Overview

Naming convention

Paper formats and trays

Presettings on the print server (administrators only)

Compression range

SpeedCache

ThinShare

User policies

Page Setup

Advanced

Finishing

Compression level

Settings in a desktop session

Finishing

Printing with preview

Open my printing preferences

Changing Output Gateway print dialogue’s language

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Overview

ThinPrint Output Gateway is a virtual printer driver (see the Model column) that makes it possible to render print data on a remote machine (workstation or print server) using the native printer driver which is installed there. Because no other printer driver besides the Output Gateway is required on a remote desktop or workstation, this print method is called Driver Free Printing. In this sense, of course, “Driver Free” only refers to the remote desktop. See also V-Layer.

Note! ThinPrint Output Gateway will only function with ThinPrint Clients installed on machines with a Windows operating system; exception: V-Layer. Relevant printer drivers must be installed on these machines.

With Driver Free Printing, print data is sent from the remote desktop or workstation to the central print server and sent from there to the client machine in Windows’ own EMF data format. From the print server to the client machine, it is also bandwidth controlled, compressed and streamed, and, if desired, encrypted.

Naming convention

You can treat the printer objects based on TP Output Gateway like any other printer object. Output Gateway printer objects can be created:

• Manually (using Add Printer in the Printers folder or in Print Management) or
• Using AutoConnect or
• Using ThinPrint Management Services

If printer objects are created manually, they’ll show only the default printer proper­ties. When creating printer queues bear in mind the ThinPrint naming conventions.

Example: Addressing the printer directly (TCP/IP printing)

Client:

Server:

Output Gateway printer objects can be created manually with the Add Printer func­tion in printers folder or in Print Management using ThinPrint as the manufacturer. The printers are to be connected to a ThinPrint Port.

Paper formats and trays

After adding an Output Gateway printer, a few default options are available for paper formats and paper sources (= selection of paper trays or manual feed). You can add further options – provided they are supported by the printer drivers on the client machine(s).

To do so, the following alternatives are available:

• For printers created by AutoConnect or Management Services: Automatic upload of printer properties from the ThinPrint Client to the server (see ThinPrint Engine on remote desktops or ThinPrint Management Services)
• For manually created printers: Set the Windows registry values for paper formats and sources on the server
• For V-Layer printer pairs (V-Layer)

Presettings on the print server (admins only)

The following settings can be configured in the server’s printers folder or Print Man­agement for all shared printer objects which use TP Output Gateway as their driver; as such they affect all printers which will be connected to a user session on a remote desktop or workstation (= desktop session).

• Select for example File→ Properties→ Device Setup for an Output Gateway object in the server's printers folder or Print Management.

Compression range

There are five options available for print data compression:

At this point you can set the range of compression levels that the users will be able to set. Select, for example, High image quality, and the level Lossless compression is no longer available to users. The default compression level itself is set in the tab Advanced→ Printing Defaults → Compression.

 

SpeedCache

Additionally the option SpeedCache  can be enabled or disabled for users of a desktop session. A ThinPrint Client v8.6 or later is required.

SpeedCache makes printing even faster and more efficient. It checks every print job, for whether it replicates graphic elements (such as logos) and, if so, sends them once only. Thereby, the volume of server/client communication is cut down, without creating additional processor load.

SpeedCache is not available for V-Layer printers – so even if chosen, it won't have any effect when using them.

ThinShare

See ThinShare.

User policies

The User restrictions group (see above) offers the options Gray scale only for presetting gray-scale printing and Always print on both sides for printing on both sides. As a result, the respective options will be grayed out for users in their sessions (see the arrows pointing to the options Color and None – for print on both sides – in following screenshot).

Page Setup

Select the Page Setup tab in Advanced→ Printing Defaults to change paper and color presettings; e. g., Letter or A4 as paper size. Additionally you can select from the following settings for double-sided printing: Long edge or Short edge (= turn over edge).

Advanced

In the Advanced tab you can preset for print jobs to be sent to the printer without a pop-up menu (Print directly). Alternatively, either a Print preview or the native printer driver’s user interface (Open my printing preferences) can appear on a Windows workstation; both options allow the user to access all other printer specific settings. With V-Layers only Print directly is possible.

