Updated HP Mobile Printing Software

[Brad Adrian]

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...SeriesId=242184

I was fairly impressed with how well HP's free Mobile Printing applications worked when I recently needed them. Within a few moments of installing the software, I was able to print Pocket Word documents via my 2215's infrared port.



HP has now updated the software for both 2002 and 2003 devices. The new v2.0 includes some very nice enhancements:

• Job queueing capability
• Native Pocket Excel (.pxl) printing support
• Microsoft Excel (.xls) printing support within HPMP for PPC
• Microsoft Server ActiveSync support
• Ability to change amount of information logged through logging levels
• New Job Status user interface
• New printer configuration and selection user interface
• Improvements to the document rendering capabilities
• Embedded on-line survey to capture customer's input more effectively
• Automatic detection of Westtek ClearVue version compatibility

In addition to providing the software, HP has some very useful documents to help you install and use the software (even though it's pretty intuitive). If there's even the remote chance that you might have to print from your Pocket PC, you owe it to yourself to download this software.

[Brad Adrian]

http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsuppor...SeriesId=242184

I was fairly impressed with how well HP's free Mobile Printing applications worked when I recently needed them. Within a few moments of installing the software, I was able to print Pocket Word documents via my 2215's infrared port.



HP has now updated the software for both 2002 and 2003 devices. The new v2.0 includes some very nice enhancements:

• Job queueing capability
• Native Pocket Excel (.pxl) printing support
• Microsoft Excel (.xls) printing support within HPMP for PPC
• Microsoft Server ActiveSync support
• Ability to change amount of information logged through logging levels
• New Job Status user interface
• New printer configuration and selection user interface
• Improvements to the document rendering capabilities
• Embedded on-line survey to capture customer's input more effectively
• Automatic detection of Westtek ClearVue version compatibility

In addition to providing the software, HP has some very useful documents to help you install and use the software (even though it's pretty intuitive). If there's even the remote chance that you might have to print from your Pocket PC, you owe it to yourself to download this software.

[scmidlap]

Does this software only apply to Ipaqs or to all PPCs? :roll:

[atsouch]

It runs on all Pocket PCs. There are two versions, one for Pocket PC 2002 and one for 2003. I've used it and it's excellent.

[Paragon]

Originally Posted by Brad Adrian

• Native Pocket Excel (.pxl) printing support
• Microsoft Excel (.xls) printing support within HPMP for PPC

Am I the only one who reads this a saying you can print Pocket Excel from within the app.......or are they calling Pocket Excel "native" to Pocket PC opposed to .xls files? It appears to be the latter, and I'm reading it wrong?!

Dave

[DaleReeck]

Originally Posted by atsouch

It runs on all Pocket PCs. There are two versions, one for Pocket PC 2002 and one for 2003. I've used it and it's excellent.

Actually, it appears there is only one file for both versions. They probably separate it into 2002 and 2003 versions to count usage.

[Dave Beauvais]

The previous version did actually have two versions. v1.0.0.8 for PPC2002 and v1.1.1.8 for WM2003. It seems they have one version now which runs on both.

I tried printing from RepliGo -- which has support built-in for HP Mobile Printing but my h5455 locked up requiring a soft reset. (Bummer.)

--Dave

[OSUKid7]

From the HP website

Print Quality...

Due to shared memory resources and other constraints of the Pocket PC operating system, print quality may not be as good as printing from a desktop PC. In general, the document printing process is intended to give the end user WSYWIG (what you see is what you get) functionality from the viewer. However, fonts substitutions may occur, resolution may be reduced, PowerPoint slides will print "2-up" and complex graphics may not print correctly.

WSYWIG??? lol...nice

(http://www.hp.com/cgi-bin/...&os=Pocket%20PC%202002)

[Gerard]

Does anyone have a clue about the WestTek CAB files unpacked along with the 3 HP files? They come to about 3MB, and I can't figure if they're freebies or trial versions, or which one does what. Guess I should just do a fresh backup when I have some time and install them one at a time, check them out, but I'm feeling lazy. Since the ClearVue stuff is normally rather high priced I'm guessing they're trial version...

I tend to use CabInstl to direct CAB files to SD memory, that's why the question. I didn't follow through with the whole PC installation, grabbing out the CAB files instead. And whoa, it's quite a big package overall!

[christak]

The Westek files are apparently free updates, at least for the units, like the HP2210, that come with the Westek on CD... I assume that for other machines you'd need the registration code.

I have loaded the new print software and Westek viewers on my 2210 -- they work quite well. I also have the Westek registration code for my old 3950, but have not tried to update that machine yet (I have to get it away from my wife for 15 minutes...) I'll let you know if I have more info after that installation.

8)

[Gerard]

Um, never mind. I just wasted an hour messing with this on my 3835, and eventually determined that no matter what registry edits I used, no matter where I moved all the many files dumped into \Windows, this package is too stubborn to be installed anywhere but main memory. That's bogus, considering the massive scale of the install. It'd be like putting Adobe's Reader there!

So I cleaned it all out, started over with a default installation. After getting past a couple of errors I managed to get it to work, and tried it on a small JPG file; a bug I snapped with the HP CF camera this week, on my window. The shot shows a dark version, with two small rectangles of white on the darkest parts of the bug - that's the HP Mobile Printing rendition. The lighter one is very close to the original shot - that's from FieldSoftware's PocketPixPrint. Seems HP still has a way to go before this clunker can match what an install less than 1/5th the size (including FieldSoftware's PrintPocketCE, and the main printer driver they share) can print.



The HP software also slowed the system to a crawl in general, about 50% of normal speed for my 3835. Maybe they've optimised this for 2003 devices, but that has killed it for 2002? I've no way of knowing. I do know it's now uninstalled. Oh, and on that subject... the Add/Remove thing couldn't get rid of quite all the files. Even S_K's Remover couldn't. Had to manually delete a few in \Windows, including a Help file. There was a chunk of the registry key left behind too, also now deleted.