There are a couple of commercial packages available, but they charge royalties. I chose to avoid this, and wrote my own.
First of all, you will need to write your own IrLPT (infrared for printers) and Bluetooth drivers. Bluetooth is easy, but IrLPT is a pain. IrComm (serial over infrared) is also easy, but not many printers support it. Next, you will have to decide on formatting. Plain text is easy, and supported by most printers. Unless you are targeting a particular printer, you might want to eschew escape sequences altogether, and just rely on TAB, LF, CR and FF characters. Another possibility is PCL. That is definitely doable, but a lot more work than plain text. The format is a lot nicer too, but you are restricted to using HP printers. One advantage of plain text is that you can use the document for other things. For instance, you could email it to someone, or save it to an SD card, and transfer it to a desktop system. The two main types of portable printer are inkjet and thermal. The range of inkjet printers has decreased in recent years, but a number of affordable thermal printers have emerged. Inkjet printers usually use A4 or US Letter size cut sheets, while thermal printers tend to use much narrower rolls of paper. -- For information on using the ACCESS Developer Forums, or to unsubscribe, please see http://www.access-company.com/developers/forums/
