I had been looking for a way to script the MS Windows Printing Common Dialog Box, to make it available for Emacs.
It looks that it requires some C(++) code, which I had been avoiding, to make a no-arch package.
Perhaps I shall write a command-line, or otherwise Emacs usable wrapper, one day.
Windows version 2000 and higher, are bundled with _vbscript_ & JScript, by default.
I had posted code to gnu.emacs.sources, in Sept. 2005, a way to retrieve the default printer port into Emacs:
You can easily query all manner of Windows printer properties,
and customize the code above, to bring such into Emacs.
Htmlview & notepad make fine stop-gap measures, to make w32 emacs printing easier.
However, I don't believe there has been a good explanation, as to why some zealously believe
that printing must be embedded in, or dedicated to, Emacs.
Essentially, this violates the principle of coupling (and cohesion).
Say, you use Emacs to print ESS spreadsheets, or 132 column code dumps.
This makes sense to do in landscape mode.
However, you might be surprised, when your browser stops printing web pages in portrait mode.
Next, imagine the impact of intermediate print filter programs, such as a2ps.
That said, yet another hack is available: there already is code to export emacs buffers to PDF.
I don't know, if a command-line pdf printing program exists.
I suspect that this will be a slow solution, that leaves garbage files strewn about.