Print to multiple printers?

  • Thread starter Thread starter lydgate
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lydgate

I'm looking for something free that will allow me to hit print from
any program, and print to several different printers simultaneously.
Anyone know whether this is possible by some option in windows, or if
there is any free program that can do this?

Any help is appreciated.
 
I'm looking for something free that will allow me to hit print from
any program, and print to several different printers simultaneously.
Anyone know whether this is possible by some option in windows, or if
there is any free program that can do this?
Click to expand...

That depends of the method of 'multiple printing' you want to do:

1) Every printer shall print *the same* output simultan. You can use
MultiPrinter Port from AND Technologies, which works flawlessly:

http://www.andtechnologies.com/mpp.html

Be aware that you only can link printers speaking the same language.
Another important thing to notice: You have to install a second copy
of one printer driver. (The printer on which you print will *not* get
any output over the driver which you link with MultiPrinter. - Even
when you include this driver in the MultiPrinter list. [Loopback!])

Besides: It's a nice method to save all print jobs to a file (in
addition to printing them), when you add for every printer a second
'MultiPrinter' which saves the data to the file.

2) A print job shall be *divided* into pieces; and each shall be printed
to separate printers.
Sorry! I don't know a free tool doing right this. Maybe you Google
a bit with the name of the shareware 'Print Distributor', which is
said to be able to split print jobs. (But I don't know for sure...)

Normally, such programs like FinePrint (also not free) should be
first in supporting such functions. But they *don't*. So either its
far more difficult to achieve, than one would think. Or it is not
asked for, often enough...

Best wishes for your further searches (if MultiPrinter is not the tool
you want)!

BeAr
 
I'm looking for something free that will allow me to hit print from
any program, and print to several different printers simultaneously.
Anyone know whether this is possible by some option in windows, or if
there is any free program that can do this?
Click to expand...

A Windows print queue can choose from a pool of several identical
printers round-robin style, but it still only chooses one printer each
time. If you set up a printer pool and printed the same document
multiple times (rather than using copy counts) you could keep several
printers busy without constantly switching printers manually, but
there's no guarantee that each printer would receive a copy.

If you need a smoother solution or you need to print to several
separate locations "Intelliscribe" does what you want, but it's not
free. You might be able to write a .VBS script to keep choosing
different printers and reprinting, but it wouldn't work with all
programs. Try asking in the Microsoft printing newsgroup for your OS:
<<<<<--
Mark R. Blain, (e-mail address removed)
(change .INVALID to .NET to reply)
 
B. R. 'BeAr' Ederson said:
On 12 Oct 2004 14:57:46 -0700, lydgate wrote: snip
1) Every printer shall print *the same* output simultan. You can use
MultiPrinter Port from AND Technologies, which works flawlessly:
Click to expand...
snip

This is exactly what I wanted. Thanks very much.
 
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