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I have a software that only prints on a COM port. I have only USB ports available.

I tried this solution How to map a virtual COM port to a physical USB port? but the NET USE COM66: \\name\printer /persistent:yes command gives me system error 67

I shared my printer as suggested in the previous question.

Note: I can't use any sort of adapters. I need a software solution

dirkt
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Daniele
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2 Answers2

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There are no modern printers that do printing over COM port, even most older printers use SPP or EPP parallel (Centronics) ports. The only COM printers I recall were of "terminal" types, with daisy-type heads, or IBM typewriters, 40-some years ago. Maybe some POS thermal receipt printers still use this interface though.

So, if you say it "prints on a COM port", it means likely a very simple ASCII character stream, strings/lines terminated with CR-LF characters. While all USB-based bitmap printers use some high-level language (PCL or PostScript) to control the printer. Even if you map your output to virtual COM/USB port, the resulting data stream will be the ASCII-CR-LF, and no USB printers can understand this.

What you likely can do is to hook-up your COM output somehow virtually to a Windows "terminal" application, and then use the generated bitmap as an image to print (including printers with USB interface). This looks ugly, but the COM-port printing is a blast from deep past.

Ale..chenski
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Maybe try Epson Virtual Com Port. It will create a faux COM port, and it will communicate with a USB port on windows. It will work even with non Epson printers.

You can downloaded for free here

The user interface is not that intuitive at first, but after some 5 minutes you should be set.

I hope you find this useful.

Anibalismo
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