View PRN files in your browser
What Windows writes when you print to a file: the job your printer would have gotten. Open a PRN right here, its pages drawn as they'd print. Nothing leaves your device.
Or drop it anywhere on this page
What you'll see
Your print job is drawn page by page inside your browser, as the printer would print it, then opens fitted to your window, with its pages beside it.
- Every page as it prints • Text, rules, pictures and plots
- Page thumbnails • Type a page to go to it
- Show details • The job's name, sender, paper and fonts
- Export • Save as PDF, PNG or JPEG
About PRN
A PRN is a print job saved to a file instead of sent to a printer. Windows writes one when Print to file is ticked in the Print dialog, or a printer's port is FILE:, and it holds just what the printer's driver made: HP's PCL or PCL XL for most office lasers, or PostScript, often wrapped in PJL lines that name the job and who sent it.
That makes a PRN handy for printing later or on another computer with the same kind of printer, but no app on a computer opens it as a document. A printer that speaks its language prints it as it is, and one that doesn't prints pages of stray characters.
Filepeek reads the job in your browser, PCL and PCL XL with interpreters of its own and PostScript with stet, and draws each page as the printer would, with its text, rules, pictures and fonts. Show details gives the job's name, who sent it, the paper and the fonts, and Export saves it as a PDF, or its pages as PNG or JPEG.
Print to file job
.prn
Format
- MIME type
- application/octet-stream
- Made by
- Windows' Print to file
Inside the file
- Job
- PJL naming the job, its sender and its paper
- Pages
- In PCL, PCL XL or PostScript
- Fonts
- The printer's own, or downloaded with the job
- Pictures
- Raster rows, often compressed
Opens in every browser
Filepeek opens PRN files in Chrome, Edge, Firefox and Safari, with nothing to install. On their own, browsers download them, and Windows, macOS, iOS and Android have no app that shows one.
- YouChromeOpens through Filepeek
- YouEdgeOpens through Filepeek
- YouFirefoxOpens through Filepeek
- YouSafariOpens through Filepeek
Apps that open PRN
- WindowsNo app built in opens it • Copy it to a printer that speaks its language
- MacNo app built in opens it
- iPhone and iPadNo app built in opens it
- AndroidNo app built in opens it
Questions
How do I print a PRN file?
Send it as it is to a printer that speaks its language, with copy /b on Windows or lpr -o raw on a Mac. Or open it here, choose Export, then Save as PDF, and print that PDF on any printer.
Why doesn't my PRN open?
Some drivers write a printer maker's own language, like Canon's UFR II or the ones inkjets take, which Filepeek doesn't read, so it shows the file's About card. Printing again with a PCL or PostScript driver, or to Microsoft Print to PDF, gives a file that opens.
Why does the text look a little different from the printout?
A job set in the printer's built-in fonts only names them, so Filepeek sets that text in free fonts with the same widths, like Arimo for Arial and Cousine for Courier. Fonts the driver downloaded with the job are drawn as they came.