Overview

Naming convention

Paper formats and trays

Presettings on the server (administrators only)

Compression range

SpeedCache

User policies

Page Setup

Advanced

Compression level

Settings in a desktop session

Printing with preview

Finishing options

Open my printing preferences

Changing Output Gateway print dialogue’s language

PostScript version of ThinPrint Output Gateway

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Overview

TP 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 is required on the machine on which the applications run, this print method is called Driver Free Printing. In this sense, of course, “Driver Free” only refers to the remote desktop.

The user interface of Output Gateway is available in 16 languages (see below).

With Driver Free Printing, print data is sent from the terminal server to the client machine in Windows’ own EMF data format – bandwidth controlled, compressed, streamed, and, if desired, encrypted. 

Naming convention

You can treat the printer objects based on TP Output Gateway like any other printer object. To use it instead of a native (conventional) printer driver, it must usually be renamed according to the ThinPrint naming conventions. Output Gateway is either used as a template for AutoConnect, or is renamed for targeting a specific printer.

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 using ThinPrint as manufacturer. The printers are to be con­nected to a ThinPrint Port.

Paper formats and trays

After initial installation, 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).

There are the following alternatives to do this:

• For printers created by AutoConnect: Automatic upload of printer properties from the ThinPrint Client to the server
• For manually created printers: Setting Registry values for paper formats and sources on the server

Presettings on the server (admins only)

The following settings can be configured in the server’s printers folder for all tem­plates using TP Output Gateway as their printer driver (e. g. _#ThinPrint Output Gate­way); as such they affect all printers using these templates during a remote desktop session.

• Select for example File→ Properties→ Device Setup for _#ThinPrint Output Gateway in the server's printers folder.

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 remote desktop users.

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

User policies

The User restrictions group 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).

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 if print jobs are to be sent without a pop-up menu to the printer (Print directly). Alternatively a Print preview or the native printer driver's user interface (Open my printing prefer­ences) can appear on a workstation. Both options allow the user to access all other printer specific settings.

Page adjustment offers options for the default procedure if the printable area of the document and of 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 for printer templates.

You can use the option Print as image to solve layout problems. Because of print performance please follow the steps described in the Solving font problems guide first.

Compression level

In the Compression tab, the default level of compression for users can be set. The number of shown levels depends on the configured compression range.

The template settings will be shown as default options in a remote desktop session. Users can change them within their sessions.

Settings in a desktop session

The following properties of the printers installed on the client machine can be sent from the client to the server via AutoConnect:

• Color/grayscale
• Paper sources
• Print on both sides (duplex/simplex)
• Finishing options such as staple, punch, binding
• Print resolution
• Paper size
• Comments and location

In a remote desktop session the users can change some printer settings in the printer prop­erties dialogue before printing (except comments and location). The following set­tings can be edited in the Page Setup tab: paper size, Print quality, Paper source, Color, Orientation and Print on both sides.

Display of paper sources in a native driver’s user interface (left) and in the Output Gateway interface (right)

 

Printing with preview

Once the users have enabled the print preview the print job will appear in the ThinPrint viewer; this requires that the print jobs are sent to a Windows workstation. Here the users can:

• Print to any printer that is connected to the client computer or can be reached from it
• Navigate in documents with more than one page
• Zoom
• Cancel print job reception
• Save print job (file extension: .tpf for compressed EMF data)

Print mode, scaling and margin adjustment as well as Print as image in a ses­sion

 

ThinPrint preview on the client computer (water mark = demo license key active)

When printing with preview, the print options appear in the remote desktop session in the Output Gateway design. Once the client machine receives the print job, the print job is displayed in a preview window. The print options now appear in the design of the native printer driver.

Finishing options

If your printer supports finishing options, you can find them in the similarly named tab. Requirement: The printer must support Print Tickets from Microsoft. Download ThinPrint 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.

Here you can set, for example, where staples should be located on the printout, where bindings should be set or hole punches made. Here you can also set how many pages per sheet should be printed, and in which order.

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 user interface. On 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.

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 on the remote desktop (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

PostScript version of ThinPrint Output Gateway

With ThinPrint Client Mac/Linux the properties of native printer drivers can be trans­ferred from Mac or Linux machines to the mapped printers in a Remote Desktop ses­sion. On this, you can find the following row in the Dynamic Printer Matrix:

TPPS!ThinPort:

 Dynamic Printer Matrix: the line for the creation of the Mac/Linux printers

Legend:

Column W applies to Windows clients

Column A applies to Mac OS X clients

Column L applies to Linux clients

Column J applies to Java clients

Column T applies to Thin clients

Column x applies to other clients

Column T applies only for the TCP/IP protocol

Column R applies only for the RDP protocol

Column I applies only for the ICA protocol

Column P applies only for the PCoIP protocol

TPPS the PostScript driver TP Output Gateway PS

! separator

ThinPort: name of the ThinPrint Port with which the session printers are to be connected (one line is needed per ThinPrint Port)

The PostScript driver TP Output Gateway PS (see TPPS in the Target Printer col­umn) enables AutoConnect to transfer the driver properties from the Mac or Linux machine to the session printers.

session printer with TP Output Gateway PS as driver (example)