I'm looking for a solution to a specific problem, and I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction.
My situation: I am running a dos-based point of sale system. There is info which is captured at the time of sale and sent to my parallel printer, which is then lost ... seemingly forever. I would like to find a way to have either the program or dos or the printer send the info to excel. I don't care if it sits in a .csv file or something and has to be manually manipated in order to get excel to figure it out.
Is there a way to capture the data on the way to the printer, and shoot a copy to excel? Or send it from the printer to excel? Or, yikes, send it to a scanner to create a .pdf and then to a reader to read it back to something excel can deal with?
I could likely get permission to write a file or report in the dos program. But the owners will not write it for me and they don't think I will find anyone who can.
Ugh. It's very old school ... but surely there's a way?
My situation: I am running a dos-based point of sale system. There is info which is captured at the time of sale and sent to my parallel printer, which is then lost ... seemingly forever. I would like to find a way to have either the program or dos or the printer send the info to excel. I don't care if it sits in a .csv file or something and has to be manually manipated in order to get excel to figure it out.
Is there a way to capture the data on the way to the printer, and shoot a copy to excel? Or send it from the printer to excel? Or, yikes, send it to a scanner to create a .pdf and then to a reader to read it back to something excel can deal with?
I could likely get permission to write a file or report in the dos program. But the owners will not write it for me and they don't think I will find anyone who can.
Ugh. It's very old school ... but surely there's a way?