How to View/Print ".prn" Files?

[SidBord]

I just started playing around with the Print commands in Visual Basic.
When I did a successful "Print to File" it created a file with an extension ".prn". How can I view/print this file? I can't seem to find a program that will open it.

 

[gaynard_nelson]

I just started playing around with the Print commands in Visual Basic.
When I did a successful "Print to File" it created a file with an extension ".prn". How can I view/print this file? I can't seem to find a program that will open it.

prn is a text file and can be opened by Excel by changing the file open window to look at "Files of Type" Text files.....

You should also be able to print by opening Windows Exlporer and doing a right mouse click (menu key) on the prn filename and clicking Print on the resulting menu.

 

[SidBord]

Thanx for the info. After I had made the post, it occurred to me that maybe I could use a print option on the dropdown list. But I didn't know about the text characteristic. I tried opening it with Note Pad and while it DID open it, it was virtually unreadable because of all the control stuff present.

 

[Yogi Anand]

Hi SidBord:

In my experience, the Print To File command generates a binary file, and is to be used when you want to print the file to a specific printer later (because the specific printer may not be available at that time or location, or for whatever other reason).

Then when you finally do want to print the file to that specific printer, you copy the file as a binary file to the printer as in the following command line when the file is being copied to the printer attached to LPT1 ...

copy filename /b LPT1

If I have misunderstood the question, my apologies!