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General Description

The HOSTPrint utility is used to print CHARON output to Windows printers. It receives data from an emulated LPV11 printer via a TCP/IP socket and prints the data received on the default Windows printer (if no printer is specified at the utility command line) on the host computer.

Operation modes supported by the HOSTprint utility:

Mode Description

Line-printer (Digital LA75) emulation

In this mode the utility emulates ESC-sequences of the selected line printer (see the LA75 manual for details). Once a page is completely filled with data it is sent to the printer output (to emulate line-printer functionality).

To use this mode, properly configure the OpenVMS printer queue and use the OpenVMS “PRINT” command.

Working in an old version of the utility's compatible printing mode

Access the popup menu and set the Flush buffer delay time. Recommended value is 5 seconds*

The VAX/VMS command:

$ COPY MY_PRINTED_FILE LPA0:

Both modes support the print preview of the last page in the printing buffer.

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Usage

HOSTPrint calling is specified in the CHARON configuration file. The call implements one or more of the following parameters:

Parameter Description

-host=<hostname> Name of the host - source of the printing data.

-port=<connection port number> Port on the host to get the information to print from.

-delay=<delay for automatically buffer flush in seconds> Flushing delay, 0 - wait infinite, 5..10800 - timeout for flush

-printer=[PrinterDeviceName]

Host name for the printer used.

Example 1:

-printer=[\\.\Microsoft Office Document Image Writer]

Example 2:

-printer=[\\print_server\MSCLPS]

-font=<default font face> Default font name.

-fontsize=<default font size> Default font size.

The two last parameters are only used for compatibility with older versions of the utility (HOSTprint allows changing font settings from a popup menu).

It is strongly recommended to use fixed-size fonts (by default the "Courier" font is used) to avoid any problems relevant to proper calculation of the printing line length.

Example from a CHARON configuration file for the HOSTPrint usage (for 2 LPV11 printers):

load chapi lpv1

set lpv1 dll=lpv11.dll

set lpv1 port=10015 application="hostprint.exe -port=10015 -printer=[\\print_server\MSCPS2] -font=\Courier New\ -fontsize=10"

load chapi lpv2 address=017764004

set lpv2 dll=lpv11.dll

set lpv2 port=10016 application="hostprint.exe -port=10016 -printer=[\\print_server\MSCLPS] -font=\Courier New\ -fontsize=12"

After initialization, HOSTprint creates an icon in the Windows tray. The icon can have two colors:

Color	Description
GREEN	IDLE (or Ready) state
YELLOW	BUSY (processing) mode

*: To access the HOSTprint application popup menu point the mouse cursor at its icon in the system tray menu and click the right button. Then preview the last page content, change the utility mode via the flush buffer delay or change the default font setting.

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