Intermec 700 - Manual (Page 222)

Printer Support Chapter — 5
198 700 Series Color Mobile Computer User’s Manual
Printing ASCII
The following methods for printing using Pocket PC at this time is as fol-
lows:
S Add port drivers to print ASCII directly to the port.
S Use LinePrinter ActiveX Control from the Printing Resource Kit via the
Intermec Developer Library (IDL) available as a download from the In-
termec webs site at www.intermec.com. Contact your Intermec repre-
sentative for more information.
S Via wireless printing - see the Wireless Printing Development Guide for
more information.
Directly to a Port
Printing directly to the port sends RAW data to the printer. The format of
this data depends upon your application and the printer capabilities.
You must understand the printer commands available for your specific
printer. Generally, applications just send raw ASCII text to the printer.
Since you are sending data to the printer from your application directly to
the port you are in complete control of the printers operations. This allows
you to do line printing (print one line at a time) rather than the page for-
mat printing offered by the GDI approach. It is also much faster since data
does not have to be converted from one graphics format to the other (dis-
play to printer). Most Intermec
®
printers use Epson Escape Sequences to
control print format operations.
These commands are available in documentation you receive with your
printers or from technical support. Win32 APIs are required to print di-
rectly to the port.
Directly to a Generic Serial Port
To print directly to a generic serial port printer (non-Intermec printers):
S Use CreateFile() to open ports — COM1 can be opened on most de-
vices.
S Use WriteFile() to send data directly to the printer.
S Use CloseHandle() when you are finished printing to close the port.
IrDA Printer Driver
IrDA printing is only available on the certain devices and is supported di-
rectly by the Windows CE load via the IrSock API provided by the Micro-
soft Win32 API without need for additional drivers. Intermec 6804, 6805,
6806, 6808 and 6820 and other IrDA printers are supported.