Frequently Asked Questions on Print Wizard

Installing / Uninstalling and Licensing

Print Wizard version 3.0 includes all the necessary support for Print Wizard Personal Edition and Print Wizard Server Edition. When you run Print Wizard as a demo (60-day evaluation), the program assumes you are working on a Server Edition and all options are available to you.

Once you enter a license code for the Personal Edition, Print Wizard Services, Windows Services and a few more features become unavailable. You must have a Server Edition license to utilize Services and remote retrieval of print jobs.

The basic Print Wizard Personal Edition license is set to support up to 3 printers that it can print to at any given time. If you have additional needs, contact us for further licensing options.

The Print Wizard Server Edition license supports a specific number of printers available to the print server, depending on the license you purchase:

PW SE 3 -- Support for up to 3 printers
PW SE 6 -- Support for up to 6 printers
PW SE 10 -- Support for up to 10 printers
PW SE -- Support for an unlimited number of printers

Both Print Wizard Personal Edition and Print Wizard Server Edition are licensed for one machine per license. Multiple licenses would be required to run multiple PCs.

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Question: How Do I Install Print Wizard?

You can download the Print Wizard installation program from our web site, or order it on CD. Run the setup program in order to install Print Wizard on your Windows PC. It is as simple as that.

Setting up Print Wizard may involve a little more time however. You do need to know what you are going to be using Print Wizard for and how you will be printing through it. There are also numerous examples included that will help you determine what Print Wizard is capable of.

When you run the install program, you end up with a desktop icon for Print Wizard. This is the user interface and will give you the opportunity to set it up the various options available, include the services you may want to run.

Refer to the Print Wizard manual for more information on using Print Wizard and Print Wizard services.

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Question: Error while installing on Server 2003?

This is an issue that appears ONLY in Server 2003. It is an issue with Anzio Lite v. 16.2, AnzioWin v. 16.2, and Print Wizard v. 3.3. It is a problem with a security feature called DEP. The way our programs do their online registration causes a conflict with this feature in Server 2003.

Here's how to solve the problem:

1) Log on with administrative privileges.

2) Go to the Control Panel, System item.

3) Click on the Advanced tab.

4) Under Performance, click Settings.

5) Click on the "Data Execution Prevention" tab.

6) Click on the "Add..." button.

7) Navigate to the program that will be doing the registration. Assuming standard installation locations:

For Print Wizard: c:\program files\printwiz30\pwui.exe

For Anzio Lite:   c:\program files\anzio16\anzio32r.exe

For AnzioWin:     c:\program files\anzio16\anzio32.exe

8) Click "OK" on everything.

9) Try again to register.

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Setting up a Service

Services are programs that "watch" for events to happen. In the case of Print Wizard, this involves watching either for a print job to show up in a specific directory (despooling), or watching for a job to arrive over a network port.

• Print Wizard Services are those that are run by a specific user, when logged in, watching for print jobs to appear. This does require the user to log in and start the Print Wizard Service. Alternately you could add the service to the Windows Startup folder and it would run in the background whenever the user logged in.
  
• Windows Services for Print Wizard are run from the Windows registry whenever the machine is actually booted up (you do not need to log a user in). These services are available for all users and will receive remote print jobs even if there is no user logged in. They normally run as a "Local System" user with very little permissions.

Both services are managed through the Print Wizard user interface. Refer to the Print Wizard manual for more information.

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Question: LPD fails with winsock error

Winsock errors normally come from some network problem that has occurred. Most often causes fit into two different categories: hardware (bad network cards, bad cabling, network down, ..) and software (firewall blocking inbound traffic, Internet security software blocking inbound traffic, personal firewall blocking port traffic, software already using a specific network port, .).

If network traffic seems normal, i.e. your web browser seems to be working, the most common problem is software related. Two major problems occur frequently, there is some security software blocking inbound and outbound network port traffic, or there is some software already using the network port Print Wizard Services, such as LPD needs.

Personal firewalls and internet security suites, such as McAfee or Symantecs, or Microsoft's own Windows firewall maybe blocking port traffic for the LPD service.

The best first test is to disable the firewall portion of your security software and see if the LPD service will run. If so, turn back on the firewall or security software and check to see if you can add the network port to an exceptions list, or add the Print Wizard program to the application exceptions list (PWLPD.EXE for Print Wizard Service or PWSERVICES.EXE for the Windows Service).

