com, proceed to the Products page, and purchase the Windows version of Jaws PDF Creator; you may prefer to try the evaluation version first at no charge.

(3) Install Jaws PDF Creator. Choose a "Typical" setup, not "Demonstration version" or "Custom." (If you chose a "Custom" installation, the only checkbox that you should probably check is the one that creates a desktop shortcut.) The following instructions apply to Jaws PDF Creator version 3.0 or later; see the special note in step (5a) if you have version 2.0 or earlier.

(4) Click on the Jaws ToPDF desktop shortcut, and choose Settings/Configure. Select "Do not prompt for a destination." Click on Edit Configurations. In the Current Configuration dropdown, choose either Press Ready (for very high resolution printers) or Print Quality (for standard laser or inkjet printers). Click on Edit Configurations; in the tabbed dialog box that now appears, click Duplicate..., and enter the name "Print from WPDOS" (without quotation marks) 

(5) Go to the General tab at the top of the dialog box, add a checkmark next to "Always output files to," and specify as a directory C:\Windows\Temp, or any other directory that you use for files that you do not want to preserve. Add a checkmark next to "Execute on job completion," and use the Browse button to browse to the directory with Adobe Reader (perhaps C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Reader) and select AcroRd32.exe. The path and filename will be inserted into the "Execute on job completion" field, followed by a space and the string "%s" (you may have to move the cursor through the field to find this). Type the following characters between the program name and the "%s" (that is, after the closing quotation mark after AcroRd32.exe and before the opening quotation mark before %s):

/p /h

so that the whole line looks something like this:

"C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 9.0\Reader\acrord32.exe" /p /h "%s"

Add a checkmark next to "Overwrite an existing PDF file". Do not add checkmarks next to the options that begin "View..." or "Send..."

Under the Font Embedding tab, make sure there is a checkbox next to "Embed all fonts (except base 14 fonts)." Click OK, OK, and Done to close the Jaws window.

(6) Download and install PrintFile. When installing, you should probably choose the options to create a Start Menu item and to create a desktop shortcut, but you do not need to associate any file types with the program.

(7) Run PrintFile, and press the Settings button. In the PrintFile Settings dialog, in the Current settings field, type "Print to Jaws Settings." Still in the PrintFile Settings dialog, under General, add a checkmark next to "Enable spooler function," and remove the checkmark (if any) next to "Show printer selection dialog." I recommend adding a checkmark next to "Show icon on the taskbar." Under Printer, you must select "Jaws PDF Creator."

(8) Still in the PrintFile Settings dialog, click the Shortcut... button. In the Create PrintFile Shortcut dialog, choose the Desktop type; the Storage directory defaults to a subdirectory named Shortcuts under the PrintFile directory, and need not be changed. Click OK to close the Create PrintFile Shortcut dialog, and Exit the main PrintFile dialog. Find the new "PrintFile - Print to Jaws Settings" shortcut that has now been created on your desktop; you will return to it later.

(9) Create a new folder to use as a spool directory for the WPDOS print files that you will print to disk and convert to PDF files. I suggest creating a folder named C:\PDFSPOOL. The name of the folder must not be longer than eight characters and must not include spaces. You should not use this directory for anything other than print spooling from WordPerfect, because any files you place in the directory may be deleted by PrintFile's spooler function. This directory must not be the PrintFile Storage directory that you used in step (8).

Note: If you also use this site's methods for printing to a USB printer, or for faxing from WPDOS to Windows fax software, do not use the same spool directory that you use for any of those methods.

(10) Right-click on the new desktop shortcut that you created in step (6), and select Properties. Make sure the command line in the target field ends with "... Print to Jaws Settings.exe". Click at the end of the existing line in the Target field. Type a space after the quotation mark at the end of the existing line, not inside the existing quotation marks, and then add the following string:

    /s:C:\PDFSPOOL\pdfout.ps

Remember to add a space before (to the left of) this string, and be extremely careful when typing the string itself: do not add any quotation marks, and please note that the string begins with a forward slash, followed immediately (no space) by the letter s and a colon, followed immediately (no space) by the drive letter, colon, directory name, and filename (using backward slashes). The pathname in green (C:\PDFSPOOL) should match the folder you created in step (9). Click OK to close the Properties dialog but do not launch the shortcut.

(11) Run WordPerfect for DOS, press Shift-F7/Select/Add Printer (in 5.1, Additional Printers), and select a PostScript printer. You may use one of the special Ghostscript drivers available from this site, or you may use almost any standard PostScript driver that shipped with WPDOS (see the notes on drivers below), or you may use almost any standard PostScript driver that shipped with WPDOS. A safe choice for monochrome printing is the Apple LaserWriter IINTX; another is the Xerox DocuTech 135 driver, which gives access to many different sheet sizes. For color printing, try the Tektronix Phaser ColorQuick driver. If you do not see any of the original WordPerfect PostScript drivers on the list of additional printers in your copy of WPDOS, you can install the drivers from the original WordPerfect installation disks, or download drivers from Corel's page for WPDOS 5.1 printer drivers or its page for WPDOS 6.x printer drivers.

