You can make printers hosted by Tru64 UNIX servers on which the ASU software is installed available to Windows users as printer shares.
Windows users can browse the network for printer shares and configure their Windows systems to use a printer share by using the Add Printer Wizard. Once configured, the printer that is associated with the printer share appears as a transparent extension to a user's local computing environment. For example, using an application such as Microsoft Word, users can print directly to the printer share, which forwards the jobs to the printer.
This chapter discusses the following topics:
See the ASU
Installation and Administration Guide
for information on creating ASU printer
shares.
5.1 Planning Your Printing Operations
You should ensure that network print operations are efficient and cost-effective. Among the decisions that you need to make include the following:
Which printers to use
Which computers to provide ASU printer shares
How to configure printer shares for maximum use
Choosing print devices includes selecting from among devices that are designed specifically for network use. These devices offer options such as automatic port and emulation switching, dual paper bins, and double-sided printing. Before deciding on your network printers, consider the following questions:
Do you need a few high-volume print devices or several less expensive personal print devices?
High-volume printers generally have more features but affect many more users if they break down.
How many pages do you expect to print?
You probably will experience fewer maintenance problems if you match printing volume with a printer's duty cycle (the number of pages that it can print per month).
Which types of graphics support do you need?
The combination of Windows NT and TrueType technology makes it possible to print sophisticated graphics and fonts on most printers, even those that normally support only bitmaps and text. TrueType fonts are integrated with the operating environment so that every Windows NT application can use them without changes or upgrades. If you intend to print many graphs, charts, or halftone photographs, consider a printer that supports 600 dpi or greater.
How important is printing speed?
Print devices can be attached to the network through serial or parallel ports on computers or directly attached to the network using built-in local area network (LAN) cards. Printers directly attached to the network usually provide faster throughput than parallel and serial buses. However, print throughput rates also depend on network traffic, the network interface card (NIC), the protocol, and the type of print device.
5.1.2 Choosing Computers to Be Print Servers
On a network of any size, you probably will concentrate your printer installations at a few servers. A computer acting as a print server can act as a file server or database server at the same time. File operations have insignificant impact on printers that are attached directly to the server.
A dedicated print server may be desirable if a server is required to manage many frequently-used printers. The decision to combine print and file servers may depend on security concerns. While printers always should be available to those persons using them, you may want to restrict physical access to file servers by keeping them in secured rooms.
No special hardware requirements exist for print servers except that
they have appropriate printers (output ports) for parallel or serial print
devices.
Managing a large number of printers or many large documents requires
an adequate amount of memory.
The ASU server can control many network-interface
printers, depending on the server's processing capability, the amount of installed
memory, and the size and number of documents typically sent to the print server.
To maintain high server throughput levels, increase memory as you add print
devices.
Disk space requirements are minimal except in cases where large or
numerous documents are likely to accumulate.
5.1.3 Planning How Users Access Printer Shares
Before creating a printer share, you need to be aware of ASU configuration options that can improve the flexibility and efficiency of network printing. With ASU, it is not necessary to have a one-to-one relationship between a printer share and a print devices. By associating printer shares and print devices in different ways, you can offer users flexibility in their printing operations. For example, you can configure the following:
A single printer share to single print device.
Multiple printer shares to a single print device.
The capability to assign more than one printer share to a print device gives users flexibility in printing documents. For example, two printer shares that are associated with a single print device can offer different print properties: one may print separator pages and the other may not. Or, one printer share might hold documents and print them at night, while another processes documents 24 hours per day.
A single printer share to multiple identical print devices (printing pool).
There are no limit on the number of printers in a pool. Whichever print device is idle receives the next document. This configuration maximizes use of print devices while minimizing the amount of time users must wait for documents.
All devices in the pool are the same hardware model and act as a single unit. Print share property settings apply to the whole pool. Printer ports can be of the same type or mixed (parallel, serial, and network).
Different hardware platforms and operating systems require different printer drivers. For example, to use a printer share created on an ASU server, a client running Windows NT on an Alpha computer requires the appropriate Alpha printer driver for that printer.
Printer drivers can be installed locally or can be provided by the ASU server. The ASU server stores printer drivers for Windows 95, Alpha, Power PC, MIPS, and x86-based clients in a disk share called PRINT$. The printer drivers are then available for clients to automatically download.
The ASU server determines whether incoming print requests are Alpha, Power PC, MIPS, or x86-based and automatically sends the appropriate driver to the client.
You must install the printer drivers on clients that are running Windows NT Version 3.1, 3.5, 3.51, or 4.0.
See the ASU Installation and Administration Guide for information on installing printer drivers.
