Creating Job Ticket Printers

Job Ticket printers are associated with printer devices that support PDF. They can print PostScript and PCL jobs if a workflow step converts these formats to PDF.

You can edit the job tickets for jobs assigned to Job Ticket printers. TotalFlow Production Manager workflows that are associated with Job Ticket printers can receive these jobs from TotalFlow Prep, in a hot folder, or from a print command that uses the line printer daemon (LPD) protocol. Job Ticket printers can communicate directly with printer devices and obtain status on the jobs while they are printing.

For job ticket printers that represent some printer devices that use a printer controller option, TotalFlow Production Manager automatically sets the printer assignment properties and creates a paper map shortly after the printer is created.

TotalFlow Production Manager also lets you add printers that are connected to your Windows system and use a printer driver compatible with the Windows V4 Print Subsystem.

    Important:
  • Adding a Windows V4 Print device is a new function, currently provided only as a preview version. For information about limitations and possible solutions, see the Readme file.
  • Before registering a printer, make sure that both your computer and the printer are correctly connected to the network. For information about how to connect the printer to a network, see the printer documentation.
  • To be able to use Windows V4 printers, make sure you install a printer driver compatible with the Windows V4 Print Subsystem.
    Note: You can find a list of supported drivers that are compatible with Windows V4 Print Subsystem here:Universal Print Driver.

To create a Job Ticket printer:

  1. Log in to TotalFlow Production Manager as an administrator.
  2. In the menu bar, click Operations.
  3. Do either of these:
    To create a new printer:
    1. In the objects pod on the left, click Printers.
    2. Click New, then select Job Ticket Printer....

      You see the Create Job Ticket Printer dialog:

      Create Job Ticket Printer dialog: General page

    To copy an existing printer:
    1. Select it in the Printers tab, click More, then Copy....
    2. Or, right click the printer, then select Copy....

      You see the Copy Printer dialog.

      The new printer will have the same property values as the selected printer (except the Name).

  4. On each page of the dialog, enter or select values for the required and optional properties that need to be adjusted to match your environment.
    Click the page names in the navigation bar to change pages.
    1. Under Printer type, select one of the options:
      • Standard, if you want to create a printer that represents one of the supported Ricoh devices. This is the default option.
      • Custom, if you want to create a PostScript printer that represents a device not normally supported.
      • Windows (Feature Preview), if you want to add a printer connected to your Windows system that uses a printer driver compatible with the Windows V4 Print Subsystem.
    2. For a custom printer to become available in TotalFlow Production Manager, you must first import its custom printer definition file. To import a custom printer definition file, click Import. For more information about importing a custom printer definition file, see Using the Import Custom Printer Definition Tool .
    3. If you selected Custom, choose one of the printers in the list that opens, then click Settings.
      You see the Installable Options dialog, in which you can select the device capabilities of the printer model that you selected. These options become available on your TotalFlow Production Manager printer. For more information about using Installable Options, see Using the Installable Options .
      Important: If TotalFlow Production Manager was opened with HTTPS, there is a security restriction that does not allow loading other pages with HTTP, so you might not be able to use the Installable Options dialog. In this case, switch back to HTTP, configure the Installable Options, then enable HTTPS again.
    4. If you selected Windows (Feature Preview), choose the Windows printer that you want to add from the printers list.

      The printers list includes only the printers available on your Windows system that use a printer driver compatible with the Windows V4 Print Subsystem.

      The Settings option becomes available only after you save the printer. To configure the settings of the printer:

      1. In the menu bar, click Operations.
      2. In the Printers tab, click More, then Properties.... Or, right click the name of the printer, then select Properties.... You see the Properties for Job Ticket Printer dialog.
      3. Click Settings. You see the Ricoh Windows Printer Mapping dialog.
      4. In the Ricoh Windows Printer Mapping dialog, configure mappings for the settings available on your printer.

        A default set of mappings is already available based on the printer model.

        For more information, click the help button on the Ricoh Windows Printer Mapping screen.

    5. Select the Printer language used for the communication between the application and the printer.
    6. If you create more than one printer to represent the same printer device, specify the TCP/IP address or host name property the same way for each printer.
      If you specify a TCP/IP address for one printer and a fully qualified host name for another, TotalFlow Production Manager counts these as two different IP addresses even though they both resolve to the same address.
    7. Specify a value for the TCP/IP port property.
      • When the Printer language is set to PostScript, the default port number is 9100. If the printer device uses the EFI Fiery controller option, you can also specify one of these port numbers:
        9101
        Jobs are sent to the direct queue. They print in the same order that you submit them. TotalFlow Production Manager cannot determine job status for most printers. The collate function for multiple copies is not available.
        9102
        Jobs are sent to the print queue. They might not print in the same order that you submit them. TotalFlow Production Manager can determine job status. The collate function for multiple copies is available. This is the recommended port.
        9103
        Jobs are sent to the hold queue. An operator must release the job at the printer console to print it.

