Print to file - what is the format?

Expert wrote:
I don't know what you are trying to do but if you want to save a website
then
clearly you will be better off using IE7 and above and then you can SAVE
AS
....Web archive, single file (.mht). This optin is from FILE, SAVE AS
.....)

You can do that in IE6. You don't need IE7 to do that, "expert".

M Skabialka wrote:
The page was a list in a table format. I am unable to select and copy, so
was hoping to output to some other format where I could capture the info.

If your goal is copying the page's text content to another application
there's a "generic text to file" printer available in Windows. Look for
it in the "Add Printer" wizard.

M Skabialka wrote:
If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a print
option, what format will the file be in? I have been unable to find a file
extension that will show me the file contents in a readable format.



FastStone Capture may be what you are looking for??

http://www.faststone.org/FSCapturerDownload.htm

Willard wrote:
M Skabialka wrote:
If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a print
option, what format will the file be in? I have been unable to find
a file extension that will show me the file contents in a readable
format.

Why not just try it? Then you'll get a look at any options along the
way and see for yourself what it creates. It may be one of several, the
most common being prn.




FastStone Capture may be what you are looking for??

http://www.faststone.org/FSCapturerDownload.htm

"Lem" lemp40@unknownhost wrote in message
...
M Skabialka wrote:
If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a print
option, what format will the file be in? I have been unable to find a
file extension that will show me the file contents in a readable format.

"Print to file" is a close-to-useless option. The resulting *.prn file
can only be used to print to the printer that was active at the time you
selected "print to file." This is done by copying the *.prn file to the
printer, generally from a Command Prompt window.

"M Skabialka" wrote in message
...
The page was a list in a table format. I am unable to select and copy, so
was hoping to output to some other format where I could capture the info.


Please explain what you mean by "unable to select and copy". Is there some
kind of Javascript security on the page that disables the select and copy
options? Is "Select All" grayed out on the right-click menu? How about
"Edit" and "Select All" on your browser menu bar? How about hold Ctrl key
and press A to select all, and ctrl+C to copy? Are you viewing an ordinary
html page or a PDF document with Adobe Acrobat Reader WITHIN Internet
Explorer, that is copyright protected with ability to copy disabled?
(Is what you asking us to help you do, uh, LEGAL?

In the Select Printer dialog on my XP-pro SP3, I have a "Microsoft XPS
Document Writer" option, that came pre-installed on the computer. Was that
included with your setup? (See FREE Microsoft download link below.) Instead
of a Print to file, I tried a Print of a web page that has a table part, way
down the page, using the XPS writer (printer driver) selected as the
printer, and a FileSave dialog appeared for a filename, which saved with an
..xps extension. I double-clicked that file and it opened with XPSViewer,
WITHIN Internet Explorer. It was in paged format, with the information
appearing pretty much as the web page, except the table was split, with the
first part of the table at the bottom of the first page, and the rest at the
top of the second page. (Same as if printed on paper.) Back to the web page,
I used my mouse to select some text immediately before the table on the
page, then scrolled down to where I could see the bottom of the table, and
while holding SHIFT key, clicked below the table, to EXTEND the selection.
Then ctrl-P to activate the print dialog, with XPS as printer, and also, in
the "Page Range" box, clicked "Selection" and then print. The FileSave
dialog appeared, and I saved it under a different filename than the first. I
double clicked it, and the whole table appeared on one sheet in the
XPSViewer (within IE), with that little bit of text before and after the
table that I included in the selection. All the text is readable and can be
selected for copying.

I tried selecting the table from the web page, and copy, and opened
Microsoft WordPad, and pasted, and some of the html table formatting was
lost in WordPad's RTF version, but all the information was readable,
selectable, and also editable.

I opened a PDF document (about Unicode) with 3 pages, with a complete table
on page 2, and printed to XPS writer, FileSaveAs, etc. and double-clicked,
and it opened in XPSViewer within IE, and looks pretty much the same as in
Acrobat Reader. The table included hebrew characters which displayed
properly in the XPSViewer too. Everything readable and selectable. Another
PDF with a graphic diagram on one page appeared the same in XPSViewer.

The final test was with a PDF document with Document Security: "Printing:
Fully Allowed", but "Content Copying or Extraction: Not Allowed". Printed
one page to XPS, displayed the same in XPSViewer(in IE), and it was
readable, selectable and printable. However, when SelectAll and Copy, and
Paste into other text readers, such as NotePad, WordPad, and Word2007, it
appeared as unreadable Gobbledygook, as expected. (To prevent extraction,
except printing, the character set in the PDF has been scrambled for use
with special fonts that have the characters associated with different
character code numbers. The XPS file format might further complicate things
by switching to Unicode.) The XPS file itself is basically a ZIP compressed
packet with a number of different files, including .xml files and .odttf
fonts. There were a total of 17 files in the copy protected PDF page I
printed to XPS. See other replies for other printer driver options to
"capture" stuff.

XPS Viewer factoid:
The XPS Viewer is included with .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Vista.
If you don’t have .NET Framework 3.0, you can download the XPS Essentials
Pack, which is a standalone version of the XPS Viewer, by going to the View
and Generate XPS page on the Microsoft website. This version of the viewer
is compatible with Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. You
can view, copy, or print XPS documents in the XPS Essentials Pack, but you
cannot digitally sign or set permissions for a document.

View and Generate XPS
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx
To reveal hidden information on that page, click where you see: "To see the
complete feature list of Microsoft XPS Viewer click here."