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Question: How do I setup Localhost printing?

Localhost printing refers to printing through the PC to a local port on the PC as if this PC was a remote printer. Print Wizard supports this by setting up a loop back printer, one that prints out a network port to itself.

Refer to our support document on Localhost printing to configure a local printer to do this.

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Question: I started working with 3.0 and noticed some differences with PWLPD. We had always setup queues in PWLPD and been able to setup an init file for each queue to do our different forms etc. How do I do this in version 3.0 since there is no "misc line" anymore?

Two different methods can be used to set up the printing for a print queue, a) through a profile or b) direct through the command line option.

A Print Wizard "profile" is a textual file defining how a print job should behave and what settings to use, including the init file. When you set up a print queue, you can specify a profile name to use for a specific queue. These "profiles" are set up via the User Interface and the Tools menu for "Setup profile" and the Properties:Print Wizard tab. You can then associate a Print Wizard "profile" with your queue (see the Queue Properties).

Through the User Interface, go to the Tools : Setup Services : Properties dialog, select your queue and go to its Properties. Under the Queue Properties and the "Action to take" tab, you can actually specify the job to run for this queue (the 'Default program or script...'). Here you can add the init file direct to the executable line for Print Wizard:

C:\printwiz3\printwiz.exe /q /minimize /vdocname=PWS /vinit=abc.init

Those are the two ways. The objective in this version is to provide more flexibility and this does make things a little more complicated, but the general features are still the same.

Faxing

Through the Print Wizard user interface you can define "print profiles". These "print profiles" decide what to do when processing a job with a profile, including the ability to fax. When you define the profile, the user interface will ask you if you want to create a desktop shortcut. If you answer yes, you will end up with a desktop icon that you can drag and drop files on that will then get faxed.

If you want to manually set up a shortcut, you can do so by including the profile name on the command line, or target line, for the shortcut:

C:\Program Files\Printwiz30\printwiz.exe /profile=myfaxprofile.profile

• Always fax to a specific number
• Include specific fax information, such as the subject, notes line and attachments
• Always ask where to fax to

You can then open up your Windows Explorer or other file applications and drag a file from there and drop it on this shortcut to fax as you need.

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Question: How do I setup faxing and default fax?

From the Print Wizard user interface, under the Tools menu, you can set up faxing and the default fax method to use. Check mark the default fax method that you want as the default.

You can usually determine if any fax software is loaded by looking at your Control Panel : Printers and Faxes to see if any fax drivers are available (as an example a printer driver called "fax" on Windows XP and later is usually referred to by us as "fax32", whereas one called "WinFax" or "WinFax (Photo Quality)" is usually Symantec's WinFax Pro).

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Question: How do I include attachments with my fax?

Attachments for fax software may depend a lot on whether you have any associated application that can print the file and you would need to have a fax printer driver available. As an example, in order to fax a .DOC, you would need to have Microsoft Office or Microsoft Doc Viewer or some similar application installed that can print .DOC files. The fax software would then use this application to render and fax the file.

Attachments can be browsed for and specified when using the Fax Form input screen available when no fax number is provided (through both the user interface and the Print Wizard engine), or by specifying it on the command line for the Print Wizard engine:

printwiz.exe /x5015555555 /ac:\temp\file.doc myfiletofax

Different behaviors may be noticed with different fax software and that software may or may not support faxing attachments. Contact us for more information.

Email

Through the Print Wizard user interface you can define "print profiles". These "print profiles" decide what to do when processing a job with a profile, including the ability to email. When you define the profile, the user interface will ask you if you want to create a desktop shortcut. If you answer yes, you will end up with a desktop icon that you can drag and drop files on that will then get emailed.

If you want to manually set up a shortcut, you can do so by including the profile name on the command line, or target line, for the shortcut:

C:\Program Files\Printwiz30\printwiz.exe /profile=myemailprofile.profile

• Always email to a specific address
• Include specific email information, such as the subject, notes line and attachments
• Always ask where to email to

You can then open up your Windows Explorer or other file applications and drag a file from there and drop it on this shortcut to email as you need.

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Question: How do I setup email and the default email?

From the Print Wizard user interface, under the Tools menu, you can set up email options as well as the default email method to use. Check mark the default email method that you want as the default.

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Question: How do I include attachments with my email?

