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Use the Printer Setup page of Administration Console to view printer or fax properties, edit printing preferences, specify redirection and failover settings, add a verifier configuration, specify advanced driver settings, and manage default printer management for each printer that is installed on your system.

The following options are available:

• Use printer redirection and failover settings: Specifies that printer redirection and failover settings are used. This option is selected by default.

  When you clear this selection, printer redirection is turned off for the system, which allows print jobs and automated processes to fail if a printer is unavailable or otherwise cannot handle a request.

Printers List Pane

The left pane of the Printer Setup page includes a list of all printers that are currently installed on your computer. You can click a printer in the list to view and edit its settings and properties. By using the toolbar at the bottom of the printer list, you can add a printer, remove a printer, or copy a printer and its settings.

The following options are available:

Adds a new printer to the list of printers.

Removes the selected printer from the list.

Duplicates settings for the selected printer and adds a copy of the printer to the list.

You can rename the printers that you add to the list by clicking the printer name and then entering a new name.

Printer Properties Pane

Depending on the printer that is selected in the list, the Printer Properties pane contains the following options and information:

• Printer: Displays the name of the selected printer. Read-only.

• Status: Indicates whether the selected printer is currently installed on your computer. Read-only.

• Model: Displays the model of the selected printer. Read-only.

• Port: Displays the port that the selected printer is using. Read-only.

• Location: Displays the location of the selected printer. Read-only.

• Comment: Displays any comments that are associated with the printer. Read-only.

• Printer Properties: Opens the Windows Printer Properties dialog.

• Printing Preferences: Opens the Windows Printing Preferences dialog.

• Default Printer: Opens the Default Printer dialog, where you can specify that BarTender uses the Windows default printer or manages its own default printer selection. You can also specify that the same default printer is used for all users on the computer.

Redirection and Failover Settings

Use these settings to redirect print jobs to another printer when the selected printer is offline, in an error state, or otherwise unavailable.

• Prevent all usage of this printer: Stops the printer from being used by BarTender; the printer no longer appears in the list of printers to design or print documents. If an existing document that used the printer is loaded, the document switches the printer to the redirection target printer, as specified by the options that follow.

• Failover under the following conditions: Specifies one or more conditions that you want to cause a print job to be redirected to another printer. The first two options are selected by default.

• Print server is not accessible: Specifies that failover occurs when the printer cannot be communicated with and/or spooler API calls do not work. This condition can occur when a server is offline, during system startup, or during system shut down.

• Printer is not installed: Specifies that failover occurs when the printer driver is not installed.

• Printer is in an error state: Specifies that failover occurs when the spooler is reporting some kind of error, such as a Windows API error or a common printer error such as "out of paper" or "printer jam."

• Printer is offline: Specifies that failover occurs when the printer is offline but in a non-error state. Some drivers report this condition when the printer is turned off. Windows can report this condition for any USB printer that is unplugged.

• Print queue is paused: Specifies that failover occurs when you use the Windows feature that pauses the print queue, which is similar to taking a printer offline.

• Redirect to: Specifies the printer that you want the selected printer to redirect the print job to in the event that the selected printer fails. The redirect printer appears as the first printer in the Effective sequence field.

• Maximum redirections: Specifies the maximum number of redirections that are allowed in the event that the selected printer fails. When the printer fails, it redirects to the next printer in the list until the maximum number of specified redirections is reached.

• Effective sequence: Lists the printers in the order in which BarTender attempts to redirect the print job when the selected printer fails. For any given printer, you can specify only one printer to redirect to, and that printer appears as the first printer in the Effective sequence list. However, if the specified redirect printer also has its own specified redirect printer, that printer also might appear in the list as the next redirect printer in the sequence. This redirection sequence continues in this manner until one of the following conditions occurs: 

  • The Maximum redirections limit is reached.

  • One of the printers that is being redirected to is redirected back to the original printer or to a printer that appears earlier in the sequence.

If the redirection printer is changed for any printer in the sequence, the sequence is updated automatically to reflect the new sequence that is generated by that change.

Verification

Use these settings to specify verifier device options.

• Verifier Device Attached: Specifies that a verifier device is attached to the printer.

• Configuration: Specifies the name of the verifier configuration that you want to use. You can create and manage verifier configurations on the Verifier Setup page.

Advanced Driver Settings

Use these settings to specify advanced driver options.

• Media Type: Specifies the type of media in your printer. Use this setting to display the correct options in the New Document wizard. If the default media type is not correct, you can change it to one of the following options:

  • Page: Specifies that the selected printer prints on separate, unattached pages. This option applies to most inkjet and laser printers.

  • Roll: Specifies that the selected printer prints on roll media. This option applies to most thermal printers that print on rolls of labels or continuous tags.

  • Card: Specifies that the selected printer prints on card media. This option applies to most thermal printers that print on individual cards.

  • CD/DVD: Specifies that the selected printer prints on a CD or DVD.

• Driver does not support data-sourced copies: Disable (uncheck) this option if you encounter problems printing the correct number of pages.

  Thermal label printers determine the number of copies on a per label basis while laser jet type printers determine the number of copies on a per page basis. Because of this, in certain scenarios, you will need to uncheck this option for laser jet type printers and other similar printers to print the correct number of copies.

• Ignore page size limits reported by driver: Specifies that the printer ignores the maximum page size limits that are reported by the driver.

• Use new device context for each print job: Specifies that the driver recreates the device context for each print job. A device context is a Windows data structure that contains information about the drawing attributes of a device, such as a printer.

Print Technology and Dot Gain Settings

Use these settings to override default print technology and dot gain (ink spread) options.

• Override default settings: Specifies that you can manually specify the print technology and dot gain settings.

• Print Technology: Specifies the type of printer. Use this option for calculating the appropriate dot size for the selected printer. The dot size is defined as the smallest mark that a printer is able to make on paper, and it is measured in units of mils (1 mil equals 0.001 inch). The dot size is based on the print technology and dot gain as follows:

  • Thermal printers are very precise, and the minimum dot size is equal to the inverse of the resolution. For example, a 600 dpi printer has a dot size of 1/600 of an inch, or 0.0017 in, or 1.7 mils.

  • For inkjet and laser printers, the ink or toner spreads by a certain amount, which on average is about 25 percent. A 600 dpi laser printer has a dot size of about 2.5 mils.

  • For impact (dot matrix) printers, the dot size is fixed at one of two sizes, which depend on whether the printer is a 9-pin or 24-pin printer.

  The Resolution and Dot Size table displays information for the selected print technology. BarTender tries to automatically recognize common printer dot sizes. However, you may need to fine-tune these settings for your printer by adjusting the resolution and dot size. To adjust resolution or dot size, click the field that you want to change, select the current value, and then enter the value that you want. Not all Resolution and Dot Size fields are editable.

  If the Resolution and Dot Size table contains more than one row, you can sort the rows in ascending or descending order by clicking the up or down arrows next to the text in the column headers.