The virtual printers represent the "inputs" of the Prinect Shooter system. The job data must be screened as TIFF-B and are sent to monitored folders known as hot folders.
In "Administration > Virtual Printer", you first see a list of the installed virtual printers.
The list has the following columns:
•Virtual Printer
Name of the virtual printer.
•Priority
This displays the priority of the virtual printer.
•Output Device
Installed output device.
•Status
Information about the status of the virtual printer.
Edit/add/delete virtual printers
You go to the details view when you double-click a virtual printer in the list or mark a list item and then click "Open". In this view, you can edit an existing virtual printer or save it as a new name with "Save as...".
By clicking the "New" button you can create a new virtual printer and add it to the list. The details view for setup of a virtual printer displays:
You can make the following settings:
You will find general parameters at the top of the window:
•"Name": freely selectable name for the virtual printer
•"Output Device": CtP device to which the jobs will be output
•"Spool Directory". See Spool Directory:
•"Hot Folder" with the "Share this Hot Folder" option. See Hot Folder:
In "Spool Directory", you can define the spool directory for the virtual printer. All jobs that are sent to the virtual printer are gathered in the spool directory. The spool directory should be located on a hard disk drive which has enough free memory space. It can (and should) be defined when you install the Prinect Shooter software. Normally, this default setting is the one you need and doesn't need to be changed.
This option lets you set up a separate spool directory for a single virtual printer in the case that this printer needs to use its own spool directory because, for example, extremely large data volumes will be processed. Generally, you should select a drive on which neither the operating system nor the Prinect Shooter software is installed. This is valid for all the virtual printers that you will set up. However, if you are running out of memory on the drive with the spool directory, you can select a spool directory on a different drive in this box. You can monitor this in the drive monitor. See Drive Monitor.
Click "Browse" to open a browser dialog where you can select a folder or create a new one.
You can select a drive in the "Look in" list box. All the folders on the selected drive are then listed.
When you double-click a folder name, this folder opens, displaying the subfolders and/or files in it. Mark a folder in the list and then click "Select". This folder is then selected as the spool directory.
This browser dialog changes when you enable the "Prinect® Server Neighborhood" option. You now see the drives and folders of the Prinect Shooter computer as the Prinect Shooter service would "see" them. In other words, the user permissions and access options of the Prinect Shooter service are also displayed. The dialog shows the drives and folders with the permissions and access options of the user logged in to the Windows operating system if this option is not enabled. This dialog can vary depending on the user permissions that are set. You can always use this option even if the user currently logged in has restricted permissions.
You can create a new folder using the "New Folder" button.
You define a hot folder for the virtual printer in "Hot Folder". Here, too, you can click "Browse" to select another folder or create a new one. This input folder of a virtual printer ("hot folder") monitors incoming TIFF-B data. Normally, this folder is located on the computer on which the TIFF-B data are generated. This folder is mapped to the Prinect Shooter PC as a network drive. You must map the network drive in Windows Explorer before you can configure the virtual printer.
Note: In Windows Explorer, mapped drives are not shown in the "Look in" list box because it's not possible for a service like the Prinect Shooter service to "see" these drives. You must enter folders located on other computers into the "Spool Directory" or "Hot Folder" boxes using their "UNC path" (\\computername\foldername).
The hot folder is shared in the network if you enable "Share this Hot Folder" (default). If necessary, you must share the hot folder manually if you do not check this option.
Note: It is possible that external users have just read-only permissions after a TIFF-B output folder is shared manually as a hot folder. In order for Prinect Shooter to delete completed jobs in the hot folder, you must also permit the Prinect Shooter service to modify data in the hot folder. To do this, display Windows Explorer on the external computer and right-click the hot folder to display its context menu. Select the "Sharing and Security" menu item and click "Permissions". In the "Group or User Names" list, click the user name of the Prinect Shooter service (e.g. "prinect") and then enable "Modify" in the "Permissions for" group. Afterwards, confirm the "Permissions for" and "Properties of" dialogs with "OK".
