How to set up generic printer to greate .txt file

[Howie]

I am trying to set up a generic printer file to create a .txt file in a folder or my desktop. I was able to do this in XP and now in windows 7 it does not work. I can create a generic printer and port but it does not seem to work. I need the generic printer to create in txt format that I can upload to third party service provider. Any ideas on how to set this up in windows 7 pro?

Howie

 

[Trouble]

Hello Howie and welcome to the forum.
Doesn't look or sound too good. Seems that feature (haven't attempted to use it myself since XP) has been deprecated and it seems most are either using the XPS Document writer or else one of the many PDF converters (virtual printers) to accomplish something similar, like CutePDF.
Print to file
I suppose if it's an absolute must have and you can't convince whoever you are uploading the doc to, to use either of the other two formats you could probably use something like XP mode Download Windows XP Mode to get it done, just seems like a lot of trouble to go through. Unfortunately, I'm on Windows 8 now and unequipped to try getting it to work, but if it's any consolation, it doesn't seem to want to work on Windows 8 either.
Regards
Randy

 

[Howie]

Hello Howie and welcome to the forum.
Doesn't look or sound too good. Seems that feature (haven't attempted to use it myself since XP) has been deprecated and it seems most are either using the XPS Document writer or else one of the many PDF converters (virtual printers) to accomplish something similar, like CutePDF.
Print to file
I suppose if it's an absolute must have and you can't convince whoever you are uploading the doc to, to use either of the other two formats you could probably use something like XP mode Download Windows XP Mode to get it done, just seems like a lot of trouble to go through. Unfortunately, I'm on Windows 8 now and unequipped to try getting it to work, but if it's any consolation, it doesn't seem to want to work on Windows 8 either.
Regards
Randy

Randy,
Thanks for the welcome and the information( although I am not that happy my moving up to 7 screwed me up). I am not sure the company accepts .pdf or any other formats. I will have to contact them again next week. I am using windows 7 professional and I know it has the ability to open programs in earlier windows OS's. But, I do not think I could set it up to return to XP as an operating system. Or, at this point if that would fix my problem. But what do I know!!

Howie

 

[Trouble]

Howie:
Sorry, my suggestion may have lost something in the translation. The link I provided for XP Mode above (free from Microsoft) is a method of running Windows XP (Service Pack 3 included) in a guest / virtual machine within Windows 7. I was just thinking that if the situation warranted some desperate measures you might want to consider it as an alternative remedy that's all. Again sorry if I wasn't too clear.
Best of Luck
Randy

 

[whs]

Here is a suggestion that may not be the most elegant, but it works.

Press CTL+P and select the XPS writer as output printer. Then you can copy the text from the xps document into a Wordpad to get a .txt file.

 

[Howie]

Randy,

No, I got what you meant and I did download the XP mode. I did not install it yet. Maybe I was not clear in my response to you. I played around with the generic printer settings and I was able to successfully print a document to a file with the generic printer. It did not have the correct file name so I had to copy it and then rename it . I sent it up the site and it was accepted. I have to figure out a more efficient way to do this, but at least I am back in business. Thanks.

Howie