Table 5-1 identifies settings that you can try for an unsupported print device. If your print device is not in this table, contact the manufacturer to determine if drivers are available.
Table 5-1: Unsupported Print Devices
For | Use |
HPPCL (LaserJet) compatible | Hewlett-Packard LaserJet Plus |
Color PostScript | QMS-ColorScript |
35-font Plus font set or superset | Apple LaserWriter® Plus |
9-pin dot matrix IBM compatible | IBM Proprinter |
9-pin dot matrix Epson® compatible | Epson FX-80 for narrow or FX-100 for wide carriage |
24-pin dot matrix IBM 24-pin compatible | IBM Proprinter X24 |
24-pin dot matrix Epson LQ compatible | Epson LQ-1500 |
The following sections describes printer share properties.
5.2.1 Separator Page
The ASU server prints a separator page or banner automatically before each print job. You can alter the default banner page and create one more appropriate to your needs.
You use the
net print
command to set or change a
separator page.
See the ASU
Installation and Administration Guide
and the
net help
command for more information on
net
commands.
5.2.2 Using a Print Processor Script
A print processor script can send print jobs directly to a file or terminal
instead of to a printer, or to a remote Tru64 UNIX system using the
uucp
command, or to another Tru64 UNIX system process, such
as
troff
or
nroff
.
When you create a print processor script, you must share a queue that uses it to allow users to access it. Users access this queue as they would any other print queue. To avoid affecting service to other users, execute scripts in the background. Table 5-2 describes the environment variables that you can use in print processor scripts.
Table 5-2: Print Processor Script Environment Variables
Variable | Description |
$CLIENT | The computer name from which the job was sent. |
$COPIES | The number of copies to be printed (1 and above). |
$PRIO | The Tru64 UNIX system
lpr
priority
of the print job (1 to 39). |
$DEST | The Tru64 UNIX system
lpr
printer
class (server queue) to which the job was sent.
|
$FILENAME | The full path name of the file to be processed. |
Follow these steps to create a print processor script:
Use a text editor to create a shell script and save it in
the
lanman/customs
directory.
Make the script executable by using the
chmod +x
command.
Use the
net print /PROCESSOR:pathname
command to configure the printer share to use the
print processor script.
See the ASU
Installation and Administration Guide
and the
net help
command for more information on
net
commands.
5.2.3 Scheduling and Spooling Settings
One way to maximize use of print devices is to stagger printing times. For example, if printer traffic is heavy during the day, you can postpone printing of less important documents by routing them through a printer share that prints only during off-hours. When you specify printing times, the print spooler accepts documents at any time but it does not print to the destination print device until the designated start time. At the stop printing time, the spooler stops sending documents to the print device and saves any documents remaining until it is scheduled to start printing again.
Table 5-3
describes the scheduling and spooling
options that you set by using the Scheduling tab of the Properties sheet for
a printer or
net
commands.
Table 5-3: Scheduling Options
Option | Description | net Command |
Available | Defines when the printer is available. |
|
Priority | Sets up a varied priority print queue based on document priority. |
(1 is the highest and 9 the lowest) |
Start printing after last page is spooled | Prevents delays when the print server prints pages faster than clients can provide them. (Default cannot be changed.) | No equivalent
net
command |
See the ASU
Installation and Administration Guide
and the
net help
command for more information on
net
commands.
5.2.4 Controlling Access to Printer Shares
To control printer usage, set permissions for each printer share.
By
default, all of the shared printers that you create are available to all network
users.
To restrict access to a shared printer queue you must change its permission
settings for a domain user account or group.
Table 5-4
describes the permissions that you can set on printer shares.
To change permissions
on a printer share, you must be the owner of the printer or have been granted
FullControl permission.
Table 5-4: Printer Share Permissions
Permission | Allows |
No Access | No printing to the printer share |
Printing to the printer share |
|
Manage Documents | Setting controls for documents and pausing, resuming, restarting, and deleting documents |
Full Control | Print and Manage Documents permissions and:
By default, Administrators, Print Operators, and Server Operators have Full Control permissions. |
Although permissions are cumulative, the No Access permission overrides
all other permissions.
5.2.5 Auditing Printer Shares
You can audit a printer share to track its usage. For a particular printer, you can specify the actions to audit for domain user accounts and groups. You can audit both successful and failed actions. The ASU server stores the information generated from auditing in a log file that you can view by using the Event Viewer. See Chapter 6 for more information about the Event Viewer.
To audit a printer share, you can enable the spooler event logging and use the User Manager for Domains to set the audit policy.
