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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

(Install these using their setup.exe installation tools, and do not manually set up any configuration files for gsprint or RedMon.) You must now follow the detailed instructions below, and use the Windows "Add Printer Wizard" to add a postscript printer, and then configure it to use the gsprint utility that comes with GSview, and redirect the output to your HP PPA DeskJet using the RedMon 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:

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).

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:


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