Re: [SL] Printing to multiple printers

[Jeff R. <Jef...@te...>]

Thanks Ashley

That seems to have solved it, I did have to add a ctl-D (EOF) to the end 
of invoice.tex to terminate cat but now it prints all the right copies 
from all the right printers.

Jeff

Ashley J Gittins wrote:
> 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.
>
>