In the previous tip, we created cheat sheets for PowerShell commands. We used command names and their synopsis to create cheat sheets like this:
PS> Get-Command -Module "PrintManagement"| Get-Help | Select-Object -Property Name, Synopsis Name Synopsis ---- -------- Add-Printer Adds a printer to the specified computer. Add-PrinterDriver Installs a printer driver on the specified computer. Add-PrinterPort Installs a printer port on the specified computer. Get-PrintConfiguration Gets the configuration information of a printer. Get-Printer Retrieves a list of printers installed on a computer. Get-PrinterDriver Retrieves the list of printer drivers installed on... Get-PrinterPort Retrieves a list of printer ports installed on the... Get-PrinterProperty Retrieves printer properties for the specified pri... Get-PrintJob Retrieves a list of print jobs in the specified pr... Read-PrinterNfcTag Reads information about printers from an NFC tag. Remove-Printer Removes a printer from the specified computer. Remove-PrinterDriver Deletes printer driver from the specified computer. Remove-PrinterPort Removes the specified printer port from the specif... Remove-PrintJob Removes a print job on the specified printer. ...
There are many more useful properties in the objects returned by Get-Help, like “description” and “examples”. They look strange, though, as if they were embedded in a hash table:
PS> Get-Command -Module "PrintManagement"|
Get-Help |
Select-Object -Property Name, Description
Name description
---- -----------
Add-Printer {@{Text=The Add-Printer cmdlet adds a printer to a specified computer. Y...
Add-PrinterDriver {@{Text=The Add-PrinterDriver cmdlet installs a printer driver on the sp...
Add-PrinterPort {@{Text=The Add-PrinterPort cmdlet creates a printer port on the specifi...
Get-PrintConfiguration {@{Text=The Get-PrintConfiguration cmdlet gets the configuration informa...
Get-Printer {@{Text=The Get-Printer cmdlet retrieves a list of printers installed on...
Get-PrinterDriver {@{Text=The Get-PrinterDriver cmdlet retrieves the list of printer drive...
Get-PrinterPort {@{Text=The Get-PrinterPort cmdlet retrieves a list of printer ports tha...
Get-PrinterProperty {@{Text=The Get-PrinterProperty cmdlet retrieves one or more printer pro...
Get-PrintJob {@{Text=The Get-PrintJob cmdlet retrieves the current print jobs in the ...
Read-PrinterNfcTag {@{Text=The Read-PrinterNfcTag cmdlet reads information about printers f...
Remove-Printer {@{Text=The Remove-Printer cmdlet deletes a printer from the specified c...
Remove-PrinterDriver {@{Text=The Remove-PrinterDriver cmdlet deletes a printer driver from th...
Remove-PrinterPort {@{Text=The Remove-PrinterPort cmdlet removes the specified printer port...
...
This is because properties like “Description” contain a property called “Text” which is an array (allowing multi-line text). To get the plain text, you need to manually retrieve the information from the property like so:
# adjust the name of the module # code will list all commands shipped by that module # list of all modules: Get-Module -ListAvailable $ModuleName = "PrintManagement" $Description = @{ Name = "Description" Expression = { $_.Description.Text -join " " } } Get-Command -Module $moduleName | Get-Help | Select-Object -Property Name, $Description
Now the result looks as expected:
Name Description ---- ----------- Add-Printer The Add-Printer cmdlet adds a printer to a specified ... Add-PrinterDriver The Add-PrinterDriver cmdlet installs a printer drive... Add-PrinterPort The Add-PrinterPort cmdlet creates a printer port on ... Get-PrintConfiguration The Get-PrintConfiguration cmdlet gets the configurat... Get-Printer The Get-Printer cmdlet retrieves a list of printers i... Get-PrinterDriver The Get-PrinterDriver cmdlet retrieves the list of pr... Get-PrinterPort The Get-PrinterPort cmdlet retrieves a list of printe... Get-PrinterProperty The Get-PrinterProperty cmdlet retrieves one or more ... Get-PrintJob The Get-PrintJob cmdlet retrieves the current print j... Read-PrinterNfcTag The Read-PrinterNfcTag cmdlet reads information about... Remove-Printer The Remove-Printer cmdlet deletes a printer from the ... Remove-PrinterDriver The Remove-PrinterDriver cmdlet deletes a printer dri... Remove-PrinterPort The Remove-PrinterPort cmdlet removes the specified p... Remove-PrintJob The Remove-PrintJob cmdlet removes a print job on the... Rename-Printer The Rename-Printer cmdlet renames the specified print... Restart-PrintJob The Restart-PrintJob cmdlet restarts a print job on t... Resume-PrintJob The Resume-PrintJob cmdlet resumes a suspended print ... Set-PrintConfiguration The Set-PrintConfiguration cmdlet sets the printer co... Set-Printer The Set-Printer cmdlet updates the configuration of t...
