Sending a Fax via Lazarus/Windows .exe to Ricoh MP305

[MarkMLl]

All good suggestions.  I did a search for the two DLL files mentioned by rvk.  They don't exist on my server.  This is more involved than I want to get into at the moment, so I may have to succumb to using an online faxing service like eFax's API.  Thank you for the generous help everyone.

Before you drop it, and in an attempt to "know your enemy": the fact that status info comes back via FTP suggests that they have used a commodity OS- probably Linux or possibly something like QNX- to run the printer. I suggest getting a copy of Nmap and telling it to scan all ports and apply OS and service recognition: that might point you at an "off the shelf" faxing daemon that is actually well-understood, or might suggest hacking potential for the future.

In the latter case, you might need to do something like finding an internal debugging port which (if you're lucky) will give you root access, at which point it would again be a "relatively simple" job of working out what's being run.

MarkMLl

[jamie]

If you want to do some work, this is for windows.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/_fax/

All the headers are there to implement.

Jamie

[rvk]

If you want to do some work, this is for windows.

Like I already stated multiple times here. If you just want to do MS FAX then it's easy to get a hDC for the printer which you can use to print to.

This is some legacy code of mine from a long time ago. A tool which I could call from a DOS program with a file which contained PCL6 codes and in which I interpreted that to print it to a Windows printer. I could print to USB Windows printer and even create PDFs for E-mail from my DOS application. (RecipMail is the faxnumber in snippet below) Most important part is the FaxStartPrintJobA (from winfax.dll which is part of Windows) to get the hDC with which you can do StartDoc, EndDoc, GetDeviceCaps and textout etc...

_{(The problem is that the Ricoh is a network printer and uses proprietary software and can't be used like this by Windows.)}

Code: Pascal  [Select][+][-]

1. //......
2. procedure WinPrintFile(const sPrinter, sFileName: string; DoeExport: boolean);
3. type
4.   _FAX_PRINT_INFOA = record
5.     SizeOfStruct: DWORD; // Size of this structure
6.     DocName: LPCSTR; // Document name that appears in the spooler
7.     RecipientName: LPCSTR; // Recipient name
8.     RecipientNumber: LPCSTR; // Recipient fax number (non-canonical number)
9.     SenderName: LPCSTR; // Sender name
10.     SenderCompany: LPCSTR; // Sender company (optional)
11.     SenderDept: LPCSTR; // Sender department
12.     SenderBillingCode: LPCSTR; // Billing code
13.     Reserved: LPCSTR; // Reserved; must be NULL
14.     DrEmailAddress: LPCSTR; // E.Mail address for delivery report
15.     OutputFileName: LPCSTR; // for print to file, resulting file name
16.   end;
17.  
18.   _FAX_CONTEXT_INFOA = record
19.     SizeOfStruct: DWORD; // Size of this structure
20.     hDC: HDC; // Device Context
21.     ServerName: array[0..MAX_COMPUTERNAME_LENGTH] of CHAR; // Server name
22.   end;
23.   PFAX_CONTEXT_INFOA = ^_FAX_CONTEXT_INFOA;
24.  
25. var
26.   pDc: hDc;
27.   DocInfo: TDocInfo;
28.   printInfo: _FAX_PRINT_INFOA;
29.   contextInfo: _FAX_CONTEXT_INFOA;
30.   JobId: DWORD;
31.   winfax, Z: Variant;
32.   msfax: THandle;
33.   qS, Exportfile: string;
34.   i: integer;
35.  
36.   FaxStartPrintJob: function(PrinterName: LPCSTR; const PrintInfo: _FAX_PRINT_INFOA; var FaxJobId: DWORD; FaxContextInfo: PFAX_CONTEXT_INFOA): BOOL; stdcall;
37.  
38. begin
39.   DevSize := 0;
40.   msfax := Unassigned;
41.   winfax := Unassigned;
42.  
43.   if (uppercase(sPrinter) = 'FAX') then
44.   begin
45.  
46.     // open MSFAX with a canvas to print on
47.  
48.     RecipMail := '';
49.     for i := 1 to Length(RecipName) do
50.       if RecipName[i] in ['0'..'9'] then RecipMail := RecipMail + RecipName[i];
51.  
52.     fillchar(printinfo, sizeof(printinfo), #0);
53.     fillchar(contextInfo, sizeof(contextInfo), #0);
54.     contextInfo.SizeOfStruct := (sizeof(_FAX_CONTEXT_INFOA));
55.     printInfo.SizeOfStruct := (sizeof(_FAX_PRINT_INFOA));
56.     printInfo.DocName := pchar(Subject);
57.     printInfo.RecipientName := pchar(Company);
58.     printInfo.RecipientNumber := pchar(RecipMail);
59.     msfax := LoadLibrary('winfax.dll');
60.     if msfax = 0 then
61.     begin
62.       error('winfax.dll niet geladen', '');
63.       exit;
64.     end;
65.     @FaxStartPrintJob := GetProcAddress(msfax, 'FaxStartPrintJobA');
66.     if not FaxStartPrintJob(pChar(sPrinter), printInfo, JobId, @contextInfo) then
67.     begin
68.       exit;
69.     end;
70.     pDc := contextInfo.hDC;
71.  
72.   end
73.   else if (uppercase(sPrinter) = 'WINFAX') then
74.   begin
75.  
76.     // open WINFAX with a canvas to print on
77. ......
78.  

[jamie]

You mean this header

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/api/winfax/

It seems I've seen this unit somwhere in my past

Jamie

[rvk]

It seems I've seen this unit somwhere in my past

Yeah, those are in the jwawinfax.pas from the jedi units.
They are in fpc/packages/winunits-jedi/src

As I said... I used it in Delphi years and years back to get a minimalistic .exe for calling from a DOS program.
So I only used those 2 records structures and defined and retrieved the FaxStartPrintJobA from winfax.dll myself.

[jamie]

https://github.com/magicmonty/delphi-code-coverage/blob/master/3rdParty/JWAPI/jwapi2.2a/Win32API/JwaWinFax.pas

Seems to be vary heavy to use.

Jamie

[rvk]

https://github.com/magicmonty/delphi-code-coverage/blob/master/3rdParty/JWAPI/jwapi2.2a/Win32API/JwaWinFax.pas

Seems to be vary heavy to use.

You can just take the one from the FPC repository (see my prev post). It's there too. And that one is FPC ready.

I didn't want to reel in all the types because I needed a very small program and just needed the hDC so I could use the normal print commands from Windows. So my snippet is all you need to get the hDC of the Windows Fax printer.

BTW. FPC would only compile the bits from that unit it needs so it might not even be that heavy.