Page adjustment offers options to alter the default settings if the printable area of the document and the printer driver's paper format don't match. The option Scale to fit changes the size of the printout, Adjust margins moves the print area. It is recommended to leave both settings enabled.

You can use the option Print as image to solve layout problems. To maintain print quality, please follow the steps described in Solving Font Problems.

Finishing

Which Finishing options are visible in the Output Gateway user interface depends, firstly on the printer driver being used, and secondly, on which version of the file TPPrintTicket.dll is present. This file provides the finishing options of specific native printer drivers in the Output Gateway GUI, and is located on the central print server in C:\Program Files\Common Files\ThinPrint

• The current version of TPPrintTicket.dll can be downloaded here: thinprint.com/en/support/software/clientsandtools
• After updating the TPPrintTicket.dll, re-create the relevant V-Layer printer objects. To do so:
  • either – using the V-Layer component – disable the relevant V-Layers, then re-enable them (V-Layer)
  • or – using the Management Services – remove the relevant V-Layer pairs, then re-create them
  • or – with Driver Free Printer mode using the Management Services – remove the relevant Output Gateway printers, then re-create them

If one of your printers has finishing options that are not available in the Output Gate­way user interface, please use the Finishing Detector to send this information to ThinPrint or Cortado (requirement: The printer must support Print Tickets from Microsoft. Download the Finish­ing Detector from ThinPrint Clients and Tools to find out which finishing options are supported by your printer models. Install this tool on the machine where the printer drivers are installed.).

Compression level

In the Compression tab, you can set the default level of compression for users. The number of levels shown depends on the configured compression range (see above).

The settings will be the default options in a desktop ses­sion. Users can change them within the sessions (see below).

Settings in a desktop session

Assuming the Output Gateway printer objects have been created using the V-Layer component of ThinPrint Engine (V-Layer) or by using Management Services on the print server, the following properties of native drivers can be displayed in the Output Gateway user interface:

• color/grayscale
• paper sources
• print on both sides (duplex/simplex)
• finishing options such as staple, punch, binding
• print resolution
• paper size
• comment and location

In their desktop session the users can change these printer settings (except comment and location):

• either in their printers folder or Print Management – in which case the changes will apply to all applications of this session
• or within an application in the printer properties dialogue before printing – in this case they apply only to this application

The following settings can be edited in the Page Setup tab: paper size, print quality, paper source, color, orientation and print on both sides.

Finishing

If a printer supports finishing options, the users can find them in the Finishing tab. Here they can set, for example, where staples should be located on the printout, where bindings should be set or hole punches made. They can also deter­mine here how many pages should be printed per sheet, and in which order they are printed.

Printing with preview

For printer objects that use Output Gateway as their driver, users can select a Print preview (lower arrow in following illustration). In that case the print job will appear in the Thin­Print viewer this requires that the print jobs are sent to a Windows work­station, where the jobs are rendered using the native driver (and not with V-Layer). Here the users can:

• print to any printer that is connected to the client computer or can be reached from it
• navigate through documents with more than one page
• zoom
• cancel print job reception
• save print job (file extension: .tpf for compressed EMF data)

When printing with preview in a desktop session, the print options can be opened in the Output Gateway interface before printing. Once the client machine has received it, the print job is displayed in a preview window. The print options can then be opened in the interface of the native printer driver.

Open my printing preferences

If there is a printer function which is not supported by the Output Gateway’s user interface the users can use the native driver's own interface. To do this, they select Open my printing preferences. This also requires that the print jobs are sent to a Windows workstation, on which the jobs are rendered using the native driver (and not with V-Layer).

Changing Output Gateway print dialogue’s language

The Output Gateway print dialog is displayed for the users in the lan­guage that was chosen during the installation of the ThinPrint Engine (English, German, Spanish or French). This is set using the Windows reg­istry value:

hkey_local_machine\software\ThinPrint\Lang

With Windows multi-language packs this print dialog can be displayed in the display language of the respective user. To do so, the registry value Lang is to be changed from enu, deu, fra or esn to def. This single setting is sufficient if, for instance, each remote desktop user is to be shown the Output Gateway print dialogue in the same language as her or his Windows desktop.

If, however, individual users are to be assigned a different language, the following value must be set – within the sessions – to one of the Language abbreviations in the table below:

hkey_current_user\software\ThinPrint\Lang