In the case of email, all files are sent as attachments. You can also specify additional files by browsing for them when using the Email Form input screen (through both the user interface and the Print Wizard engine), or by specifying it on the command line for the Print Wizard engine:

printwiz.exe /email=abc@def.com /ac:\temp\file.doc myfiletoemail

Different behaviors may be noticed with different email options. Contact us for more information.

Printing

In the terminal emulation world, such as what is supported with our Anzio products (serial, telnet or SSH), remote printing was most often done by passthrough printing, where the print job would "pass through" the terminal session to the locally attached printer. Host applications often supported this as well as the terminal client.

Other types of printing were also supported by the host application and the host itself, namely printing to a spool or queue on the host for the local printer. The UNIX could also be set to print through the LPR or LP program which could then be redirected to remote printers or remote print servers.

• Listen watches for remote print jobs coming in as raw data on port 9100, similar to Hewlett-Packard's ® JetDirect protocol.
• LPD utilizes the LPR / LPD protocol for capturing print jobs destined for a remote print server.
• Despool, and the FTPDespool variation, watches for remote jobs posted to a specific location. While Despool watches a locally mounted directory, such as over SMB or NFS, FTPDespool can watch a remote directory over the FTP protocol.

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Question: Can I print a PCL file with Print Wizard?

Yes, Print Wizard version 3.0 or later supports printing a PCL file directly. The question may be one of what level of PCL is the file in and whether your printer supports PCL.

If you are printing to a non-PCL printer, and the PCL codes are for version PCL 5 or earlier, you can turn on "translatepcl" with a command-line switch (or via a "print profile") and Print Wizard will translate this to your specific printer.

If you are printing to a PCL printer, and the file contains PCL 5 or earlier, you can either print this direct or with the "translatepcl" command-line switch.

If you are printing a PCL 6 or later file, you need to print this to a PCL 6 or later printer driver as it will not work with a PCL 5 or earlier driver, not can Print Wizard handle the translation to a normal printer driver. This means that you cannot print PCL 6 on a non-PCL printer currently.

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Question: Can I print a file that already has printer-specific codes with Print Wizard? There are two options here.

If the print file has printer-specific escape sequences in the file, Print Wizard will pass this directly to the printer without trying to format or auto-fit any portion of the print job. So you need do nothing in this case.

/vlevel=spooler       or       /vlevel=raw

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Question: How do I create a PDF?

The Print Wizard engine allows you to convert any printable file into a PDF file by simply printing it with the appropriate switch settings:

Printwiz.exe /pdf /fFilename.pdf myfilename
Printwiz.exe /fpdf:// myfilename
Printwiz.exe /fpdf://myfilename myfilename

You can also generate PDF files through the user interface menu items.

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Question: My overlay is not printing cleanly.

Overlay files either need to be in the format of a PWML file, a PCL file or a graphics file (TIFF, JPG, GIF, WMF or BMP). The problem with the graphic file formats is they may not appear clean if they were not scanned or created at the proper resolution for the printer, including the proper offsets for margins, etc. This may be a problem if you plan on moving this overlay between specific printers. A better approach is to utilize a PCL file if you can.

Another possibility is laying out the overlay with PWML (Print Wizard Markup Language). This may help you come up with a much cleaner overlay file.

If you do continue to have problems or want some help with PWML, give us a call.

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Question: My overlay does not fit the page.

Specific printer and printer drivers have differing unprintable areas. Along with this, there are also the issues of margins. Some of this can be controlled by PWML code in an "init" file, or by setting items in the printer driver itself. Getting overlays to fit properly can be a chore. We can help. Give us a call and we can usually come up with a solution.

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Question: What types of overlays does Print Wizard support?

Print Wizard supports several overlay files. The possible formats are a PWML file, a PCL file or a graphics file (TIFF, JPG, GIF, WMF or BMP).

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Question: Can Print Wizard print graphics files?

Print Wizard supports several graphics file formats, including the option to print them at true size or at full page, stretching as needed. The possible formats are TIFF, JPG, GIF, WMF or BMP.

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Question: Why are my PDF files so large?

At present, we are developing and working on compression methods to reduce the size of the files. When we generate a PDF file, one of the issues may be the number of font changes and characters that are loaded into the file, and whether they require bitmap character representations. Another determining factor is the number of graphics that are included.

Contact us for more information and for what your needs are

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Question: How do I create a PCL file?

