"Virtual" printer software

[googlemad]

I know this may sound slightly odd but for our PCounter pull printing to work correctly the main pull printing queue needs to be linked to a 'live' printer IP (As we found out the other day when printing went down across the college because someone had switched a copier off over the weekend!)

 

So what I was wondering, is there any 'virtual' printer utility out there that I could whack on the print server, and it could have a IP assigned to it and if queried the status would always be 'Ready to print'?

 

Sorry if this makes no sense!

[joe90bass]

Not sure if my repsonse will make sense, or even helps your issue....

We had to have an input queue setup for one printer that then sends to an output queue (i.e. the printer itself) Pcounter support set this up for us, it made sense at the time, but having a 5 week old baby and little sleep I'd struggle to explain it now!

[dhicks]

So what I was wondering, is there any 'virtual' printer utility out there that I could whack on the print server, and it could have a IP assigned to it and if queried the status would always be 'Ready to print'?

 

Sure, you can set up a network PDF document printer with GhostScript. This would also give you a handy way to let people "print" PDF documents from anywhere in the school.

[MatthewL]

I never knew that if you turned that one off it stopped working. Might try it here later.

 

Have you spoken to Altman and see what they said?

[googlemad]

I had a 1 hour remote support session with them!

 

What we have at the minute:

"Pull MFD Queue" (set up on workstations)

"Pull MFD Queue Hidden" (when jobs are sent to "Pull MFD Queue, a rule set within PCounter is supposed to move any jobs automatically from "Pull MFD Queue" to this queue)

 

Then the "Pull MFD Queue Hidden" is linked into the copiers individual queues with the embedded software config.

 

What happened was since the 'Pull MFD Queue' was 'dead' PCounter was pausing the print queue and all jobs within it meaning the rule wouldn't kick in.

[sted]

could you just not set up a fake printer on lpt1 using generic text only driver or something?

[googlemad]

Turns out they've updated their pull print documentation so now you no longer need to set up a move rule it is done via other methods (LPR redirects)

 

http://www.altman.co.uk/files/pullprinting-howtoguide.pdf

[MatthewL]

That is different to how mine is setup, might speak to Chris next week and have a chat with him.

[mac_shinobi]

Depends how "OFF" you actually mean, if the copier / printer device is just in sleep mode it should wake up when a print job is being sent and said items in said printing device should warm up and start printing, otherwise if you mean off as in totally off ie mains wall switch is off or unplugged ( cleaners unplugging said printing device ) to use a vacuum cleaner or the likes then obviously it wont print because there is no power what so ever to the printer ( copier ) or whatever to do anything at all.