1 Topic by jackel7007 (edited by jackel7007 06/08/2009 11:37:06 am)

  • From: Netherlands
  • Registered: 04/28/2009
  • Posts: 80

Topic: Printing in Frontaccounting

The first piece of text is a little help to others, my actual question is just below the ******** line

I was going to test, and see if the printing profiles works fine.
To do this, I added 3 different CUPS printers (which print to a directory PDF under your home folder).
If you are trying something like it, keep in mind you have to manually create the PDF folder (in capitals) under your home folder. If it's not there, it just doesn't work.

Now I was going to see if I can understand the different settings in FA which can be granted to a printer.

I tried some settings and I was about to findout what works and what doesn't.

*******************************************************************
The last thing I / we need to find out are the different printer settings.
When you add a printer you can add the following paramters:

Printer Name:     (this is obvious the printer name)
Printer Description:     (this is a random discription?)
Host name or IP:     (for a networkprinter it's IP adres, but where do i find host names?)
Port:     (the port of the printer)
Printer Queue:     (the name of the que? but where do i find this)
Timeout:     (a timeoutsetting in seconds? what should do as a good default, 30?)

  • Registered: 12/25/2007
  • Posts: 2,448

Re: Printing in Frontaccounting

Printer Name - is short printer identifier

Printer Description - longer description for users (e.g. printer location or type of printer - color, fast laser etc).

Host name or IP - this is printer (local or inet) IP or printserver name. This can be localhost (when print server is on the same computer as FA server), or any site  name as known by related DNS or bind service.

Port   - printer daemon listening port. Currently the only supported protocol is lpd, and default port for this service is usually 515.

Printer Queue - printer queue name (see man lpd).

Timeout timeout on network connection to printer server in seconds. default is 20.

To list your printer queue on linux you can issue: lpq -a command. Printer name is displayed in the form: queue_name@local_name.

If you wish to use cups server you should enable lpd sevice in it. See cups documentation how to set it.

Janusz

  • From: Netherlands
  • Registered: 04/28/2009
  • Posts: 80

Re: Printing in Frontaccounting

itronics wrote:

Printer Name - is short printer identifier

If you wish to use cups server you should enable lpd sevice in it. See cups documentation how to set it.

Janusz

I found out that if you want to enable the lpd service, you should navigate to your etc file and open the inetd.conf file which is found there.

In this (possible empty) file add the follwing lines:

printer stream tcp nowait lp /usr/lib/cups/daemon/cups-lpd cups-lpd \
        -o document-format=application/octet-stream


Now LPD should be enabled, but I can't get it to work yet.

  • Registered: 12/25/2007
  • Posts: 2,448

Re: Printing in Frontaccounting

I think you should first check if lpr command works at all on your computer locally, and next  configure network printer services. I don't know what distribution do you have, but certainly some rpm or deb package should be installed together with cups-common to enable emulation of BSD print services. On Debian it is cup-bsd package.

Janusz

5 Reply by jackel7007 (edited by jackel7007 06/08/2009 07:42:03 am)

  • From: Netherlands
  • Registered: 04/28/2009
  • Posts: 80

Re: Printing in Frontaccounting

i'm using ubuntu.
I now have tried to install a cupsPDF on the server,
and I add a localhost printer on my workstation.

I have used port 631 (cups port) as well as 515 port.
I used PDF (name of my printer) as que line also tried the printer uri: cups-pdf:/
All of the possible combinations not working.
but i keep working on it.

lpr command works, so far i don't get an error in my terminal.
further lpr just sits there.

I have now also installed a cupsPDF printer on my FA server.
And I use this info in FA on my client station:

printername:printer
ip: localhost
port: 631
que: printer/PDF (so it is described in CUPS)

Update:
I have now installed a real printer on my client.
I also shared the printer and installed it on the server.
I can print on both machine's until i try FA.

In FA i use the following settings:

Naam printer:     Canon
Beschrijving printer:     Pixma 3000
Naam of IP-adres van host:  192.168.1.177(ip adres of client whereto printer is connected)
Poort:     631
Afdrukwachtrij:     /printers/C/ (c is the name of the printer)
Time-out:     60


FA says it prints, but still nothing.

ps. I also found the printerque field a bit to short, my standard printer name was like printers/canon-pixma-3000- and that didn't fit since the field can max contain 20 char.

  • From: Netherlands
  • Registered: 04/28/2009
  • Posts: 80

Re: Printing in Frontaccounting

So,

I want to install a network printer now..
But doesn't work again.

The printer itself isn't installed on the server.
Which I think isn't necessarily because FA contacts the printer directly.

So the following info I used:

Name: HP
Description: hp color 2840
IP 192.168.0.9 (the printer IP)
port: 515
Que: raw,auto,text,"empty" none seems to work.
Time-out: 60

What am I doing wrong?
(I check that LPD is turned on on the printer itself, and when adding the printer in ubuntu as LPD printer using the IP and raw for que, then i can print)

  • tom
  • Senior Member
  • Offline
  • From: USA, FL, Tampa
  • Registered: 03/24/2009
  • Posts: 326

Re: Printing in Frontaccounting

Dumb Question time...

Since all printing is performed at a user's request, what is the advantage of using a network printer over the browser's printer settings?
(Yikes I said ALL, maybe I am making a wrong assumption!)

tom

tom's Website

  • From: Netherlands
  • Registered: 04/28/2009
  • Posts: 80

Re: Printing in Frontaccounting

Well tom I can answer you that, since i'm all into finding out printing now.

Frontaccounting has a very nice support for printing profiles, which means you can add like more than 1 printer.
Now you can select a standard printer for a type of report.
For example, you can select the printer at the checkout for sales orders.

So you could also choose to print inventory reports @ the storage area.

This can't be done by using the browser's printer.