Print Using a Windows Driver

Printing Using a Windows Driver output tasks are used to send jobs to a local or network printer without going through a PlanetPress Suite printer queue. Since the printer driver itself is not necessarily postscript, we cannot optimize the print file, so using a Windows Driver Output will always generate a larger and slower print job. However, this output can work with non-postscript printers such as HP PCL printers.

The Print Using a Windows Driver output task requires a PlanetPress Production or PlanetPress Office license, otherwise this plugin will cause a watermark.

This type of output task does not support PDF transparency and duotone features, so you should not use it with PlanetPress Design documents that use those features.

Input

This task can accept either a data file with a correct Emulation, which is then merged to a PlanetPress Design document, or a PDF file which is to be printed natively.

Processing

Either the data file is merged with the document if one is selected, or the PDF File is printed natively through the PlanetPress Printer driver (which prints the same as if one were to open the PDF in a PDF reader and print it).

Task Properties

General Tab

Printer queue: Select the queues to which you want to send the output. Note that this is a variable property box, so you can use various schemes to use printer queue names that change with each job at runtime.
Properties: Click to change the current printer queue properties. Note that PlanetPress Workflow generate the job file and hands it over with the available print options to the Windows print driver, which takes the relay for the actual printing part, so there is no way for your PlanetPress Suite Worflow Tool to ensure that all the settings you make will be applied to the printed document.
Job name: Enter the job’s file name. By default, the variable %f (Job File Name) is used. You may use a different variable, but you may not use a data selection. This information may be used for the printer’s banner page.
Job owner name: Enter the job owner name. You may use a PlanetPress Workflow variable.

This option is not functional when natively printing PDFs (without a document).

Documents: Select a specific PlanetPress Design document if you want all the jobs to be printed with that document.
- Natively print PDF file: This special option can be used if your job file is a PDF. The job will .
Add job information to the document: Select to prompt your PlanetPress Workflow to add the available job information elements in the header of the file that will be sent to the selected printer queues.

Metadata

If no metadata file is found, the from/to page settings from the job and the printer's properties from the task configuration are used, with the job's settings overriding those of the printer where applicable.If a metadata file is found, it is used to indicate which pages are printed and in which order. Any other metadata is ignored.

Known issue: If a data file with metadata is resubmitted to such a process, the from/to page values set by the user in the Resubmit interface are ignored.

On Error Tab

By default, any action task, branch, splitter or condition that generates an error will simply be ignored, and the task just under it (not within a branch) will be given control of the job file without any modification. Any initial input task that generates an error will stop the process from running as a whole, and output tasks will not generate output. The On Error tab can be used to overwrite the default behaviors.

Send to Process: Check this option to send the job file to an error management process.
Error Process drop-down: Enabled only when the Send to Process option is checked. Lists any process of which the initial input task is the Input Error Bin task.
Action Group: This group is disabled in the initial input tasks and defaults to Stop Process. In all other tasks where the On Error tab is present, the following options are available:
- Ignore: The task is ignored as if it did not exist, and the job file is passed on to the next task in the process.
- Stop Branch: If the task is in a branch of the process, the branch is stopped and the job file is returned to the process after the branch. The branch will not produce any output.
- Stop Process: The process is stopped and no more processing is done. No further output is produced.
Log Message: Check this option to enable logging a custom error message in the PlanetPress Suite Workflow Tools' log file.
Message: Enabled only when the Log Message option is checked. Enter a message that will be logged in the PlanetPress Suite Workflow Tools' log file. You can use any variables available in PlanetPress Workflow to customize the message.
Store the message in variable: Select in which jobinfo, local or global variable you want to store the message content.
ID: Enter an error ID. This ID will be visible in the Windows Event Viewer. However, the ID is not visible in the PlanetPress Suite Workflow Tools' log file.
Store the ID in variable: Select in which jobinfo, local or global variable you want to store the error ID.
Reset to defaults: Resets all options in this tab to their default values.

If storing the message or ID, if they are store in a jobinfo they will be available in any error handling process where errors are being forwarded. In all cases, if your process continues after the error, the contents of the variables selected in this window will be available for the rest of your process, or whenever they are overwritten.

Common Errors

Though some error messages are specific to a task in particular, others may apply to any and all tasks because they are related more to the system than to PlanetPress itself. Some examples would be W3813, W3830, W3991, W4005. These correspond to issues such as not having any space to write files, permission errors on folders or files, etc.

Comments Tab

The Comments tab, added in PlanetPress Suite 7.5, is common to all tasks. It contains a single text area (Task comments) that lets you write comments about the task. These comments are saved when the dialog is closed with the OK button, and are displayed in The Task Comments Pane.