Printing in background from a cloud web application

[Michael Macliver]

Has anyone used a good cost effective solution to do this? We have investigated a few products, but nothing so far has been suitable.

We need to be able to print to a clients local printer in the background, i.e. without any user interaction, from a web application running on a cloud server. Google Cloud Print used to do this well, but it is now defunct. Think of a Point Of Sale application where you want to print a docket on every transaction. As long as you know the details of the destination printer, you just want the print job to go there. BTW we’re not in control of the printer, or what type and brand it is etc. That’s the clients domain.

[Russell McDougall]

Create pdf to folder+ have separate timer based program poling for pdf to print.
= printer independent. Disadvantage is ensuring polling problem is running.

[Michael Macliver]

Hi Russell,

It's not the act of creating a print job that's the problem. It's knowing where to send it and how to send it, so it ends up on the clients's local printer. How do you send a pdf to someones printer unless you have some special printer management software that both their end and your cloud server end can communicate with? That's what Google Cloud Print did very neatly.

p.s. Good to hear from you. I hope all is going well in NZ.

[starzen]

in that case i would have a VPN between the clients local network and the cloud network.

then you can simply print to any printer on the network.

[Michael Macliver]

Hi Michael, unfortately VPN's is not going to be a practicle solution. With many clients and load balanced web servers, it's not really an option.

[starzen]

why not. doesnt matter how many web servers or print servers or remote offices there are

we use Meraki MX devices in each hub and the cloud is running in azure. all connected via vpn to allow printing from any place to any remote office

[Michael Macliver]

Okay, I'll have another look, but I think the amount of admin on our side will be a problem.