Command Line: Capturing USB Printer

[Priest]

Hey I am runninng Windows XP Professional and I was wondering if it possible to capture the printer through a USB port on Command Line. Like for instance I am trying to print a directory of a disk in my A drive. But I have do it through command line for a class I am taking.

Any help would be appreciated.

[MrLinus]

Google does it again!

http://www.capitalrating.com/support/PrintDOS.htm#Win2K

[skiddieleet]

If you have the printer already hooked up this should work. first go to a directory where you can save a file and type this:
dir A:\directory\you\want\to\print > dir.txt
that saves the output of the dir command to a text file. now do this:
print /D:\\192.168.1.1\printer c:\saved\directory\dir.txt
where the 192.168.1.1 is your current ip and printer is the name of the shared printer. c:\saved\directory is the directory you were in when you did the first command. For a local printer, go to printers and faxes and see what the name of the printer is and you should just be able to do this:
print /D:nameofprinter c:\saved\directory\dir.txt
and it will print. Hope this helps.

edit
I tried it on a local printer and it didn't work, but you should be using a shared printer if you are at school. Maybe I just did it wrong, you should probably give it a try anyway.

[MrLinus]

Actually, h3r3tic, you're on the right track (didn't even think about this). Rather than printing from command line (which I believe you can't do with a USB printer) you redirect the output to a text file (e.g., dir a:\directory > c:\directory.listing.txt) and then using notepad, wordpad or some other text editor, print the file like normal.

[skiddieleet]

If you have to do it all from DOS, try this. Do the dir a:\ > dir.txt to make your text file. And if the printer is shared know the ip of the shared printer and do this.
print /D:\\ip\sharename c:\dir\dir.txt
this I already posted but here is something I wanted to add, if the printer is shared but attached to your computer do this
print /D:\\127.0.0.1\printername c:\dir\dir.txt
and if it is not shared, a lot of the time it will ask you during the install of the printer if you want to associate the printer with the lpt1 port for printing from dos. If this was done you can do this to print from dos:
print /D:lpt1 c:\dir\dir.txt
also try using lpt0, lpt2, lpt3 and just lpt
hope this helped.