      • When the Printer language is set to PDF/JDF, the default value displayed is 8010 / 80.

        8010 is the network interface for printer devices that use PDF/JDF, and 80 is specific to devices that use TotalFlow Print Server controller.

    8. Leave the Enable printer features toggle on in order to receive updated information about the printer capabilities.
    9. To enable the printer to keep the state that was set before a restart, select Keep printer state after restart.
    10. In the Workflow section, select Create Workflow, then Edit Workflow on Exit. Thus, you create a workflow for the new printer and you can edit its properties when you close the dialog.
    11. On the Scheduling page, set the printer assignment properties.
    12. Under Loaded papers, select one of these:
      • No, to schedule jobs to the printer even if the required papers for the jobs are not loaded in one of the paper input trays.
      • Yes, to schedule jobs to the printer only if the required jobs are loaded in one of the printer input trays.
      Note: In both cases, the papers requested for the jobs must be in the supported papers list of the printer.
    13. Under Paper select the paper types required for the printer.
    14. On the Advanced page, the default is that the printer prints separator sheets (banner pages) in the language that you selected when you installed the TotalFlow Production Manager server. To print separator sheets in a different language, set the Messages language property.
    15. Under Input tray for separator pages, select an input tray for separator pages from the trays list.
      If the Printer language is set to JDF you can also choose the output tray where the unused tabs will be ejected.
    16. Use the Validate job tickets toggle to specify whether to validate job tickets before printing.
      This option is especially useful for job tickets that were not validated before.
    17. In the Job Separator Sheet section, specify whether to print special instructions before and/or after the job pages.

      Note: If you chose an output tray for the job,then set the same output tray for the separator sheets.

      Depending on the finishing settings of the job, some separator sheets might not be ejected in the same output tray as the job. This will happen when the output tray set for the job is one of these:

      • Booklet tray
      • Trimmer tray
      • Ring binder tray
      • Perfect binder lower left tray
      • Folding unit tray
      In these cases the printer decides where it ejects the separator sheets. Usually they will be ejected in the Finisher shift tray .

    18. Under SNMP, set the properties to the same values as the corresponding settings in the printer controller:
      Printer Property EFI Fiery Printer Controller Ricoh Printer Controller TotalFlow Print Server Printer Controller
      Community name Read Community Name The Community Name printer property must have either read-only or read/write Access Type The Community Name must have either read-only or read/write Access Type
      User name Unsecure User Name (minimum security) Account Name (User) Users

      This setting can have more than one value. Set the User name printer property to any one of the values in the list.
      Secure User Name (medium or maximum security)
      Medium security password

      If you set the Maximum security password, you must also set the Medium security password. Some printers let you set only the Maximum security password, but if you do, SNMP cannot connect to the printer.

      		 User Authentication Password Authentication Password (User) Password

      The TotalFlow Print Server printer controller has 1 password setting for each SNMP user. For medium security, set the Medium security password property to the value of this setting for the user specified by the User name property and do not set the Maximum security password property.
      Maximum security password

      If you set the Maximum security password, you must also set the Medium security password. Some printers let you set only the Maximum security password, but if you do, SNMP cannot connect to the printer.

      		 User Privacy Password Encryption Password Password

      The TotalFlow Print Server printer controller has 1 password setting for each SNMP user. For maximum security, set both the Medium security password and Maximum security password properties to the value of this setting for the user specified by the User name property.
      Security level Security Level    
      Authentication type User Authentication Type Authentication Algorithm Security
      Privacy type. This is a required field. Specify a value other than None. If Privacy type is None, SNMP cannot connect to the printer. User Privacy Type   Encryption (in SNMP dialog)
      Context name   Context Name  
    Create Job Ticket Printer dialog: General page
  5. Click OK.
  6. If the printer is disabled, click Enable, the enable button next to the printer.

In this section:

  1. Using the Import Custom Printer Definition Tool
    The Import Custom Printer Definition Tool allows you to import and manage the custom printer definition files created by the regional experts. Those files are named .gpz files. Printer Connector makes your custom printer definition files available in TotalFlow Production Manager.
  2. Using the Installable Options
Parent topic: Creating Printers