Direct Printer
On the direct printers page, you can define a list of printers for your users.
Printers, in general, can have a wide variety of features and settings. Some of them are considered standard features for a Windows printer. These features are specified for each direct printer definition.
Printer selection
Printers defined as direct printers and can be used like any other printer in Business Central. They will show up in the printer list on a report request page and you can use them in the standard printer selection page.
Printer properties
When you define a direct printer, you can specify the following generic settings.
Direct printer name
It is up to you what you want to call the direct printer. The direct printer name is the name the user will see in the list of printers on a report request page.
Note
It is best practice to name the direct printer different from the local printer. In older on-premises environments it can cause confusion if the printer names overlap and the local printers are connected directly to the NST.
Queue jobs
When using service-print the jobs are always stored in the print queue. From here they are picked up by the service and sent to the local printer.
It is different for client-print. The default operation for a client-print is that the print job is sent to the client as a download file with the .fornavprint extension. However, the queue can be used to collect multiple print jobs for client-print. Jobs are queued with the initial on-hold status, so that the print service does not pick the up.
You should select this option if are configuring a printer for service print or a printer used for collecting multiple jobs for client-print.
Print multiple reports with client-print
Local printer name
The local printer name is the name of the Windows printer on the computer where it is connected. For printers connected directly to the machine, it can be the printer's name. If the printer is a network printer, then the local printer name is usually a UNC path to the printer in the form \\\\computer-name\\shared-printer-name.
Local printer names can be looked up if the printer is connected to a service. The service updates a table in Business Central with the available printer names. For client-print the lookup does not show the available printers. Client-print is a one-way communication, so the client-print program cannot send the printer names to Business Central.
Default printer
There is a reserved local printer name called DEFAULT. When you specify DEFAULT as the local printer name, it will print to the printer marked as the default printer for the user on the printing machine. This is useful for client-print and not so useful for service-print because of the user context.
Description
Optional description to help you maintain the list of direct printers.
Paper kind
You can choose the printer's paper size from a list of predefined paper kinds.
Unit, width, and height
These values can be used in case you cannot find a matching paper kind. You must set the paper kind to Custom if you want to define your own.
Choose the same unit of measure as your printer properties so that you can set the exact size of your paper. Some printers will ignore jobs that do not have the exact size.
Color
Some color printer support a feature where you can enable or disable color printing.
Landscape
Force the printer to print in landscape or portrait mode.
Simplex and Duplex
Selecting Duplex will make the printer print on both sides of the paper it is supported.
Copies
Set the number of copies you want to print with this printer.
Paper source or tray
Windows supports a list of standard trays for a printer. Examples are upper bin, lower bin, and automatic feed. The list is long. Some printers support these standardized names, but others do not.
You can choose to use a printer-specific tray name if your printer does not support the standard ones. If you are using service-print, the service will scan each printer for tray information and send it to Business Central so that you can select the printer-specific tray from a list.
Note
It will only use the selected printer specific tray if the paper source kind is set to printer specific.
Scaling
The scaling setting can be used to adjust the paper size to fit the printer. Print jobs can be scaled according to the table below.
| Setting | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Actual size | The printed document is not scaled. If the printed document is larger than the paper in the printer, then the output is cut at the edge of the paper. |
| Fit | The output is scaled to fit the paper size in the printer. |
| Custom scale | This is used in combination with the scale field to apply a custom scaling. The scale field set a percentage by which the scaling is done. |
Hidden
A direct printer can be marked as hidden. When a printer is marked hidden it will now show up in the list of printers on report request page.
Hidden printers can still be used from AL-code.
This feature is also used for entries in the direct printer table that represents Powershell handlers. These are not actual printers and should be left out of the list of printers that the user can see.
Initial job status
Normally, a new print job in the queue should be marked as ready. This will make the print service download and print the document. However, there can be exceptions to this general behavior. If you are using client-print and you need to print multiple documents in one action, then you add new jobs with the status on-hold. These jobs are picked up at a later stage.
Dual use
It is possible to have many direct printers point to the same local printer. This is useful if you want to have different properties set for print jobs. One example is two direct printers that print to different paper trays on the same printer.