Printer Ink Status

[up3umrmuofnz3pd]

Hi guys,

I'm working on a small desktop publishing software project where I need
to display the default printer's ink status/level in the status bar of
the main form. For the past 2 days I've been trying to find a way of
getting the printer ink level from the printer but I haven't been able
to find something that's generic. I looked at the:

* PJLMON.dll - PJL language commands for parrallel port or USB
printers. Got stuck on the implementation and usability

* OLEPRNLib ( http://blog.crowe.co.nz/archive/2005/08/08/182.aspx ) -
but its mainly via SNMP for network printers.

* WMI (System.Management namespace)? I'm not sure if this will tell the
current printer ink level.

Here's something interesting I read elsewhere, "IEEE 1284 compliant
devices connected to a parallel port or a USB port can transmit a
Device ID when asked to do so. The device ID of inkjet printers often
contains the level of ink available." Now how do I get this Device ID
and what's the format/syntax to be parsed to fetch the ink level?

The closest I could find is the libinklevel library (
http://libinklevel.sourceforge.net ), but its for Linux.

Do you guys have any suggestions or ideas on how I can accomplish this
"simple" task Thanks!

 

[Jeffery Hicks]

Hi guys,

I'm working on a small desktop publishing software project where I need
to display the default printer's ink status/level in the status bar of
the main form. For the past 2 days I've been trying to find a way of
getting the printer ink level from the printer but I haven't been able
to find something that's generic. I looked at the:

* PJLMON.dll - PJL language commands for parrallel port or USB
printers. Got stuck on the implementation and usability

* OLEPRNLib ( http://blog.crowe.co.nz/archive/2005/08/08/182.aspx ) -
but its mainly via SNMP for network printers.

* WMI (System.Management namespace)? I'm not sure if this will tell the
current printer ink level.

Here's something interesting I read elsewhere, "IEEE 1284 compliant
devices connected to a parallel port or a USB port can transmit a
Device ID when asked to do so. The device ID of inkjet printers often
contains the level of ink available." Now how do I get this Device ID
and what's the format/syntax to be parsed to fetch the ink level?

The closest I could find is the libinklevel library (
http://libinklevel.sourceforge.net ), but its for Linux.

Do you guys have any suggestions or ideas on how I can accomplish this
"simple" task Thanks!

I doubt there's anything universal or generic. It will depend on what the
printer vendor will make available. There are win32_Printer and
win32_printerconfiguration WMI classes, but they don't provide any ink
information. I can get that information for my HP PSC2100 through HP
software, but I don't know if that information is available through a COM
object or anywhere else. It might be worth a chat with the vendor to see
if they provide access to that information through an automation object.

 

[chanmm]

In this case I do think approach your printer vendors such as HP or Canon
will be faster.

chanmm