• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Accounting Office Printing Strategy

R

rip

Senior member
I'm building a nice i7 system for an accountant. He's got an E6600 system now and a fairly decent HP lazer printer (I forget which one) though he complains about the computer slowing down while printing a long report or tax return.
I need to find the best solution for printing while simultaneously working in multiple apps/windows.
Post your suggestions here and thanks in advance.
Dana
 
Rip, I believe econ was exactly right.

On a large printjob, until your computer can hand off all its data to the memory on the printer, your printer will have to baby sit the printer while printing. It would be infinitely worse with an inkjet, Lasers print fast, and inkjets print far slower.

Two ways around the problem.

1. Add Laser printer memory.

2. Chop the print job into smaller hunks.

And because Laser printer memory is now cheap, the former option is easiest and cheap.

Or another option might be to network in another very cheap computer, hand the print job off to the cheap computer while the speed demon computer is free to handle all other demands.

You can buy older dells with pentium 4's and 512 MB memory for $125.00 with an XP OS included, network it with a crossover cable and ICS, and get some backup redundancy in the bargain if you ever encounter a failure from your main computer.
 
Last edited:
Lemon law said:
Rip, I believe econ was exactly right.

On a large printjob, until your computer can hand off all its data to the memory on the printer, your printer will have to baby sit the printer while printing. It would be infinitely worse with an inkjet, Lasers print fast, and inkjets print far slower.

Two ways around the problem.

1. Add Laser printer memory.

2. Chop the print job into smaller hunks.

And because Laser printer memory is now cheap, the former option is easiest and cheap.

Or another option might be to network in another very cheap computer, hand the print job off to the cheap computer while the speed demon computer is free to handle all other demands.

You can buy older dells with pentium 4's and 512 MB memory for $125.00 with an XP OS included, network it with a crossover cable and ICS, and get some backup redundancy in the bargain if you ever encounter a failure from your main computer.
Click to expand...

Sounds interesting; not sure I understand the crossover idea though - as opposed to just connecting to the network thru the router. 2nd comp runs the same software then you have to copy the data/working file over then print? Sorry for being dumb, I haven't ever done anything like that yet. thanks,
Dana
 
Rip, a router would work equally well and maybe better, but I am a cheapskate, and in an only two computer network, you could save the cost of a router by using windows ICS.

But once you have a network, you can share the printer, and for long print jobs, its probably best to hook the printer to the slow computer.
 
Lemon law said:
Rip, a router would work equally well and maybe better, but I am a cheapskate, and in an only two computer network, you could save the cost of a router by using windows ICS.

But once you have a network, you can share the printer, and for long print jobs, its probably best to hook the printer to the slow computer.
Click to expand...

10/4
This is gonna be fun. I just love to spend other peoples money! 🙂
 
your best bet is just to install a network printer. brother makes some cheap, fast, and good laser network printers that have small bloatfree drivers. any printer that has an ethernet (network) interface should work for you
 
While adding printer memory is a good idea to help the printer handle large and complex jobs, it won't necessarily free up the person's computer any faster. Depending on the model of printer, it may become apparent when spooling multiple large print jobs, that the printer is forcing the computer to spool one job at a time.

In this case, it may be very useful to print to a server, rather than directly to the printer. This allows the user's computer to be freed up immediately after the job is printed. The jobs are held in queue by the print server, and individually spooled to the printer as the printer becomes ready for each job. Meanwhile, the user is free to reboot, shut down, disconnect from the network, etc... without affecting the print jobs that are being processed. Additionally, multiple large print jobs can be "load balanced" across several printers, allowing for a faster overall completion than if only one printer is used.

Below is a link to a free linux-based print server called CUPS which is included as part of the eBox platform. However, there are many other solutions out there that can serve the same purpose. An old spare computer should serve nicely as a server, and provide any office printing numerous large documents (law offices, accounting offices... etc) with a noticeable improvement in productivity.

Good luck!

http://www.cups.org/
http://www.ebox-platform.com/
http://www.howtoforge.com/running-a-file-and-print-server-with-ebox-on-ubuntu8.04-server
 
Last edited:
gsaldivar said:
While adding printer memory is a good idea to help the printer handle large and complex jobs, it won't necessarily free up the person's computer any faster. Depending on the model of printer, it may become apparent when spooling multiple large print jobs, that the printer is forcing the computer to spool one job at a time.

In this case, it may be very useful to print to a server, rather than directly to the printer. This allows the user's computer to be freed up immediately after the job is printed. The jobs are held in queue by the print server, and individually spooled to the printer as the printer becomes ready for each job. Meanwhile, the user is free to reboot, shut down, disconnect from the network, etc... without affecting the print jobs that are being processed. Additionally, multiple large print jobs can be "load balanced" across several printers, allowing for a faster overall completion than if only one printer is used.

Below is a link to a free linux-based print server called CUPS which is included as part of the eBox platform. However, there are many other solutions out there that can serve the same purpose. An old spare computer should serve nicely as a server, and provide any office printing numerous large documents (law offices, accounting offices... etc) with a noticeable improvement in productivity.

Good luck!

http://www.cups.org/
http://www.ebox-platform.com/
http://www.howtoforge.com/running-a-file-and-print-server-with-ebox-on-ubuntu8.04-server
Click to expand...

Excellent post; thanks so much
How does the Windows machine recognize the Linux print server as a printer?
 
rip said:
Excellent post; thanks so much
How does the Windows machine recognize the Linux print server as a printer?
Click to expand...

The last link above, gives a good walk-through of the process. Here is another link to the eBox manual which shows the process in their interface:

http://doc.ebox-platform.com/en/printers.html

Once you configure the server to the printer, the server itself appears on the network as a shared (Samba) printer. Then you can simply add it to Windows as you normally would (Printer Control Panel), mount the Samba share, and print. Permissions (if needed) are managed through the Users & Groups on the server side, and can be managed through eBox's unified interface if you desire (Samba and CUPS will both use the same Users & Groups).

From the user's perspective: all print jobs will appear to spool instantly across the network, leaving the user's print queue empty. This will happen regardless of the number of print jobs waiting in the actual queue (on the server), and the user is free to do other work without being slowed down by print job spooling activity. Also, once the print jobs are spooled, the user is free to reboot, disconnect, etc. without affecting the print job (even if the print job hasn't started yet!).

The CUPS interface on the server provides the admin with the ability to cancel, pause, reprint jobs, and provides a running account of all jobs processed by the server, by user, by printer, etc.

http://doc.ebox-platform.com/en/printers.html

figure_2_cups.png


Good luck!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top