How to use Setprinter.exe

I always struggle to remember how to use setprinter.exe. So here are my tips

Set printer has 9 levels that you can query (get) about the printer. See http://britv8.com/what-are-the-setprinter-exe-levels/ for the level info.

Every query will likely be different for each printer driver make and model. So the first thing I would do is query what you have to manipulate in those levels.

An example of querying the Printer Preferences for the current user:

setprinter  -show printername 2

This particular command will show you all the level 2 settings. You will get back  something like this:

          pServerName=NULL
         pPrinterName="printername"
           pShareName=""
            pPortName="LABZBR01"
          pDriverName="ZDesigner TLP 2824 Plus (EPL)"
             pComment=""
            pLocation=""
             pDevMode=...
             dmDeviceName="printername"
            dmSpecVersion=0x0401
          dmDriverVersion=0x0400
                   dmSize=220
            dmDriverExtra=1497
                 dmFields="orientation paperlength paperwidth copies defaultsource printquality color yresolution ttoption bitsperpel"
            dmOrientation=1
            dmPaperLength=210
             dmPaperWidth=510
                 dmCopies=1
          dmDefaultSource=4
           dmPrintQuality=203
                  dmColor=1
            dmYResolution=203
               dmTTOption=1
             dmBitsPerPel=1
                      ...<end of devmode>
             pSepFile=""
      pPrintProcessor="winprint"
            pDatatype="RAW"
          pParameters=""
  pSecurityDescriptor=""
           Attributes="local docompletefirst bidi"
             Priority=1
      DefaultPriority=0
            StartTime=0
            UntilTime=0
               Status=""
                cJobs=0
           AveragePPM=0

To set the Comment on the printer you would run:

setprinter.exe   printername 2 "pcomment=Test comment"

To clear the comment:

setprinter.exe   printername 2 "pcomment=NULL"

Now the ones between the lines
pDevMode=…
and
…<end of devmode>

are a bit special

So if I want to set them, I have to do it slightly differently. In this example I am setting the paper width to 6cm and the height to 4cm for the user

setprinter.exe  printername 2 "pdevmode=dmPaperLength=400,dmPaperWidth=600"

The example above is a classic example of  what you see in the GUI is not quite what is shown in setprinter. I mean how can 600 mean 6cm!!!

All I can guess is that in the GUI, there are two decimal places when you define these settings, so 6.00 is stored as 600…..