Send print job to 2 print devices simultaneously

[Ross Woodward]

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone out there could point me in the right
direction for this problem :

A customer wants to genereate a picking list from the accounts system,
and have 2 copies printed off - but from 2 different printers. Both
print devices will be local printers on their win2k print server.
(print via TCPIP Print servers). There are 2 separate print queues
configured, 1 for each printer. Both printers support PCL5. I do not
have control over the source application, it will simply print 1 copy
to 1 printer - but it could add basic control codes to the document if
needed.

I'm thinking that the application will need to print to a dummy
printer on the server, and some fancy software should then fire off 1
copy to each of the printers, but I havent heard of such a package.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers

Ross

 

[Alan]

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone out there could point me in the right
direction for this problem :

A customer wants to genereate a picking list from the accounts system,
and have 2 copies printed off - but from 2 different printers. Both
print devices will be local printers on their win2k print server.
(print via TCPIP Print servers). There are 2 separate print queues
configured, 1 for each printer. Both printers support PCL5. I do not
have control over the source application, it will simply print 1 copy
to 1 printer - but it could add basic control codes to the document if
needed.

I'm thinking that the application will need to print to a dummy
printer on the server, and some fancy software should then fire off 1
copy to each of the printers, but I havent heard of such a package.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

You don't need anything really fancy, basically something that can
watch a directory. There are some general apps, but for instance I
think this will work using PrintFile,
<http://www.lerup.com/printfile>, which can send files to any printer
and optionally process them on the way:

Set the app to print to a PCL5 printer, with the port set to "print to
file".
Set one instance of Printfile up to watch the folder where the print
files are created and send them to Printer 1.
(See "Run PrintFile as a print spooler" in its help; also "program
settings" and "command line".)
PrintFile normally deletes the file after printing, but you can use
the /b (backup) option, this will make a copy of the file in another
folder. A second instance of PrintFile can watch this folder and send
the file to Printer 2, then delete the file.

 

[Tony Edgecombe]

Hi there,

I was wondering if anyone out there could point me in the right
direction for this problem :

A customer wants to genereate a picking list from the accounts system,
and have 2 copies printed off - but from 2 different printers. Both
print devices will be local printers on their win2k print server.
(print via TCPIP Print servers). There are 2 separate print queues
configured, 1 for each printer. Both printers support PCL5. I do not
have control over the source application, it will simply print 1 copy
to 1 printer - but it could add basic control codes to the document if
needed.

I'm thinking that the application will need to print to a dummy
printer on the server, and some fancy software should then fire off 1
copy to each of the printers, but I havent heard of such a package.

Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Cheers

Ross

Ross,

We have a product called Print Distributor which does exactly this,
you can download a trial from www.frogmorecs.com/ng

Regards

Tony