LPD

PCL Page is a Win32 extension of the University of Valencia student Agustin Lopez Bueno's Win16 LPD Server program. This extension added support for Windows 95 printing by rendering Hewlett Packard printer command language (PCL) input onto a printer graphics device interface (GDI) context, permitting LPD clients to print to any arbitrary destination printer that has a Win32 driver. I wrote this extension to effectively save the Grapevine-Colleyville Independent School District (GCISD) thousands of dollars in their Windows 95 upgrade as this program eliminated the need to license WallData Rumba for AS/400 printer support. IBM's Client Access/400 for Windows 95 provided terminal access, but not local printer access. The GCISD widely deployed PCL Page in its administrative offices for AS/400-to-PC printing.

The PCL interpreter, which understands the PCL This program can also be used for UNIX-to-PC printing just as easily as it is used for AS/400-to-PC printing. With the LPD Interpreter (compatible with the HP DeskJet 500), font variations such as bold, italics, and underline contained within reports and the like are retained and printed to any printer that has a Windows 95 printer driver. Other options such as Characters Per Inch and Lines Per Inch allow users to adjust font sizes with ease:

With logging, you can keep track of the print jobs in order to quickly diagnose any problems that might arise with LPD printing. At the user's option, word wrapping may be enabled or disabled so that if a line of text exceeds the page width in the current number of characters per inch, the line can continue in the next line. With this system, you can have up to 20 printer queues that are referenced by the LPD client's destination queue. This way, you can customize font and print settings for different programs on your host without having to manually switch between settings on the client for different print jobs. Alternatively, you can have one LPD Printer System process printer data for up to 20 different printers that are either physically attached to the server's ports or on other Win95/NT computers across the network. The possibilities are limitless!

If you have just upgraded to IBM's Client Access/400 for Win95 only to discover that PC Printer Sessions are no longer available, then this program is for you! This was exactly what happened to GCISD and was why this product was created. GCISD's only option before this program was to purchase the $100 WallData RUMBA Win95 product for each computer with a printer in its network, amounting to thousands of taxpayers' dollars. With the LPD Printer System for Win95, GCISD no longer needed to buy RUMBA upgrades in most cases and could continue the deployment of Win95 more quickly than before. If you have this situation and want more information on how to configure an AS/400 to use LPD, just e-mail me for more information :-).

Note: Because some of the components of this program were created while I was employed at the Grapevine-Colleyville ISD, obtaining this program will require their permission. One component is under my control, so you will need my permission too. To make this less complicated, I can obtain the permission from GCISD for you if you ask. Thank you :-)!