rt-clk PRINT DIRECTORY LISTING doesn't give me options I want

highmeadowhiker · Aug 9, 2012

Back in DOS days, I would redirect DIR>LPT1, etc., as often as wished. But we could not do anthing about size of font, etc.
The right-click PRINT DIRECTORY LISTING that I now have added to my Windows Explorer simply prints directly to my default printer without my having any formatting control. It looks like, and is, the same I would get by the old DOS command line. But the font is much too large, giving me only 37 lines per page (pages 2 et sec., fewer on page 1). Also, I am not given the chance to specify duplex printing, or choose my printer. If I could print to PDF, using any of several utilities I have, I could do some kind of image manipulation to shrink the images, but is not what I want, because it would add otherwise unneeded steps. I could perhaps set my default printer to one of my PDF writers, print to a file, then use one of my OCR utilities to convert to TXT, and then manipulate the text on one of my word processors, etc.

Maybe there are better "print directory listing" options out there. Tell me about them, please.

Ztruker · Aug 9, 2012

I don't know where I got this from:

You can setup a QUASI GUI method as follows.

Create a batch file with the following content:

dir /a /-p /o:gen >"%homepath%\desktop\filelisting.txt"
notepad "%homepath%\desktop\filelisting.txt"
del "%homepath%\desktop\filelisting.txt"

Open Windows Explorer, click Tools, then click Folder Options.
Click the File Types tab, and then click on (None) Folder.
Click the Advanced button and then click New to open the New Action window.

In the Action box, type Create File List.
Browse to the location where the .bat file you created is located, select it and it will be the Application Used to Perform Action.
Click OK as needed to finish.

Now open Windows Explorer. Right click on a folder you want the contents of and select Create File List.

Poof, the list appears in Notepad. You can edit it or print it or whatever, but if you want to keep it you need to save it under a different name as the batch file deletes it when you close Notepad.

Since it opens the output in Notepad you can change font sizes, save it and open with another editor or word processor and do whatever you want with it.

highmeadowhiker · Aug 10, 2012

I have Win7 Pro 64 sp1
When I go Folder Options, I see the window that is attached. I must be ignorant of how to select File Types.

I am stuck until I can move on with the batch file you cited.

highmeadowhiker · Aug 10, 2012

As it happens, I have just Googled on "File Types" and it seems that this functionality disappeared since XP; not present in Vista or Win7.

Where do we go from here?

GEWB · Aug 10, 2012

I have used Karen's Directory Printer for years:

Karen's Directory Printer

Regards,
GEWB

highmeadowhiker · Aug 10, 2012

Karen's lister

I tried it. I found that the last line of my listings on each page ran off the bottom edge, and info on the right the same. For my printer, I guess that I need more margin control for the lister, or I just don't know how to use it properly.

Ztruker · Aug 10, 2012

My bad, those instructions were written for XP/ On Windows 7 I did this using a program called ContextEdit from PC Magazine. You just scroll down to Folder and add a new right click entry as I described above or manually add it to the registry as follows:

Open regedit and navigate to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell.
Right click on shell and create a new Key called genfilelist
Under that create a new Key called command
Select command then double click on the Default entry in the right pane to edit it. In the Value data field add the following, replacing it with the path to the batch file you created:

d:\tools\GenFileList.bat %1

Note: Corrected the link to point to the free version 1.2 at Softpedia.com (thanks derekimo).

highmeadowhiker · Aug 11, 2012

$8 is not too much to pay for a good utility. However, the PC Mag screen shows compatibility with legacy OSs, even pre XP. Certainly not Win7. And, it seems to be dated back to Jan/Feb 2001. Are we certain that it is compatible with Win7?

I have never done a regedit directly. If you know for sure that ContextEdit works OK with Win7, could you post baby step instructions starting with the downloading of ContextEdit from the PC Mag site?

derekimo · Aug 11, 2012

Not sure why you need to pay for free software,

Download ContextEdit 1.2 Free - Lets you control which items appear on your context menu - Softpedia

Ztruker · Aug 11, 2012

Yes, the PCMag ContextEdit works on Windows 7. I've used it as I mentioned.

Ztruker · Aug 12, 2012

Create a CreateFileList.reg file from the data in red below.

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\genfilelist]
@="Create File List"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Folder\shell\genfilelist\command]
@="d:\\tools\\GenFileList.bat %1"

Change d:\\tools\\GenFileList.bat to whatever path you put the batch file in, then double click the .reg file to merge it into the registry, then when you right click on a Folder, Create File List will be one of the choices.

rt-clk PRINT DIRECTORY LISTING doesn't give me options I want

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