Virtual Printer (View Only)

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 can see a list of the installed virtual printers.

The list has the following columns:

•Status

Information about the status of the virtual printer.

•Virtual printer

Name of the virtual printer.

•Output Device

Installed output device.

•Priority

This displays the priority of the virtual printer.

Note: Editing, adding, and deleting virtual printers is supported only in the Java-based UI on the Shooter server.

Details in the "Virtual Printer" modal window

Note: To define settings for the virtual printers, you must go to the Java-based UI on the Shooter server.

Click the "Details" button in the list of virtual printers to open the "Virtual Printer" modal window. The details display in the following sections:

General

•"Name": Name of the virtual printer.

•"Output Device": CtP device to which the jobs will be output.

•"Spool Folder": The spool folder for the virtual printer displays in "Spool Folder". 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 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.

In the Java-based UI on the Shooter server, you can 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. You can mon­itor this in the drive monitor. See Drive Monitor.

•"Hot Folder" and "Share this Hot Folder": You see the hot folder for the virtual printer in "Hot Folder". 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.

The hot folder is shared in the network if "Share this Hot Folder" (default) is enabled. If neces­sary, you must share the hot folder manually if this option is not enabled.

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".

•"Priority": Priorities (Low, Medium, or High) for job processing. The setup of several virtual print­ers with different priorities makes it possible to determine the priority of a print job by selecting a specific virtual printer.

"Job Handling"

This is where you can view the settings that influence job processing:

•No job preview is generated for the jobs that are processed with this virtual printer if "No Pre­view" is enabled. You save on computing time and memory space by enabling this option.

•Jobs that go to the hotfolder are not processed immediately but are listed in the job list as "paused" if "Insert new jobs in state "paused"" is enabled. 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. Custom material can appear 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.

"Output Plan Parameters"

This is where you can view device-specific output options. The data available in this section vary according to the output device connected. For that reason, the descriptions below must only be regarded as examples.

•"Material": This is where a plate material can display. 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 is where you can view 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": The name of a batch file (.bat) can be found here. 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.

"Default Color Order"

This is where the default order for output of the separations of bracket jobs from third-party work­flows that arrive in the hotfolder display.

Close the "Virtual Printer" modal window by clicking "OK" or the X button in the top right corner.