>Sorry, I misundersood what you initially said about not using ??? ever again. This kind of defeats the whole purpose of what we're trying to accomplish.
>
>Our DOS programs have ??? scattered throughout the print programs (turning on and off bolding, underlining, etc.). That works great in the DOS realm.
>
Okay Rodd, so this by itself I didn't know (or didn't read);
What the ??? in Dos does I even don't know (appearently is existed overthere).

The CopyFile-thing earlier today I replied with "Read the ascii-file low-level and line by line Say it to the printer". So this is what we do when a print "needs" to be in an ascii first (never mind why) and at the beginning of that, we again have a ??? to install Raw-mode (haha).
A !Type YourFile >PRN works to, though you will be dependent on the selection of the printer in Dos (before) which is not any (good) solution.
The flicker of a Dos-box however, can be avoided (not on NT (yet)).

Sorry we misunderstood, but in the end the general solution remains the same : all what's done in Dos can easily be done in VFP with the same source for the print-programs. I didn't forget your subject :) Printing ascii-files is one of it.

Kind regards,