How do I define a default print queue - not connected to a printer

[Cathy Wilbur]

How do I define a default print queue - not connected to a printer.

On unix, instead of defining everyone's printer to the system (we have in excess of 500+ users) I only want to define one default queue for end users. It will just be a unix queue (dummy print queue) but not physically connected to a printer. We are having our end user clients just view the output via PDF or by CSV then save it in PDF or CSV format. If they click to a printer it will not go anywhere except to our dummy unix queue.

We will be clearing our print jobs from the PrintQueue using R9861101. We will use a cron job to clear jobs from the dummy print queue.

Does anyone see a problem with this setup. It seems to be working well. Need to know if anyone can think of anything I have overlooked.

 

[brother_of_karamazov]

You don't even need to create a real OS queue if you don't want to. I call my default queue \\null\null and, as you may guess, neither a printserver named 'null' nor a printer named 'null' actually exists.

Works like a charm and the printer maintenance (toner, paper, etc.) is pretty cheap to boot.

 

[Cathy Wilbur]

Very funny...(just kidding).

How did you define it as null/null? Don't you have to force the reports to a specific printer queue. If I specify null/null then can I still use job R98861101 to remove jobs from the PrintQueue?

 

[brother_of_karamazov]

First we need to seperate the term 'queues' into OS queue and E1 queue. I did not define an OS queue at all. I defined an E1 printer called \\null\null.

I suppose after the UBE processes E1 goes looking for \\null\null but I have seen no ill effects to having this happen. I imagine that the kernel just times out looking for the non-existant server.

As for cleanup, the R98861101 does two things:

1- Deletes the PDF in the printqueue directory
2- Removes the database record in svm7334.f986110

So, there should not be a problem on Unix doing it this way since nothing actually goes to a defined OS queue.

 

[michel]

On Windows you define a printer share on a server within the same network that prints to NUL. It's almost as \\null\null, but it avoid's error messages within jde.log about a printer not found.

 

[Bernadette Bonny]

We went live with the same set up for printing that you described and the users hate it. They want us to eliminate all of the extra steps to print. What's the easiest way to have users pick print immediate and have the output go to an actual printer? We're on E1 8.10 Homebuilder

 

[Suni]

Bernadette, did you ever get a resolution to this? It is something that we'd like to do as well, but I haven't looked into how it would be done. Do you have a concise solution?

Thanks!!