print to file format
 

I have just renewed my car insurance with an online company who provided the docs online to print myself.Knowing how touchy my printer can be i decided to use the option of "print to file" in the printer options box that comes up and managed to save them to my desktop(as well as printing them up) True to form my printer managed to leave lines on the document making it look untidy.
The site used flash to present the docs so no right click save as option on the page, and the files saved to my desktop do not seem to have any extension to give me a clue on the app to view them. I have access to a laser printer but not here, so once i get them on cd how can i print them on another machine?

Re: print to file format
 

Remember, the HP or whatever thing you have on your desk which spurts out paper is not a printer (now entering the microsoft zone) it is a print device.
The printer is the window that comes up when you double click the printer icon.
Now, all print devices are different, so they have different print drivers, which converts the document into a format that the print device understands and gives you the outcome you want.
So, if you do a print to file, it takes your document, converts it into a format specific for your model of print device and then saves it somewhere on your hard drive.

Open up your printers folder and drag the saved file to the printer.

Alas you aren't likely to be able to print them off a diferent printer.

See, what you should have done is installed the drivers for the laser print device at work, selected that printer and done print to file.
Then take the file into work and it'll be able to print on the laser print device.

Re: print to file format
 

all you need to do is run a DOS window and type the following : "copy c:\windows\desktop\filename.prn lpt1"

obviously you'll need the appropriate file location in there rather than the c:\windows.. etc

Re: print to file format
 

And if you do that with the wrong printer on the port (lpt1 is generally your parellel port) you'll get a whole load of gibberish come out

Re: print to file format
 

i know.. but the actual command was the only thing missing from your post.. so i thought i'd chip in.. i thought you'd done a good enough job explaining the theory

Re: print to file format
 

ah got you.
I said he can just drag the file to the printer :)

Re: print to file format
 

thx peeps, I tried the drag and drop approach first coz dos ain't 1 of my strong points but was told that "This file does not have a program associated with it for performing this action...create an association blah, folder options, blah.."
Tried notepad,wordpad,diz&nfo viewer even the hp viewer for the printer with no luck and still trying the dos way <smacks head on desk>

Re: print to file format
 

well that was easy when i finally got my head round it.I got the docs printed out again using the dos approach,new cartridge later i think.
is there any way to be able to view it,with the task of saving it in a common format? eg .doc, .jpeg, .tif etc so that i can transport it across print drivers?

Re: print to file format
 

The normal format to choose for such a purpose is PDF. But, without installing extras, you can't create PDF documents. However, the chances are that the originals your insureance company provided online were PDF, so you should just be able to download them and print them anywhere.

Re: print to file format
 

The images were supplied in a flash player screen with no right click or save as option in the menu.,(play,zoom,loop amongst others)could have done a prt scrn i suppose but i cant do image editing either :shrug: Now that i've got the policy i can't acces the darn thing.
wait for them to email me back now to see if they will send me a diff format to print with(they want £5 for 8 pieces of paper :eek: robbers)
btw.. how do i go up a dir in dos?

Re: print to file format
 

Re: print to file format
 

Um, are insurace docs you print off yourself acceptable/legal?

Re: print to file format
 

The file should be a postscript file (if your printer was postscript compatible, most are I think). Rename the file to have a .ps extension, then download Ghostscript and GSView from here: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/
Hopefully you should be able to view your file in GSView, and you can use GhostScript to convert to pdf (bit complicated).

Re: print to file format
 

The easiest way to do that now is to put the documents you have just printed out (asuming they were OK) into a scanner then save as .tif or .jpg or whatever bitmap format you like so you can print it out on any printer. Then again, why would you want another copy?

If you still have access to the online forms then install a postscript pinter driver (e.g. from the HP laserjet family). When you print to file what you will have then is a file in EPS format (encapsulated postcript). If you use something like CorelDraw then you can import this EPS file as "postscript interpreted" and view it or print to any printer. I've done this before and it works a treat.

Re: print to file format
 

I've wondered that. However, when I look at my insurance certificate is is just a sheet of plain A4 printed in b/w with their laser printer. There's no special stationary with anti-counterfiet/watermarking or anything. I'm sure anyone with a decent graphics program could make one up based on that which would fool the police after getting a "producer" or the post office when getting your road tax but you'd be up the spout if they checked up on it. I don't think you actually need the actual certificate to be legally insured. I think you just need it to conveniently prove it to others when asked.

Re: print to file format
 

k got my comp back now the kids are having t hehe.
@rdhw, thx
@philip j fry, i got and installed from the links but it only comes up with a blank page on all of the files.
@flubflow, the pages i printed have faults on them, ie. little drag marks from the heads that are far to numerous to edit with an imager and i dont have CorelDraw so cant try that
the ins company haven't got back to me today so i'll have to wait a bit longer for that, even though the reason for being able to reprint them is so that i can go to the post office to get my tax, a laser copy is tidier and looks the part.
thx for the replies peeps, any more ideas?

Re: print to file format
 

Out of interest, what insurance company is it?

Re: print to file format
 

w*w.its4me.co.uk. very good deal i got from them too, £250 cheaper than any of the other 20 or so sites i went through, and it's fully comp too :tu: :tu:

Re: print to file format
 

CorelDraw is just an example of what I happen to use. There are free programs on the net that can interpret postscript files for viewing and reprinting. A quick google returns this: http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/index.htm as mentioned before but there are probably others.
However, all this is academic if you cannot get back to the original web form to produce the postscript printfile anyway (because the one you have now is obviously not postscript). If you could get back to the webform then it would be easier to just print the form straight to your other printer anyway (assuming that is hooked up to that PC).

Edit: The only thing you can do with the existing printfile you have is to find someone who has the exact same printer as you, email or take the file along to them and do the same command as mentioned previously to copy the printfile to the printer port. (or fix your printer ;))