Karl,

That's an End-of-file marker that ALTERNATE adds to the file. You can append the file into a temp memo, strip off the EOF and send the memo directly to the printer using ???. You can't send just a memo though you have to make VFP convert it to a character expression like this:

??? temp.mMemo + ""

You could also forget the ALTERNATE entirely and just use ??? to output everything directly to the printer.

>I'm working on a method to get immediate printing to a receipt printer (dot matrix) for point-of-sale app.
>
>I'm using SET ALTERNATE TO filename.txt and then issuing several ?? and ? lines. Then a SET ALTERNATE OFF and a CLOSE ALTERNATE. To print the file, COPY filename.txt TO prn.txt (printer on LPT1 or prn)
>
>I'm getting an error "there is not enough disk space for C:\...\prn.txt." The cause is this character, "  ", at the end of the alternate file. If I erase this character, there is no problem.
>
>Any suggestions on how to prevent this character in the alternate file or any other work around?