Select the print mode
Driver Free Printing
With Driver Free Printing, the print jobs are rendered with the printer drivers installed on the local print servers (or workstations); thus, no (native) printer drivers, except the TP Output Gateway, have to be installed on either the computers initiating the printing (for example, RD Session Hosts or virtual desktops) or on the central print servers.
In regard to the pathway of the print data, Driver Free Printing is limited to pure Windows environments; orange line or steps (5) and (6). This does not apply to the terminals or workstation computers whose ThinPrint Clients exclusively control printer mapping; green line or step (3).
Data traffic of printer information (1), (2), remote desktop session (3), (4) and print jobs (5), (6)
- To activate Driver Free Printing in the Edit Printers menu of a Connection:
- Select the printer by activating its Deploy checkbox.
- Select Normal as Printer Type.
- Select TP Output Gateway as Driver and an Output Gateway template as Normal Template (e. g., _Template_TP Output Gateway).
- Click OK to confirm.
Activating Driver Free Printing
V-Layer
If the target printers in the branch offices are not installed on a Windows computer or the printer driver are to be centralized, the V-Layer can be used instead of Driver Free Printing. Here, two printer objects per target will be installed. The Management Center remotely performs both the creation of printers and their ports and the connection of the pair of printer objects (with native drivers and TP Output Gateway).
- To activate the V-Layer in the Edit Printers menu of a Connection:
- Select the printer by activating its Deploy checkbox.
- Enable the V-Layer option as Printer Type.
- Select a native driver as Driver and – if necessary – a native template as Normal Template (e. g., _Template_Kyocera FS-C8100DN)
- Select an Output Gateway template as V-Layer Template – if necessary.
- Click OK to confirm.
Activating V-Layer
Please note with V-Layer and Native Printing: If the Install Driver option is deactivated in the Driver Pool (see the section Printer drivers), then the Management Center does not install any drivers on a central print server during printer installation; these must already be installed there. If the function is activated, then it installs the required drivers together with the printers if they are not already installed.
For finishing options, see the section Updating Output Gateway, V-Layer and Print Tickets.
Native Printing
If only native printer drivers are used, we are talking about Native Printing. The Management Center installs the printers with native drivers remotely on central print servers if necessary. Printer preferences are set up at the templates.
If, instead, the print jobs are initiated from non-Windows servers (for example, Unix, SAP R/3, or System i), it makes no difference which drivers you install on the central print servers since the print jobs arrive there already rendered.
Note! For Native Printing you should install all relevant printer drivers on RD Session Hosts or virtual desktops manually. Otherwise Windows tries to draw the printer drivers not yet installed to the RD Session Hosts or virtual desktops automatically during printer mapping. This fails if users have not the necessary permissions.
If printer drivers are incompatible with one another, this can lead to problems when printing – problems as serious as system instabilities. Therefore, use only drivers which have been signed by Microsoft.
- To activate Native Printing in the Edit Printers menu of a Connection:
- Select the printer by activating its Deploy checkbox.
- Select Normal as Printer Type.
- Select a native driver as Driver and – if necessary – a native template as Normal Template (e. g., _Template_HP Color LaserJet 4700).
- Click OK to confirm.
Activating Native Printing
Preset the print mode
For each printer driver the Management Center saves the selected print mode (see above) in its SQL database. By default, the Management Center applies this information to all newly identified printers with the same driver name automatically (option Assign best printer driver automatically).
This presetting can be changed. Select the option Prefer TP Output Gateway (if you want to use Driver Free Printing) or the option Enable V-Layer as the default print mode for newly identified printers.
Default printer configuration