Auto-printing a pdf to a printer name stored as variable?

Report · Apr 01, 2009

Hi,

I have an app that creates two different documents, both of which need to be printed. One is a letter-sized pdf, the other is a 4X6 label, also pdf. They need to be printed on different printers - the letter-sized one on a regular office printer, the label on - imagine this - a label printer.

Ideally, I'd like this all to happen automatically, but from what I've found researching this, content can't be printed without the user clicking "ok" in a printer dialogue. That's ok, but I want to avoid making users choose the correct printer for each document every time they do this. The potential for choosing the wrong printer when switching back and forth like that is just too great, and will result in the wrong document being printed on the wrong printer, probably often enough to be annoying.

So, what I'd like to do: have a setting in a user's account preferences where they can designate both their regular printer, and their label printer. Then, when the docs are generated, have the print dialogue automatically pop up WITH THE PROPER PRINTER SELECTED so all they have to do is click ok.

Is this doable? Can anyone suggest a technique??

Thanks...

Report · Apr 13, 2009

You cant do this with CF. CF is a server-side language, and thus has no idea what printers are installed on the client machine. Depending on how your application is setup, and whether the printers in question are installed on the server as well, might allow you to come up with something, but your proposed solution is not going to work.