How can I store different printer trays?

How can I store different printer trays?


This article has been machine translated. If you find any errors, we would be grateful if you could report them to translation@timesensor.com.

Do you want to use different papers and therefore different printer trays for invoices? This article describes how you can assign the printer trays to the different pages of a document.

General

The control of printers is a very complex field. The techniques described here work with many printers, but 100% compatibility with any printer model cannot be guaranteed.

In principle, the following procedure applies:
  1. Select the print template to which you want to add print settings.
  2. Set the print settings
  3. timeSensor LEGAL saves your print settings in a small file together with the template.
  4. Before printing the template, timeSensor LEGAL sends the print settings to the printer and then prints the document.
The print settings can be created and sent to the printer using two (Windows: three) techniques:
  1. in plain text, i.e. selected options are transmitted to the printer by command, for example select paper tray no. 3 or print in landscape format
  2. as a print record BLOB, i.e. the printer's print settings are saved in their entirety as a so-called print record and the entire print record is sent to the printer before printing.
  3. under Windows, the printer driver can be installed several times and the desired settings can be made in the printer driver itself. This results in different instances of the same printer driver, where one instance, for example, takes the paper from tray 1, while in the second instance tray 2 is selected by default. In timeSensor LEGAL you then assign the desired instance of the printer driver to your originals.
Depending on the printer and operating system, one or the other technique works better. Under Windows, the first and the third technique usually work better, while under Mac the second technique promises more success.

Set pressure setting

Go to the Template Editor and select the template for which you want to assign printer trays. Click on Output Options in the upper right part.
In this window, click on the small printer symbol to create the print settings in the technology recommended for your operating system, or click on the small printer symbol while holding down the Alt key to create the print settings in the other technology:
  1. Mac OS X
    1. Single click: a Print Record BLOB is created (Technique 1)
    2. Alt + click: the print settings are stored in plain text (technique 2)
  2. Windows
    1. Single click: the print settings are stored in plain text (Technique 1)
    2. Alt + click: a print record BLOB is created (technique 2)
timeSensor LEGAL saves the print settings in a small file of the type .TXT or .BLOB and stores it locally on your workstation. This means that the print settings apply exclusively to your workstation. If there are several workstations in a network, the print settings must be made for each workstation.

Even in a bundled, so-called complex template, such as the invoice templates, a printer or a printer tray of the office printer can be stored individually for each template sheet via the Printer Settings button. This allows the invoice, the detail sheet and, if necessary, the payment slips to be printed from different printers/printer trays.
Although each template can be controlled individually, you do not need to repeat the printer settings for each language version. The printer settings always apply to all language versions of a template.
It is not guaranteed that the various techniques will accurately reproduce every print option for every printer driver. Please contact your printer support if settings are not selected or cannot be correctly executed by the printer.
Although Word templates can be started from timeSensor LEGAL, the print options of Word are not controlled via TSL. Printer settings for Word templates can only be made via Word.








Tip for administrators

If you have a uniform printer landscape in a larger network, you can save time by copying the print settings from a fully configured station to a USB stick or a server and then pasting them directly from there to other workstations. This saves you having to set up the print settings for each template on each workstation.

To do this, you need to know that timeSensor LEGAL stores the print settings as files in the following path:
  1. macOS: Users/Username/Library/Application Support/timeSensor/STUFF/PRINTERS
  2. Windows: Users/Username/timeSensor/STUFF/PRINTERS

Navigate to this directory on the fully configured station and copy the files contained here to the USB stick or to the server. You can now copy the print settings directly into this directory on other workstations. Before printing, timeSensor LEGAL checks whether print settings are available in this directory for the printed template and automatically takes them into account.
The Library user folder is invisible by default under macOS. The easiest way to navigate to this folder is to hold down the Alt key in the Finder and select Library in the Go to menu.
If you only want to copy the print settings of certain templates, make a note of the ID of the template in timeSensor LEGAL. You can find this information by opening the lower section in the output options of the desired template. In the grey bar you will find the ID of the template on the right-hand side. With this information you can locate the corresponding print settings in the PRINTERS folder.

Priority of the printer settings

To achieve maximum flexibility, timeSensor LEGAL uses the print settings files in a fixed order:


First priority: First, tSL checks whether individual print settings exist for a particular template. This might be the case if you open a 4D Write Pro draft and select Sort and Print in the Tools menu. In the Sort and Print window, there is an action menu in the bottom right-hand corner that allows you to add an individual print setting for a draft. This is indicated by a small printer icon. If an individual print setting exists, tSL will apply it with first priority.

Second priority: The second priority checks whether a print setting has been set up on the current workstation for the selected template. This is the case if you have clicked on the button Output options in the template editor on the workstation concerned and have added a print setting to the template with the printer icon. As described above, the print settings generated in this way are located under STUFF - PRINTERS on the local workstation.

Third priority: If still no print setting was found, timeSensor LEGAL checks in third priority whether the server has a print setting. It is important to know that there is also a PRINTERS folder on the server, which is automatically distributed to all workstations via the network. This allows the system administrator to define print settings on a workstation and then distribute them to the clients via this mechanism. The files are then automatically distributed to all workstations and applied if there are no local print settings on the workstation yet. This option is only intended for experienced administrators with server access. Here are the path details on the server:
  1. Windows: timeSensorProgram/timeSensor Server/Server Database/Resources/Resources_STUFF/PRINTERS
  2. macOS: Contents/Server Database/Resources/Resources_STUFF/PRINTERS
Fourth priority: Finally, tSL checks whether standard print settings have been defined for the current workstation. These are the settings that you can define in the Special - Parameters - System area. Only if no print setting has been found in all these places for the printed template, tSL prints the template without specific presetting.


If for a template both a file in plain text (e.g. TEMPL17500_WIN.TXT) and as BLOB (TEMPL17500_WIN.BLOB) are found, tSL prefers the file in plain text.


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