Table 5-5
describes the printer share events that
you can audit.
Table 5-5: Printer Share Audit Options
Option | Audits |
Printing documents |
|
Full Control |
|
Delete |
Deleting a printer share |
Change Permissions |
Changing printer share permissions |
Take Ownership |
Taking ownership |
Any user with FullControl permission can define a new form by using the server's Properties Forms property sheet. For example, you could create a form called Customer Receipt Form that uses letter-size paper and nonstandard margins. You also can create multiple forms with the same paper size or margins (or both) to meet specific user needs. For example, you can create forms that have unique names but the same paper size and image area (margins) to identify different departmental letterheads.
New form definitions are added to the print server's database and are
stored per controller, not per printer.
You assign forms to a specific print
device and tray by using the printer's Properties Settings property sheet.
5.2.7 Setting Device-Specific Properties
Device-specific printer properties describe the physical configuration of a print device, such as which paper trays are loaded and how much memory a device has. These properties vary from device to device. When you create a printer share, default settings are used. Although default settings work for many printing needs, some special printing options, such as those available with PostScript printer drivers, require specific settings.
The following sections describe device-specific properties.
To view
or change device-specific properties select the printer icon in the Printers
folder, select Properties on the Printer menu, and select the printer's Properties
Device Settings tab.
5.2.7.1 Setting Printer Memory
Because page printers must store an entire page in memory, they require
relatively large amounts of memory.
If you are using a page printer, such
as a laser printer, make sure that the amount of memory available in the device
matches the value shown in the Device Settings tab.
If the print device has
substantially more or less memory than what is shown in the Device Settings
tab, print throughput may suffer.
5.2.7.2 Using Print Forms
The ASU server uses a form-based printing model rather than a tray-based printing model. Under a form-based model, the Print Server administrator configures the ASU server by defining the form loaded in each paper source (tray). The form is defined using the following criteria:
Size
Printer area margins
Form name
Using Windows based applications running on a Windows NT based computer, each user can select a desired print form. This frees the user from having to know which tray contains which form. The ASU server interprets tray and form assignment data and sends instructions to the print device to select the correct tray.
Windows based applications can use different forms within a document.
For example, you can use Envelope for the first page, Letterhead for the
second page, and Letter for the third and following pages.
5.2.7.3 Choosing Font Types
Fonts are collections of characters and symbols that have a specific design and resolution. Print devices use three types of fonts:
Device fonts reside in the hardware of your print device. They can be built into the print device or can be provided by a font cartridge or font card.
Screen fonts are Windows NT fonts (including TrueType) that can be translated for output to the print device. To install screen fonts on your Windows NT computer, use the Fonts option in the Control Panel folder.
Downloadable soft fonts are installed using the Device Settings tab of the printer's Properties sheet. Clients that use soft fonts and that print to ASU printer shares should install soft fonts locally.
The ASU server supports three types of screen fonts that can be reproduced on printers:
TrueType fonts are device-independent fonts that can be reproduced on all print devices. TrueType fonts are stored as outlines and can be scaled and rotated. To be reproduced on a print device, fonts only need to be present on the computer originating the document. The greatest benefit of using TrueType fonts in a networking environment is their portability; documents with TrueType fonts are independent of any print device, application, or system.
Raster fonts are stored as bitmaps and are device-dependent. If a print device does not support raster fonts, it will not print them. Raster fonts cannot be scaled or rotated.
Vector fonts are useful for devices such as pen plotters that cannot reproduce bitmaps. They can be scaled to any size or aspect ratio.
For each document, the client computer downloads required screen and soft fonts to the ASU server, which then sends them to the print device. To improve printing times, use device fonts which already are present at the print device.
Not all devices can use all three types of printer fonts.
Pen plotters,
for example, normally cannot use downloaded soft fonts or print raster screen
fonts.
5.2.8 Setting Document Defaults
It is easy to confuse device-specific settings with document properties. Document properties do not rely on a device's physical settings. When applications create a new document, they often ask the printer for the default document settings.
Table 5-6
lists typical device-specific
and document properties.
Table 5-6: Typical Settings
Device-Specific Properties | Document Properties |
Color | Number of copies |
Resolution | Page orientation |
Memory | Two-sided printing |
Font cartridge name | Collate copies |
Form location | Form |
Plotter pen |
To view Document Properties for a printer share, open the Printers folder, select the printer, and then select Document Defaults on the File menu.
Note
Document properties that are set from an application always override document defaults set in the printer's property sheets. However, if an application does not set a document property (such as page orientation or paper size), the print device defaults to the document properties that were set in the printer's Document Properties sheets.