FWIW. --Richard

It's legal - it's my own timecard in columns of days, accounts and hours on
the web!
I wanted to select a range of dates copy it into Excel and analyse it.
I can see the data on the screen but when I try to select and copy, nothing
goes into the clipboard.
I tried to save the webpage but only got the header and the menu on the
left - no data.
Edit, Select All highlights nothing. I can select items in the menu to the
left, or the header area of the page. The actual data does not respond to
efforts to select anything.
Right click on the data gives a choice of Print, Settings (Only hardware
acceleration is there), and "about Adobe Flash Player 10"
I tried print to file but it has garbage - probably printer instructions.

I tried using Microsoft XPS Document Writer as you suggested, and opened it
with XPSViewer and Internet Explorer. In both cases it was like a screen
shot, where I can see the data but not capture it because it is a picture.

I'm thinking this has something to do with security and Adobe Flash.
I have given up on my quest - this is too time consuming to pursue. Thanks
for your detailed suggestions.
Mich

"Richard" wrote in message
...
"Lem" lemp40@unknownhost wrote in message
...
M Skabialka wrote:
If I have a web page open in IE and I select Print to file as a print
option, what format will the file be in? I have been unable to find a
file extension that will show me the file contents in a readable
format.

"Print to file" is a close-to-useless option. The resulting *.prn file
can only be used to print to the printer that was active at the time you
selected "print to file." This is done by copying the *.prn file to the
printer, generally from a Command Prompt window.

"M Skabialka" wrote in message
...
The page was a list in a table format. I am unable to select and copy,
so
was hoping to output to some other format where I could capture the info.


Please explain what you mean by "unable to select and copy". Is there some
kind of Javascript security on the page that disables the select and copy
options? Is "Select All" grayed out on the right-click menu? How about
"Edit" and "Select All" on your browser menu bar? How about hold Ctrl key
and press A to select all, and ctrl+C to copy? Are you viewing an ordinary
html page or a PDF document with Adobe Acrobat Reader WITHIN Internet
Explorer, that is copyright protected with ability to copy disabled?
(Is what you asking us to help you do, uh, LEGAL?

In the Select Printer dialog on my XP-pro SP3, I have a "Microsoft XPS
Document Writer" option, that came pre-installed on the computer. Was that
included with your setup? (See FREE Microsoft download link below.)
Instead
of a Print to file, I tried a Print of a web page that has a table part,
way
down the page, using the XPS writer (printer driver) selected as the
printer, and a FileSave dialog appeared for a filename, which saved with
an
.xps extension. I double-clicked that file and it opened with XPSViewer,
WITHIN Internet Explorer. It was in paged format, with the information
appearing pretty much as the web page, except the table was split, with
the
first part of the table at the bottom of the first page, and the rest at
the
top of the second page. (Same as if printed on paper.) Back to the web
page,
I used my mouse to select some text immediately before the table on the
page, then scrolled down to where I could see the bottom of the table, and
while holding SHIFT key, clicked below the table, to EXTEND the selection.
Then ctrl-P to activate the print dialog, with XPS as printer, and also,
in
the "Page Range" box, clicked "Selection" and then print. The FileSave
dialog appeared, and I saved it under a different filename than the first.
I
double clicked it, and the whole table appeared on one sheet in the
XPSViewer (within IE), with that little bit of text before and after the
table that I included in the selection. All the text is readable and can
be
selected for copying.

I tried selecting the table from the web page, and copy, and opened
Microsoft WordPad, and pasted, and some of the html table formatting was
lost in WordPad's RTF version, but all the information was readable,
selectable, and also editable.

I opened a PDF document (about Unicode) with 3 pages, with a complete
table
on page 2, and printed to XPS writer, FileSaveAs, etc. and double-clicked,
and it opened in XPSViewer within IE, and looks pretty much the same as in
Acrobat Reader. The table included hebrew characters which displayed
properly in the XPSViewer too. Everything readable and selectable. Another
PDF with a graphic diagram on one page appeared the same in XPSViewer.

The final test was with a PDF document with Document Security: "Printing:
Fully Allowed", but "Content Copying or Extraction: Not Allowed". Printed
one page to XPS, displayed the same in XPSViewer(in IE), and it was
readable, selectable and printable. However, when SelectAll and Copy, and
Paste into other text readers, such as NotePad, WordPad, and Word2007, it
appeared as unreadable Gobbledygook, as expected. (To prevent extraction,
except printing, the character set in the PDF has been scrambled for use
with special fonts that have the characters associated with different
character code numbers. The XPS file format might further complicate
things
by switching to Unicode.) The XPS file itself is basically a ZIP
compressed
packet with a number of different files, including .xml files and .odttf
fonts. There were a total of 17 files in the copy protected PDF page I
printed to XPS. See other replies for other printer driver options to
"capture" stuff.

XPS Viewer factoid:
The XPS Viewer is included with .NET Framework 3.0 and Windows Vista.
If you don't have .NET Framework 3.0, you can download the XPS Essentials
Pack, which is a standalone version of the XPS Viewer, by going to the
View
and Generate XPS page on the Microsoft website. This version of the viewer
is compatible with Windows Vista, Windows XP, and Windows Server 2003. You
can view, copy, or print XPS documents in the XPS Essentials Pack, but you
cannot digitally sign or set permissions for a document.

View and Generate XPS
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/xps/viewxps.mspx
To reveal hidden information on that page, click where you see: "To see
the
complete feature list of Microsoft XPS Viewer click here."

FWIW. --Richard