(12) After selecting and installing the PostScript driver, you must direct the printer output to a file. The procedure is slightly different in different WPDOS versions. In WPDOS 6.x, use Shift-F7/Select, and make sure the highlight is on your PostScript printer driver. Select Edit, and in the Edit Printer Setup screen, select Port, then Filename, and enter the pathname C:\PDFSPOOL\PDFOUT.PS, and, to reduce the possibility of overwriting existing PDF files, add a checkmark to  Prompt for Filename. In WPDOS 5.1, use Shift-F7/Select Printer, and make sure the highlight is on your PostScript printer driver. Select Edit, and in the Select Printer: Edit screen, select Port, choose Other, and enter the pathname C:\PDFSPOOL\PDFOUT.PS. With either version, the directory in the pathname shown in green (C:\PDFSPOOL) should be the folder you created in step (9)

(13) Now "print" a document from WPDOS and make sure that a file named PDFOUT.PS is present in the C:\PDFSPOOL folder. Drag the file to the Jaws ToPDF icon on your desktop. If you are using Acrobat Reader 5, the Acrobat Reader icon should appear on the Windows taskbar (it should not appear if you use Acrobat Reader 4), and your document should be printed by the default Windows printer.

(14) Launch the "PrintFile - Print to Jaws Settings" shortcut you modified in step (10). The PrintFile icon should appear in your system tray.

(15) Return to WPDOS and "print" a document as you did in step (13). Because PrintFile is now running, you need not do anything else (although if you are running Windows XP, you may have to wait up to a minute for anything to happen). Do not click on anything; do not open any windows. If you are running WPDOS in full-screen mode, Windows will take you to the desktop after a few seconds; if you are using Acrobat Reader 5, the Acrobat Reader icon will appear on the Windows taskbar; and your document will be printed automatically by the default Windows printer.

In case of difficulty, return to steps (5) through (12) and make absolutely certain that you have followed the instructions exactly.

(16) If all goes well, make a copy of the "PrintFile - Print to Jaws Settings" shortcut that you modified in step (10) and add the copy to your Startup group so that it will run whenever you boot into Windows. (Help! How do I make a program run when Windows starts up?)

Note: Under WPDOS 6.x, when printing files that contain bitmap graphics, you may or may not get better results if you set the graphics' Dither Method to "device" instead of "application." This setting is located under Alt-F9/Graphics Boxes/Create or Edit/Contents/Image or Image on Disk/Image Editor; then, in the Image Editor, under Edit/Print Parameters/Dither Method, where you should choose Device. This setting forces the printer (Jaws PDF Creator) to render bitmap images instead WordPerfect. Unfortunately, even if you make Device the default setting by modifying the printer driver with the WPDOS 6.x Printer Definition Program, PTR.EXE, you may need to uncheck the Default box in in the Print Parameters/Dither Method dialog for each file, no matter how unintuitive this seems. The problem may result from a bug in WPDOS.  (If you want to experiment, use PTR.EXE to open the .ALL file for your printer; select your printer, then Edit/Graphics/Miscellaneous/Rendering, and set the Default Dither Source to Printer. Exit and save the .ALL file. Open WPDOS 6.x, use Shift-F7/Select/Update to make the new setting available to WordPerfect. )


Advanced font management with Jaws PDF Creator

When you "print" from WordPerfect to any software that emulates a PostScript printer, WordPerfect automatically includes in the output file any Type 1 soft fonts that may be required by the software. WordPerfect does this in exactly the same way that it downloads soft fonts to a standard PostScript printer. You can save time when printing (without sacrificing quality) by installing your soft fonts in the PostScript emulation software itself, so that WordPerfect does not need to download the fonts every time it prints a file that uses them. The procedures listed here are useful only for saving time and for reducing the size of your output files; you may safely ignore these procedures if you prefer.

After you have installed your Type 1 soft fonts in WPDOS, using the procedures on this site's Type 1 soft font installation page, open the Jaws ToPDF icon, go to Settings/Configure/Edit Configurations; on the Settings tab, click Font Management, then click on the Select Folder button. Browse to the directory in which you store the Type 1 fonts you have installed in WPDOS. Use the mouse and Shift or Ctrl keys to highlight all the fonts you have installed into WPDOS (or simply select all the fonts in the directory), and click Add. Click OK, OK, OK, and Done until you exit the window.

