Printing Program

[gscheaffer]

Hi my name is Gary. I have been searching the web all week now and can't find what i am looking for. I want to create a program that will display certian lines from what is printing on an LED screen as it is printing. The reason for the program is that I run with a local fire dept. and we get print outs of the calls we are getting dispatched to. The problem is, is that it only prints out at one printer and there might not be anyone around when it prints. So if I we could get it to say "PRINTER" and or the nature of the call on the led screens we could place them all over the fire house.

[Merrion]

Interesting challenge...does the printing go through a windows print queue?
(i.e. is the printer attached to a PC and you can see the documents in the printer spool queue)

[gscheaffer]

The printer is connected to the pc. Our communications has created a program that will auto detect if there is a call put into the system and print it without user inter-action. The only screen you will see pop up is the status of the printer.

[gscheaffer]

Would any of these codes work for what i'm trying to do? I am very new at this and im learning as i go. I already came to conclusions that this will be a long process.


http://www.codeproject.com/KB/printi...select=3072593

[Merrion]

That'd be the component I'd use ;-) although I'd recommend you get the latest version from the CodePlex project

What you need to do (if possible) is set the printer to "Keep printed documents" then as soon as the print job is printed (a JobWritten event where PrintJob.Printed = True) you need to parse the spool file for that print job, extract the stuff you need and send it around your LCD screens.

As it is a safety critical system you are going to need to set up a development/test rig that is not your production machine.

[gscheaffer]

That'd be the component I'd use ;-) although I'd recommend you get the latest version from the CodePlex project

What you need to do (if possible) is set the printer to "Keep printed documents" then as soon as the print job is printed (a JobWritten event where PrintJob.Printed = True) you need to parse the spool file for that print job, extract the stuff you need and send it around your LCD screens.

As it is a safety critical system you are going to need to set up a development/test rig that is not your production machine.

The only fall back to that is when it prints out theres no other window that opens up. it somehow goes through the program they have created and prints it out.

[Merrion]

Shouldn't matter - if the spool window (where you see the print job list) can see it the component can see it...

[gscheaffer]

The thing is, is that its so fast at printing that i dont even have time to look at the job list.