This is a rather 'How different is Windows from DOS' type of question.
- On DOS you always should handle any printer 'out of order' situation. If you didn't an application would halt until the situation is taken care of.
- On Windows, printers are fed by a 'spooler' system, Windows catches any app's output, puts it in a queue, and stuffs it into the printer, if an when it's ready for it.
No _need_ for an app to check if the printer is ready.
OTOH, if you need to be sure that some information is actualy printed and has come out of that printer, before the app can continue, as is most usual the case when this question pops up, then you need to get access to the printer info in some way. Time to get your hands dirty on Windows compatible (32 bit) programmin'!
The easies way to be able to get this info is to recompile your code with (x)Harbour, available from either
(slow developing but stable),
(commercial supoorted version of the .org with added options and tools) or
(open source). (x)Harbour is a Clipper 5.2/5.3 compatible compiler that's available for several platforms, like Windows, Unix, Linux, Mac OS-X and OS/2.
Go to any of the before mentioned websites and get the info/stuff you need. xharbour.com is the easiest to get started, xharbour.org is the cheapest way to get things rolling, and is also very well supported with a very active community on the news server nntp://news.xharbour.org
HTH
TonHu