Setting printing options with Envisionware public printing software

Envisionware Print Release Screen

For public user printing the organization I work for uses Envisionware LPTONE print management software.  This is run on a physical machine that is connected to both a wired and wireless network to enable laptop printing.  The issue that came up recently is the need for double sided printing, now on the client the driver doesn't really allow for double sided printing it is a very basic just print driver.  Typically we had set this up to be black and white single sided usually called Black and White Printer.  However we now want to start offering these options to our uses so to resolve the issue I decided to make multiple network printers on the print release station.  As you see below on the left are the Envisionware virtual printers and to the right are the print drivers for the virtual printers.

Envisionware Printer Setup

Now the software is running on Windows 7 Pro, which has a limit of 20 Device Connections at a time.  When I added 4 different versions of the driver I had the virtual printers randomly dropping connections (not showing up) to the clients;  this appeared to be a result of virtual device connections.  

https://www.envisionware.com/lptone/

I had to remove the Windows Fax, and a PDF printer which were installed on the computer, it appears that Envisionware LPT One doubles the number of printers with virtual printer connections, so if we need to add any more printers we need to upgrade our print release station to windows server as it appears we have reached the Windows 7 device connection limit.

Each printer must be setup with a different print driver below is an example of the colour double sided print driver settings.

Colour and Paper Settings

Print Server Driver

Each printer is setup similar but a little bit differently as I have listed below with the changes, I have 1 HP printer which is a non-duplexing black and white printing unit which is used for the single sided printing but this could easily be changed to the Toshiba Printer which is setup for all the rest of the Envisionware Virtual Printers.  Below is a basic setup of the Windows Print Driver settings.

• Black and White Single Sided - No 2 Sided Printing, Black and White Print Setting
• Black and White Double Sided - 2 Sided Printing, Black and White Print Setting
• Colour Double Sided - 2 Sided Printing, Colour Print Setting
• Colour Single Sided - No 2 Sided Printing, Colour Print Setting

With all the Drivers setup the Envisionware print administrator shows what printer is assigned the the release station in this case I have 1 HP and 3 Toshiba Printers created by the differentially named print drivers, and I have them assigned to the Print Release Station called ADRELEASE-V4.

ADRELEASE-V4

Black And White Double Sided

We can now edit the configuration of the printer by double clicking on the print driver under the family configuration.  You get a dialog as shown below.

Envisionware Print Configuration

Double clicking on the printer brings up the Family Information "The Client Settings" this is where you specify costs, per sheet or cost per page and if the print driver assigned for the print family is setup for duplex printing.  To enable the duplex printer you change the duplex setting from none to vertical or horizontal binding.  If you want "book style" type printing you select vertical.  Then you can decided how you want to charge for your printing.  If you want to charge for each side of the print keep adjust price for duplex printing unchecked.  However if you want a price per age the enable the checkbox and it will do costing per piece of paper rather then printed side.

Envisionware Print Settings for Clients

That is basiclly it in a nutshell, the print client is pretty clear when they go to print and I have the the single sided black and white printer assigned as the default printer for all clients but that can be changed in the Printer Family Information settings as show above.