In this section, you can define settings that influence job processing:
•The "Start Job Between" option allows you to define a specific time interval for job processing. This option can be helpful, for example, if you have to process time-consuming jobs that are not urgent. In such a case, you can set up a virtual printer that only starts processing at night. If you send jobs to this virtual printer during the day, processing will only start at the time set for starting. This means that the system is not busy with such jobs during the day.
•The "Transfer to the Depot After" option lets you set a period after which all jobs completed with a particular virtual printer are stored automatically. See Automatic Storing of Jobs.
In "Depot Directory" you can redefine the directory where the stored jobs will be saved. In Prinect Shooter, the jobs consist of TIFF-B files and, for that reason, you must select a data media with enough space for the depot directory.
•The "Delete Job After" option allows you to set a time after which completed jobs will be deleted. We recommend that you check this option for every virtual printer. This prevents the hard disk which contains the spool directory from becoming full with job data.
You can enable the following additional options if you enable this option:
·Only when Drive Monitor alert value is reached: The jobs are deleted automatically after the set period only if the alert value of the drive monitor is exceeded. See Drive Monitor. In this way, Prinect Shooter can still continue working for a while even if a monitored disk drive almost has too much data. In principle, it is better to use a sufficiently large hard disk (swap) to make sure that the alert value of the drive monitor is not reached.
·also delete jobs with warning status: Normally, only the jobs that were completed without an error are deleted automatically. Jobs that were completed with a warning are also deleted if this option is set. Remember that it's no longer possible to determine the reason for the warnings after these jobs are deleted automatically.
·also delete jobs with error status: Normally, only the jobs that were completed without an error are deleted automatically. Jobs whose processing was faulty and aborted are also deleted if this option is set. Remember that it's no longer possible to determine the reason for the errors after these jobs are deleted automatically.
•No job preview is generated for the jobs that are processed with this virtual printer if you enable "No Preview". See Prinect ImageViewer. You save on computing time and memory space by enabling this option.
•Jobs that go to the hot folder are not processed immediately but are listed in the job list as "paused" if you enable the "Insert new jobs in state "paused"" option. You must start these jobs manually if you wish to process them. See Tab: Signatures.
•"Ignore FBDI settings": The FBDI output options can contain information, for example, about the output material used. You can select material yourself in "Output Plan Parameters" if "Ignore FBDI settings" is checked. Then the material you set is used instead of the material requested by the FBDI.
"Priority"
This is where you assign one of the priorities (Low, Medium or High) for job processing to the virtual printer. By configuring several virtual printers with different priorities you can determine the priority of your print job by selecting a specific virtual printer.
Note: You cannot set "Urgent" as a priority here as "Urgent" can only be used with a single job at a time that is to be output immediately. See Printing "Urgent" jobs next. For that reason, you can assign "Urgent" as a priority only manually. It is not possible in a virtual printer.
You can configure device-specific output options in this section. The options available in this section vary according to the output device connected. For that reason, the descriptions below must only be regarded as examples.
•"Material": You can select a plate material in this box. You must make sure that the material selected is really loaded in the device if you use this virtual printer for output.
Note: Material data can also be in the TIFF-B file. If this is the case, the material data from the TIFF-B job overwrite the material setting of your virtual printer.
•"Punch settings": This parameter lets you select a punch setting defined in the Engine Manager. More details about punch settings can be found in the Speedway Engine Manager Online Help.
•"Command line for Tiff archiver": You can enter the name of a batch file (.bat) in this text box. You can use the batch file, for example, to start a different application in the background. For example, an archiving software for the TIFF-B data can be started.
You can save the changes you made to the virtual printer parameters with "Save".
Use "Save as" to create a new virtual printer with the modified parameters. Give this printer a new name.
You can mark an item in the list of virtual printers and delete this selected virtual printer by clicking "Delete".