InterPrint unsnarls email conflicts

Zenographics will demonstrate at Comdex next week a beta of its InterPrint software, which allows Internet or intranet users to send email directly to a printer, a convenience previously unknown to users whose email clients have incompatible encoding or who don't have the necessary software to open file attachments.

Using the InterPrint "send" client written in Java, senders can attach a PostScript, GIF, or JPEG file to an email message, put "InterPrint" in the subject field, and send it to the printer's IP address. The InterPrint "receive" software, which installs on either a Windows PC or a LAN-based print server then interprets the attachment and prints it on the specified printer or printers.

Instead of the free Java "send" client, a sender can opt to use a regular email client. But this way a user has to manually insert the print specification commands into the body of the message. Windows users with the Java client installed can also send directly from Windows applications by the File/Print command.

The final version of InterPrint is due by the end of the year. InterPrint receiver software will retail for $39 for the home version, which installs only on a PC and works with one printer at a time. The corporate version, which installs on a print server running Windows 95 or NT, can relay an incoming email to all printers on a network and will sell for $399 until the end of the first quarter of 1997.