Question

I have one an application that generates “.pcl” files. Once generated they are saved on a folder on my Windows 7.

How do I send these files to the printer (either network printer or USB connected printer) for printing?

Answer 1

To send a PCL file to an HP printer when the version of the PCL in the file matches the capabilities of the printer you need to send the file as raw data.

RAWPRN

In earlier versions of Windows you could use Microsoft RAWPRN.EXE utility to send PostScript or PCL directly to a printer capable of interpreting it.

This utility is described in Microsoft KB138594 article.

LPR

Apparently Windows also provides a simple LPR utility.

LPR -P LaserPrinter1 "-o l" cad_drawing.pcl

Here LaserPrinter1 is the name of the printer, “-o l” indicates raw data stream and cad_drawing.pcl is the name of the PCL file.

This utility is described in the Windows Server command line reference.