Troubleshooting: Text Wrapping Lines from Unix

Problem: Lines of text from your Unix system are wrapping, often cutting off words or breaking data incorrectly.

Solution: There are two possible solutions for this problem. You can simulate a LPD pass through, or you can change the line wrapping parameter on the Unix system’s printer queue.

Simulate a LPD pass through

Some jobs from Unix systems that go through a LPD service are difficult for printer drivers to handle. Simulating a LPD pass through uses printer codes from the Unix system to override Windows driver settings. This procedure might fix problems with printer codes that are included on output or lines that are incorrectly wrapped when you use the Generic Text driver.

1. Start the Windows Registry Editor on the Windows system by entering regedit in the search box from the Start menu.
2. Optional: Make a copy of your registry. Click File > Export > specify a file name > OK.
3. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\LPDSVC\Parameters. These are the parameters for the line printer daemon that watches for incoming files to the virtual printer.
4. Right click Parameters and select New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. (Select this even if you have a 64-bit system.)
5. Name the new parameter SimulatePassThrough.
6. Double click SimulatePassThrough, assign it a value of 1, and click OK.
7. Close the Registry Editor.
8. Go to Services and restart the LPD Service.

Change the wrapping parameter on the Unix printer queue

The w parameter of the piochpq command specifies the maximum number of characters a line can have. Lines that exceed that number are wrapped to the following line. If documents from Unix that are printed to your Windows system have broken lines of text that make capturing data difficult, try increasing your maximum number of characters on each line by entering the following command at a KSH prompt on your Unix system. You might need to have root authority to issue this command.

/usr/lib/lpd/pio/etc/piochpq -q ‘QUEUENAME‘ -d ‘DEVICENAME‘ -w ‘N‘

• QUEUENAME is the name of the print queue.
• DEVICENAME is the name of the remote printer.
• N is the maximum number of characters in a line. Lines that exceed this number are wrapped.