Printing many files together

[Michael Sweet]

cups at coutiere.com wrote:
> Hi,
> I quite often need to print many files on a shared printer.
> As a consequence, my files are printed among others', which is a mess.
> 
> Question: how to print many files in 1 job?
> There is the "PrintFiles" command, which is supposed to create 1 job with many files, but it has 2 drawbacks:
> - files must be managed by 1 application (which will send the PrintFiles command)
> - it creates a long network peak when sending all the files (instead of small peaks when sending each file one after the other).
> 
> A print can also be suspended.
> 
> So why not create a system where a PC would:
> - send many "PrintLater(file)" commands, which would put the files on the printer's server, ready to be printed
> - send a "flush" command where all its files would be printed in a row.
> 
> Does this already exist?

Essentially, yes.  The Create-Job and Send-Document operations allow
you to send multiple files separately, and this is in fact what the
cupsPrintFiles API does.  You can space your Send-Document requests
out to minimize bandwidth, however the job will start automatically
after 60 seconds of inactivity (after which time you will not be able
to add additional files to that job...)

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Michael Sweet, Easy Software Products           mike at easysw dot com
Internet Printing and Document Software          http://www.easysw.com