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el_sim
Known Participant
October 19, 2010
Question

Is it possible to batch print .pdf AND .doc files together?

  • October 19, 2010
  • 1 reply
  • 1083 views

I need to let users to batch print a set of files that includes both .PDFs and .DOCs. Since <cfprint> allows .PDF files only, what would you suggest?

Thanks!

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    1 reply

    ilssac
    ilssac
    Inspiring
    October 19, 2010

    One Suggestion:

    Investigate what options your printer might offer.

    Many modern network printers designed for offices have abilities to receive print jobs though the network.  I have seen this works by either the printer being configured to watch a network directory and print any file placed in the directory and|or for the jobs to be sent to the printer's IP address.  If your printer supports any option like this, it should be pretty easy to create CFML that would place the file(s) in the proper directory or send them to the proper address.

    E
    el_simAuthor
    Known Participant
    October 19, 2010

    Thank you. Unfortunately, it's not an option because I need to allow users to batch print and I have no info about their network printer configuration. Basically, I just have to have a button on the screen that lets them print their set of documents. The question is what to put into the code under that button...

    ilssac
    ilssac
    Inspiring
    October 19, 2010

    el_sim wrote:

    Unfortunately, it's not an option because I need to allow users to batch print and I have no info about their network printer configuration

    That raises a large RED Flag that you may be misunderstanding the <cfprint...> functionality.  <cfprint...> can NOT print to a printer that is configured to the clients computer.  So if that is what you are looking to do, you need to be looking at Client side technology.  But be aware, that current, common, browser based web applications generally have very limited connections to client hardware.  If you are willing to get into Flex, Flash, Air (or another company's technologies) you could probably do more.  But HTML and JavaScript currently do not have much access to the hardware of a client computer.

    The <cfprint...> tag is designed to send a print job from the SERVER running the ColdFusion application to a printer connected to that server.  IF you are writing programs with no knowledge of the server network configurations (I.E. an application meant to be sold to various customers) this becomes much more difficult to do.  But if you are writing a CFML application to be run on a known network, which is what many of us do, then it should be pretty easy to know what printers are connected to the server running ColdFusion and figure out what capabilities those printers have.

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