Creating Passthrough Printers

Passthrough printers are associated with printer devices that can print jobs in many different formats, for example, PCL, PostScript, and PDF.

Jobs assigned to Passthrough printers do not have job tickets. TotalFlow Production Manager workflows that are associated with Passthrough printers can receive these jobs in a hot folder or from a print command that uses the LPD protocol. Passthrough printers cannot report job status.

To create a Passthrough printer:

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

      You see the Create Passthrough Printer dialog:

      Create Passthrough Printer dialog: General page

    • To copy an existing printer,
    1. Right-click it in the Printers tab.
    2. Select Copy....

      You see the Copy Printer dialog.

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

  5. On each page of the dialog, enter or select values for the required and optional properties to match your environment.
    Click the page names in the navigation bar to change pages.
    1. On the General page, the value of the Command property depends on the print commands that are available on your system.
      • For information about the Windows lpr command, open a Command Prompt window and enter lpr ?
      • Use the host name or IP address of the printer as the value of the server option of the command.

        For example, the Windows lpr command uses the option -Sprinter to specify the server that provides LPD services. In the case of a passthrough printer, this is the printer itself.

      • Use the name of the print queue as the value of the printer option of the command.

        For example, the Windows lpr command uses the option -Pprinter to specify the printer or print queue where it sends the print file. A typical name for the print queue on a passthrough printer is PASS.

      • Use the name of the company department as the value of the department option of the command.

        For example, the Windows lpr command uses the option -Jdepartment to specify the administrative entity that is responsible for the print jobs.

      • Use the getFileName or getAbsoluteFileName method to specify the name of the print file.
        • Note:
        1. For help with specifying file names in the External command property, see Specifying File Names in Symbol Notation.
        2. For help with specifying job attributes in the External command property, see Using Job Attributes Symbols in Commands.
      • Because Passthrough printers cannot automatically determine the values of job properties, you must pass them to the printer as options of the printer command.
    2. To enable the printer to keep the state that was set before a restart, select Keep printer state after restart.
    3. On the Scheduling page, set the printer assignment properties.
    4. On the Backup page select a Backup printer to be used instead, if the printer you are creating stops for any reason.
    5. Then, select the Recovery triggers, which are the conditions that trigger the recovery mode, and how long the printer should wait before going into recovery mode.
    6. 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 on the Advanced page appropriately:
      Create Passthrough Printer dialog: Customize page
    7. Set a value for the Command for special instructions property to enable the Passthrough printer to print a separator sheet with special instructions before the job.
      Use the getOperInst method to specify the name of the special instruction file. For more information, see Specifying File Names in Symbol Notation.
    8. 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  
    9. 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.
    10. On the PS/PCL Data Replacement page, set the replacement rules, according to your needs.

      This function allows you to substitute or eliminate text from the PostScript or PCL files before processing the print job.

      The input text can contain plain text or hexadecimal escape sequences, or any combination. For example, a data replacement value can contain a hexadecimal escape sequence like this: \x1B, which is the character with hex code 1B (Escape).

      The replace method searches a string for a specified value, or a regular expression, and returns a new string where the specified values are replaced. This method does not change the original string.

      • In Attach Before field, click the Browse icon the browse icon to enter the full path name of a previously saved file that contains text you want to add as header for the processed file.
      • In Attach After field, click the Browse icon the browse icon to enter the full path name of a previously saved file that contains text you want to add as footer for the processed file.
      • In the Replace Data (multi-line) fields on the left, enter the strings to be replaced or removed.
      • In the Replace Data (multi-line) fields on the right, enter the text that will replace the strings you entered at the previous step.

      Note: If the file you want to attach is not on the server, use the Upload file Upload button to upload it to TotalFlow Production Manager server.

  6. Click OK.
  7. To use the new Passthrough printer, click Enable, the enable button, next to it.
    Note: If the workflow associated with the passthrough printer contains the Transform To PDF activity, the PostScript or PCL file is transformed into PDF before the data replacement is done. The data replacement is done during the Print activity.

Related information:

Specifying File Names in Symbol Notation
Using Job Attributes Symbols in Commands
Parent topic: Creating Printers