4. Emulating a PostScript printer on a Windows Host.

If you do not have commercial PostScript emulation software for Windows that will work with your HP PPA DeskJet (the author is unaware of any such software that supports PPA printers), you can use Ghostscript together with HP's native Windows drivers.

4.1 Installing Ghostscript as the emulation software.

From the Ghostscript home page http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/ download and install (in this order) the Windows packages of

• Ghostscript (PostScript Emulation Software).
• GSview (Ghostscript previewer, provides gsprint).
• RedMon (printer port redirection utility).

4.2 Adding the fictitious Postscript printer.

In the following, I assume your printer is a HP DeskJet 722C, and is installed with its native Windows Drivers as a printer called "HP DeskJet 720C Series". Change printer name entries below as appropriate for your printer model.

The following instructions are tested on Windows 98, and may differ on other Windows variants.

Open the Settings/Printers folder.

First check that the HP PPA Deskjet is correctly installed, using HP's native Windows drivers. Right-click on its icon, and select its Properties dialog. The General Properties screen will open. This shows the exact name that the printer was given when it was installed. Make a note of it, and use the Print Test Page button to confirm that the printer is working. (The "Printer name:" line on the test page will also show the exact name of the HP PPA Deskjet that you will need to use when configuring the emulated postscript printer below). When you are done, click on OK to close the dialog.

Now start the Add Printer "Wizard". Make the choices:

• install a local printer
• select a PostScript printer from the list of printers; (e.g., one of the Apple LaserWriter models: the Laserwriter II NT is known to work; Digital PrintServer models such as the turboPrintServer 20/Net have also been recommended). This will provide a suitable postscript driver.
• From the list of Available Ports, choose "FILE: Creates a file on disk" (you will change this after the printer is installed)
• set as default printer?: NO
• Print test page?: NO

4.3 Redirecting the output to the PPA printer.

After the printer has been installed, right-click on its icon, and rename it to something like, e.g., "Ghostscript+HP722C". Then right click again and open its Properties dialog.

On the General tab screen, enter something informative in the Comment box, such as " Emulated Postscript printer; output redirected to a HP722C DeskJet printer" (optional).

Next select the Details tab. The box "Print using the following driver:" should show the Postscript driver you selected (e.g., Apple LaserWriter II NT).

• Click on Add Port. Select other, then Redirected Port, which should be available if RedMon was correctly installed, and click on OK to accept these settings and close the Add Port dialog. On the Details tab screen, The box "Print to the following port:" should now show a redirected port such as "RPT1 [Redirected Port]".
• Click on Port Settings.
  • In the box "Redirect port to the program:", enter the path to the gsprint program. (If you accepted the defaults when installing it, this may be C:\Ghostgum\gsview\gsprint.exe; you may search for it by clicking on Browse).
  • In the box "arguments for this program are:" enter the arguments to be passed to the gsprint program (there is a document gsprint.htm with more details of these in the folder containing gsprint.exe). Suggested arguments are:

     -printer "HP DeskJet 720C Series" -color - 
    

    Replace "HP DeskJet 720C Series" by the (quoted) exact name of the HP PPA DeskJet printer that you made a note of earlier. (If you do not copy this name exactly, including any capitalization or spaces, things may not work!) The -color argument is needed to enable color printing; (Whether you actually get color printing will depend on the local settings of the "HP DeskJet 720C Series" printer that really prints the document.) The final " - " is required: without it, the output of gsprint will not get redirected to the printer.
  • The box "Output" should show "Program handles output".
  • In the box "Run", select "hidden".
  • The box "Shutdown delay" will say "300 seconds". Print jobs for which processing by gsprint takes longer than this will be terminated, to avoid blocking the printer spool queue. Increase this limit if necessary.
  Now click on OK to close the Port Settings dialog.
• Click on Spool Settings, and select "Disable bi-directional support for this printer", and click OK.

Finally, again select the General tab, and test the installation by clicking on "Print a test page". If it works, you are finished setting up Postscript emulation. Click OK to exit the Printer Properties dialog.

(If you have problems, first check that you made the correct entries in the Printer Properties dialogs, especially check that you did not make any typing errors in the exact name for the PPA DeskJet printer in the gsprint arguments box, which must correspond exactly to the "Printer name" given to the HP PPA printer). If the problems persist, you might get guidance from the gsprint and RedMon documentation; look in the folders where these were installed.)

You now have a working emulated "Postscript printer" that can now be shared over a network. (The "sharing" options will now be available if you right-click on the emulated printer's icon.)

4.4 Limitations.

This emulated postscript printer is most useful for providing printing services to non-Windows Clients on a samba network, but can be also be used by Windows Clients with the following limitations:

• Windows Clients will be able to select Print Settings only for the visible ("front end") "Postscript printer", but not for the hidden ("back end") HP PPA DeskJet printer that actually does the printing.
• Changes in the local Print Settings of the PPA driver for the DeskJet printer on the Host system (but not on Client systems, if it too is shared) will affect network printing by the "Postscript printer".
• Since the visible "Postscript printer" falsely advertises its identity, some of its Print Settings options seen by users on the Clients may not be valid.
• The extra processing on the printer Host may make printing rather slow compared to native Windows printing.