The simplest way is to lay out your print document and print to a PCL 5 or earlier printer driver. When you do this, go into the printer driver and select "Print to file". It should ask you for a file name that can then be saved off for future use.

Even if you do not have a PCL printer, you can install a PCL printer driver to generate print files from. Do an "Add printer" and select an H/P printer that supports the level of PCL you want. Then set the "Print to file" flag and use it to print through. The PCL file can then be used for subsequent printing, for overlays or for other reasons.

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Question: How do I create a SPL (spool) file?

This is not as easy as creating a PCL file. A SPL file is created when a print job spools out what is called EMF files to the printer spooler.

First locate the spool directory, usually "\windows\system32\spool\printers". Under Windows NT, it may instead be "\winnt\system32\spool\printers" or "\winnt\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers". On some versions you can configure Windows to use a different directory for all printers, or for a specific printer.

• Go to the Control Panel
• Click on "Printers" or "Printers and Faxes"
• In the File menu, click on "Server Properties"
• Click on "Advanced"
• Note what is in "Spool folder".

If in the steps below you fail to find a particular spool file, you may want to check the Windows Registry, under one of the following areas:

• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Print\Printers\DefaultSpoolDirectory
• HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print\Printers\specific printer name\SpoolDirectory

• Open the Control Panel's "Printers" or "Printers and Faxes" applet.
• Double-click the icon for the printer in question. Ideally, there will be no print jobs showing.
• From the Printer menu, choose "Pause printing".
• Print the document you want to capture, on the chosen printer, using whatever Windows software is appropriate. You should see the print job show up in the printer window on your screen.
• Look in the spooler directory as identified previously. You should find a file with a ".SPL" extension (hopefully only one). Copy this file to some other location on your computer.
• In the printer's window, cancel the print job.

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Question: I want to start my label printing on a different label.

If you first bring up your print file with Print Wizard engine and the Preview command-line switch set (or do it through the user interface), you can then reselect the starting label.

Refer to the Print Wizard manual for more information.

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Question: How can I print a normal text file in columns or on labels?

Check out our examples and you will find one that shows printing text in columns by adding just a few lines of PWML code. By adding something like this to the top of the file or to print "init" file, you can force the page size to represent columns:

<pwml><pagesize paper=letter orientation=portrait linespacing=12pt><body topmargin=.5in bottommargin=10.5in leftmargin=.5in rightmargin=8in columnoffset=4in><legacy>

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Question: How do I include PWML in my file?

PWML, Print Wizard Markup Language, can be added to the beginning of any file directly in the data stream or by specifying a PWML print "init" file. Print "init" files can be specified in a print profile file as well, or can be referenced on the command-line for the Print Wizard engine to use:

C:\Program files\Printwiz30\printwiz.exe /vinit=myinit.txt myfiletoprint

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Question: How can my application cause 1 print file to print to multiple sources?
It is possible to script all uses of the Print Wizard engine such that the user does not know what is happening.

• From your own application or user script, you could set up Print Wizard to run multiple times against the same file, simply by preserving the file between runs.
• You could set a script up that runs Print Wizard once to format a file to a specific type, such as creating a PCL file, then use Print Wizard to reprint it, fax it, email it, etc.
• From the PWLPD or PWListen program, you could run a script upon receiving the file that would manipulate the file and output it to numerous sources (set up a Custom Program for output).
• From a Print Wizard print profile, you can define a "By Custom" profile that actually ran a script that runs the Print Wizard engine several times instead of once for the file specified.

There are lots of options here. Call if you have a specific need.

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Question: I am getting a printer error.

Printer errors, especially those in the 2000 range, usually indicate that we are sending data to the printer that the printer cannot understand. A good example would be sending PCL codes to a non-PCL printer or sending Okidata escape sequences to an H/P Laserjet, or sending raw data to a Windows-only-printer.

By default, the Print Wizard engine will determine if the file contains printer-specific escape sequences and then try to send the data in either spooler or raw print level. Many Windows-only printers cannot accept raw data and this will cause a printer error.

Likewise, if Print Wizard determines the file has Okidata escape sequences in the data stream, and you try to print it on an H/P Laserjet, the printer driver will generate an error.

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Question: My file prints, but the overlay does not.

Make sure there is not a problem with the overlay printing with the specific type of file. As mentioned elsewhere, if Print Wizard were to see escape sequences, Print Wizard may push the data out in raw or spooler mode, and the overlay file may not work in these cases.

