Re: [SL] Printing to multiple printers

[Ashley J G. <sql...@pu...>]

On Tuesday 16 January 2007 13:11, Jeff Roberts wrote:
> Hello All
>
> When I print an invoice I would like one copy to come out of my inkjet
> in full colour for the customer and two copies should come out of my
> laser for filing. Currently I find myself having to print to the inkjet
> then back up one page, select laser, change the amount to two and print
> again. I know this is not a lot of work but If I print 1000 invoices
> this year it's going to drive me nuts.

Hi Jeff,
	You could create a shell script that reads from standard input (possibly 
putting it into a temporary file) then sends that data to two or more calls 
to lp.

We run a thermal docket printer at our shop and I use a script that prepends 
control codes to print our logo, then send the print job, then sends more 
data to add newlines and fire the cashdrawer. I later modified the script to 
also keep logs of every docket, so now I have an automatic audit trail of 
every printed POS docket which has come in handy a number of times for 
balancing the till or finding other discrepancies.

Essentially, all you'd need to do in your script is:

==============================
#!/bin/sh
#define a temporary file
JOB=/tmp/sl-invprint.ps

# capture the job into the temp file
cat - > $JOB

# Now print it however you like, however many times you like
lp -d InkJet < $JOB
lp -d Simplex -n 2 < $JOB

# if you like, archive the print file:
cat $JOB > /var/log/invoices/invoicelog-`date +%Y-$m-%d-%H%M.%S`.ps

==============================

Then you just put the name of the script into the printer definition in 
sql-ledger.conf and away you go (eg, if you save that script 
as /usr/local/bin/invoiceprint then you just define your printer as 
'Invoice Printsystem' => 'invoiceprint').

Doing this gives you a great deal of control over how you process printjobs - 
eg you could use a script that parsed the invoice for fax numbers and faxed a 
copy of the invoice to the client, or whatever else "behind the scenes" stuff 
you wanted to do.

-- 
Regards,
	Ashley J Gittins
	web: 	http://www.purple.dropbear.id.au
	jabber: agi...@pu...