Print drivers for printing rtf files

This may not be a good question for the VB discussion group, but this is the group to which I belong, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm doing some research for my boss on the subject of print drivers for printing rtf files. For the purpose of saving space, we've converted a slew of MS word files to rtf files. We then stripped out all of the unnecessary header code that didn't aplly to our specific documents (style sheets, color tables, etc.) We now need to print these documents just as they'd appear if opened in MS Word without actually opening them in that program. If one right-clicks on an rtf and selects print, it automatically opens the document in MS Word and prints it. That's no good - MS Word will not be an option in the project we're working on. If you open the rtf in MS Notepad and select print, the actual print-out is nothing more than the code itself. We need to see the finished docuement, with full formatting, and it needs to be printed out without the use of MS Word. Are the print drivers to help with that? As usual, I thank you in advance...

- Matt -

Instead of saving them as rtf and attempting to print them without word, save each document as a print file. The print file then can be copied to the printer and output your document. This will work if all your printers understand the same coded print file.
I've done something similar in the past with an HP printer deployment.

So try this:
- open yourdoc.rtf, select print. In the print dialog check print to file and save it as yourdoc.prn. This file for eample with HP printers is coded in PCL rather than word or rtf format. The key is it is ready to be sent directly to the hp printer and no longer needs to be converted by a program ala word.

- go to dos prompt and "copy yourdoc.prn prn" this should print your document on your printer

so if you have a directory of print files you can at anytime print them without requireing another application to process them since they're pre-processed.