Check with us if you run into problems here. You may need to change the file format on the overlay.

Scripting

• You can run Print Wizard through a shell execute or Exec command. With the "/q" command-line switch to prevent any dialogs from appearing and will return error codes to the hosting application.
• You can run Print Wizard from a file association by specifying a specific extension as being printed with Print Wizard (see the Print Wizard manual on setting it up as a File Association). Then you simply start the file through a shell execute or Exec command.
• You can include Print Wizard in a script that runs from your program, returning an error code if the print job should fail.
• You can run the Print Wizard DLL, calling the various methods exposed to allow Print Wizard to handle all your printing needs.
• You can run the Print Wizard ActiveX module from your program. WePO exposes a subset of the Print Wizard calls, allowing you to use it in your .NET or Windows application.

At present, Print Wizard does not support COM or DDE directly. We are working on this for the future. If you have any need let us know.

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Question: Can I run Print Wizard from a script?

Yes. All of the Print Wizard engine functionality can be run from within a script. With the "/q" command-line switch for quiet-mode, Print Wizard will display no dialogs, but will return error codes. See the Print Wizard manual for a complete list of error codes returned.

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Question: How do I use the Print Wizard DLL?

The Print Wizard DLL is designed to interact with the many features of Print Wizard through program calls. These program calls are made by your own Windows program or script and result in Print Wizard doing all the print work for you. Check out our documentation on Using the Print Wizard DLL.

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General

Print Wizard version 3.0 introduced a new concept of 'print profiles'. Print profiles are settings that will be applied for each subsequent print job that includes that profile as a parameter.

Print profiles include information such as the printer to use, the various printer settings, number of copies to print, whether to print it, fax it, email it, etc. These can all be set up in the user interface by settings things the way you want and then saving your current settings, or by creating a profile from default settings and saving it.

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Question: What is the difference between Personal Edition and Server Edition?

Print Wizard Personal Edition includes the basic of the user interface, the Print Wizard engine and the Print Wizard DLL. It does not support any remote or despool Print Wizard or Windows services.

The Server Edition is designed for those PCs that will be pulling print jobs from remote locations or despooling print jobs from a specific remote or local directory. Print Wizard Server Edition supports the Despool, FTPDespool, Listen and LPD protocols.

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Question: What is Smart Print?

Print Wizard version 3.0 introduced the concept of Smart Print. With "smart print" turned on, virtually any print file that resides on your PC and has a related file association can be printed.

Print Wizard supports several types of files by their file extension, from text files with a .txt to graphics files with a .JPG extension. However some files only print properly through the applications that support them, such as a .DOC file. With "smart print" on, Print Wizard will try to determine, from the file extension, how best to print a file.

If "smart print" is turned off, Print Wizard itself will try to always print the file it is given.

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Question: How do I setup a drop shortcut to print?
There are two methods here.

By default, a shortcut set up to the Print Wizard engine, will force the file to print with the default Print Wizard settings including auto-fit, auto-margins, etc.

For more advanced printing needs, you can go through the Print Wizard user interface and define a "print profile". These "print profiles" decide what to do when processing a job with a profile, including the ability to print with specific options set.When you define the profile, the user interface will ask you if you want to create a desktop shortcut. If you answer yes, you will end up with a desktop icon that you can drag and drop files on.

If you want to manually set up a shortcut, you can do so by including the profile name on the command line, or target line, for the shortcut:

C:\Program Files\Printwiz30\printwiz.exe /profile=myprofile.profile

You can then open up your Windows Explorer or other file applications and drag a file from there and drop it on this shortcut to email as you need.

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Question: What are bang commands?

"bang" commands are commands that can be included in a data stream that will change the behavior of Print Wizard in printing a portion of a file. Bang commands are discussed in detail in the Print Wizard manual.

You can split your data into multiple sections to be processed separate from other sections by including bang commands directly in the data stream. As an example, if I wanted to create a PDF of part of a file, fax another part of a file and email another part of a file, I could do this within one print job with bang commands.

!PDF /fmypdf.pdf
Line 1 of data
Line 2 of data
Line 3 of data
!fax /x5036240760
Line 1 to fax
Line 2 to fax
Line 3 to fax
!email /eabc@def.com
Line 1 to email
Line 2 to email
Line 3 to email