Re: Printing on a local printer

Now, depending what you interpret 'local' as, I could be way off on this. I've been watching this thread all day, and was surprised that no-one has suggested the following. Assuming that 'local' means local to the server:

    A shell script that dumps a postscript format to a the printer.

Assuming that 'local' means another machine:

     Share the printer on the machine, and send a postscript format to that printer.

You could even go as far as writing a program on the other machine that listens on a socket, checks the source of the connection, and then prints the data it receives to the printer. Just my take on the problem. Sincerely, Mike At 06:19 PM 12/23/00, you wrote:

Hmmm, you guys are making it sound more difficult than it sounds..... I am freelancer and made the ordering software for a small E-commerce site.. (www.perfectbody.nl) In the above example the problem was that when an order was made COD (cash on delivery) there needs to be printed 3 papers. The first is the shipping paper, which must be done on a matrix printer because it has 4 layes paper with carbon paper in between. The second is the paper which the post-man takes with him to pay the sender of the package The last is the bill that the receiver gets from the company.. Because the shipping paper is on a chain, it is necessary to print very exactly.. There are two approaches: 1 is to create a HTML document which should be printed by hand.. Nice thing about this is that you can print this from any machine without any aditional software. The other option which is far better, is to generate a PDF file. I used this approach.. For each paper we have a seperate printer. Because there were some old 486 machines laying around I used one for every printer. (This was easier and cheaper time-wise than installing and fiddling with an extra printer ports for one machine.) The PDF's are generated and when an order is made the 3 machines start processing there jobs and prints all papers.. The nice thing about PDF's is that they can be stored away easily in an database to exactly get an copy of all papers when problems arrive. Only problem with the above setup, is that it's a bit spooky because when someone else in the world places an order the printers start to print an order no-one knows about or has ever seen.. :-) This also creates an problem when some joker places 1000 fake orders.. :-) Well, the PDF generation can be done with PDFlib of ClibPDF.. The printing can be done with ghostscipt.. PDFlib is compiled into PHP, it shouldn't be hard to ask an administrator to do this.. You need access to the printer port, if you can get this, you will probably also have the possibilities to install such a package if needed.. Nice thing when generating PDF's, is that you can also enbed barcode fonts.. With this you can give the client a barcode number when he makes his orders which is then also printed on the shipment papers.. Well, hope this helps.. Bye Bye I _have_ to use the pre-printed forms so I can't generate a "browser version" and simply let the user print it. I'm on Linux and can't install pdflib or use Adobe software. Because I am in a controlled environment I could use JS. Any examples? Thanks for all your help! Simon.

-----Original Message----- From: Cynic [mailto:cynic@mail.cz] Sent: zaterdag 23 december 2000 18:15 To: James Moore; Kraa de Simon; Kraa de Simon; Php-General (E-mail) Subject: RE: [PHP] Printing on a local printer He needed to print out some forms, and IIRC it was in a controled environment, so javascript shouldn't really be a problem. BUT, if he can produce images (create image of a form? eh, ugly), he can produce PDF documents, as well. IF his server is win32 based, and IF either of the two PDF libs can't be used on that platform, he would have to resort to spending one hell of a budget on Adobe Distiller or what it's called, and create the documents in that through COM. But this discussion isn't leading nowhere, because we don't know what system's he running, whether he can use / buy the Adobe software, etc... At 18:10 23.12. 2000, James Moore wrote the following: --------------------------------------------------------------

Well then we are into dcom.. it requires the user to have to

correct com

objects and also you probably to be running a win 2k server

then use com to

create the word document.. let the user download it (maybe

its even possible

with com to force this to happen) and load it into their

version of word but

I really doubt this is possible.. I can see so many security

things in there

that I dont think you could do it like that.. maybe creating

an image is an

option then using javascript print() (which 99% of the time in 99% of browsers is disabled for obvious reasons) the other option

is Java appelets

or somesuch but thats the best I can come up with.. its not

easy as it can

be used malicously I would be in favour of creating a nice

HTML page and

makeing the user choose file->print from their menu.. thats

what we normally

do in shoppingcart systems with orders and loose the

horrible pre printed

orderforms. James

-----Original Message----- From: Cynic [mailto:cynic@mail.cz] Sent: 23 December 2000 17:01 To: James Moore; Kraa de Simon; Kraa de Simon; Php-General (E-mail) Subject: RE: [PHP] Printing on a local printer James, this is nice, but the guy was looking for a way to CREATE PDF documents WITHOUT pdf_* functions. PLUS he wanted to print them on the client, not the server, and I hesitate to assume it's gonna be one machine. At 17:59 23.12. 2000, James Moore wrote the following: --------------------------------------------------------------

If itsa all running on a local computer then you might also want

to look at

COM in PHP to open up your acrobat doc and print it out.. Its

very possible

but I wouldnt want to be the person doing it as your going to be

using a lot

of code that hasnt been used thourghly so might run into

the odd querk..

rember to report any you find but somthing like <?php // Get Data Here... $pi = pdf_open(...); // Create PDF here using PDF_* functions // save PDF $ai = new COM(application.acrobat); $ai.open(pdf file); $ai.print(); $ai.close(pdf file); ?> That would print on the server computer.. you would need dcom

etc otherwise

and Im totally unfamiliar with that but hopefully that

will give you a

pointer in the right direction (PS all my functions are probably

wrong and

are just there to give psudo code). James -- James Moore PHP Quality Assurance Team jmoore@php.net

-----Original Message----- From: Cynic [mailto:cynic@mail.cz] Sent: 23 December 2000 15:58 To: Kraa de Simon; Kraa de Simon; Php-General (E-mail) Subject: RE: [PHP] Printing on a local printer No, you cannot.[*] You need a software that will _create_ the PDF's. You wouldn't be able to use mysql_* functions in PHP if MySQL client wasn't compiled into PHP. When you want to create PDF documents from within PHP, you need a software that will do it, and compile PHP with support for that software. You can either use PDFLib or CLibPDF. * You could probably create PDF documents from within PHP _without_ either of these _provided_ you: 1) were on windows, 2) had software from Adobe capable of creating PDF files (not Acrobat Reader - it's called Reader for a reason) 3) that software had COM interface But I'm not sure about this, so don't cite me. :) At 16:43 23.12. 2000, Kraa de Simon wrote the following: --------------------------------------------------------------

But I can use the pdf_* functions _without_ installing

additional products

like pdflib? When I use pdf_open() is a new PDF file opened in Acrobat or something??? Huh???

-----Original Message----- From: Cynic [mailto:cynic@mail.cz] Sent: zaterdag 23 december 2000 16:38 To: Kraa de Simon; Php-General (E-mail) Subject: Re: [PHP] Printing on a local printer I reckon your hair will turn white on this, unless you use PDFLib (or the other one) to generate the files. And it might even then. At 16:22 23.12. 2000, Kraa de Simon wrote the following:

--------------------------------------------------------------

Hi, A customer wants data from an html form printed on

a local printer.

We are talking about pre-printed forms; so only data like

name, address,

price must be send to the printer. How could/should I handle this using PHP? I can't think of anything else of displaying the fields on

the screen in the

right positions and use browser capabilities to

print the screen?

But than I'm sure I will have problems with offset/layout of

the fields and

I don't like this solution. Any advice/help will be appreciated! Simon. -- PHP General Mailing List (http://www.php.net/) To unsubscribe, e-mail:

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