If you use WPDOS 5.1, start WordPerfect, use Shift-F7/Select, and highlight your PostScript printer driver; use Edit, Cartridges-Fonts-Print Wheels, highlight Soft Fonts, press Enter, highlight the group that contains your fonts (probably "PTWP: <name of printer>", and press Enter. In the list of soft fonts, place a star (*) next to each of the soft fonts you installed into Jaws PDF Creator, so that WPDOS knows that these fonts are present at the start of the print job and need not be downloaded. (Ignore any warning from WordPerfect that you will need to initialize the printer; it does not apply to this kind of setup.)

If you use WPDOS 6.x, start WordPerfect, use Shift-F7/Select, and highlight your PostScript printer driver; use Edit/Font Setup/ Select Cartridges-Fonts-Print Wheels, highlight Soft Fonts, press Enter, highlight WPFI Type 1 (Soft Fonts), and press Enter. In the list of soft fonts, place a star (*) next to each of the soft fonts you installed into Jaws PDF Creator, in order to tell WPDOS that these fonts are present at the start of the print job and need not be downloaded. (Ignore any warning from WordPerfect that you will need to initialize the printer; it does not apply to this kind of setup.)


Fax to Windows fax software using Jaws PDF Creator and Acrobat Reader

A variation on the method presented above can be used for faxing from WPDOS to Windows fax softare. Unfortunately, you cannot conveniently use this Jaws PDF method for both faxing and printing from WPDOS, because you would have to remember to switch between two configurations in the the Jaws PDF software whenever you switch between faxing and printing. You should use the combination of Jaws PDF Creator and Acrobat Reader either for printing or faxing, but not both. For further information, and for alternative methods, see this site's page on faxing from WPDOS to Windows fax software.

To set up faxing from WPDOS using Jaws PDF Creator, begin by finding the exact name of the fax printer driver used by your fax software. Use Start/Settings/Printers, and carefully note the exact name of your fax printer driver (perhaps "Fax" or "WinFax" or "Symantec Fax Starter Edition" or "MightyFax Printer Driver" or some similar name).

Next, follow the instructions above, with the following two exceptions, both in step (5). First, use the name "Fax from WPDOS" (without quotation marks) as the name of your Jaws configuration. Second, enter a slightly different string in the "Execute on job completion" field: do not insert  /p /h before "%s". Instead, insert the string /t before "%s" and the exact name of your fax printer (within quotation marks) after "%s", so the entire field looks something like this (with the path of your copy of Acrobat Reader and your fax printer instead of the examples used here):

C:\Program Files\Adobe\Acrobat 5.0\Reader\acrord32.exe /t "%s" "WinFax"

All the other instructions may be followed exactly as in the Jaws method, although, when setting up PrintFile and WPDOS to specify the name of the output printfile, you may want to use FAXOUT.PS instead of PDFOUT.PS. Also, you should give a descriptive name like "PostScript fax printer" to the PostScript printer driver that you use for faxing.


Ghostscript drivers and how to use them

This site provides Ghostscript printer drivers for WPDOS that are also ideal for printing to PDF files; the drivers are slightly modified from standard WordPerfect PostScript drivers, and you can use a standard WordPerfect PostScript driver if you prefer. (I suggest that you do not use HP LaserJet PostScript drivers with Jaws PDF Creator, as some special HP printer codes may interfere with smooth operations.)

Notes on WordPerfect for DOS 6.x only: Ghostscript drivers for WPDOS 6.x (WP60GSCR.EXE) are available in a self-extracting archive. The name of each driver includes "Color" or "Mono" and a resolution in Dots Per Inch. Choose the driver that most closely matches the color and resolution that you prefer to use with Jaws PDF Creator. The resolution of Jaws PDF Creator's "built-in" 35 standard PostScript fonts, and of any Type 1 soft fonts you have installed into WPDOS as printer fonts, will not be affected by the resolution of the driver. The driver resolution is designed to optimize the output of bitmapped graphics. Because WPDOS 6.x uses bitmapped graphics to output its "graphic fonts" (TrueType, Speedo, and any Type 1 fonts that are not installed as printer fonts) to PostScript printers, you will get better results if you choose the correct resolution. But any of these drivers should give acceptable results with any printer.

To use these drivers, download WP60GSCR.EXE to a temporary directory and run the program to extract the contents. Copy WP60GSCR.ALL to the directory that contains your printer files. (To locate this directory in WordPerfect, use Shift-F1/Location of Files/Printer Files...) In WordPerfect, use Shift-F7/Select/Add Printer... and select the most suitable driver. Edit the printer definition as described in step (12) above.

Notes on WordPerfect for DOS 5.x only: Ghostscript drivers for WPDOS 5.1 (WP51GSCR.EXE) are available in a self extracting archive. Choose either the Ghostscript Color or the Ghostscript Mono driver, depending on the kind of PDF files you expect to create.


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