php at mailinator dot com (2009-02-19 07:17:04)
If you want to print to a network printer on another machine:
If you are running PHP on a web server that is running as the System user (quite likely), it won't have access to network resources, including network printers. Changing the web server service to run as an account with access to network printers fixes the issue.
extremesanity (2007-05-30 13:35:50)
I have gotten very reliable printing using this set of functions coupled with Windows 2000, IIS, the PECL extension, and the php_printer.dll.
Basically I have a linux web server that sends a request to the windows 2000 IIS web server (acting as the role of print server) sending the information to be printed in the query string.
I use this primarily for printing barcoded labels, where the barcode itself is a barcode font found on the web.
I got terrible reliability out of all versions of apache running on windows 2000 and xp.
mdwyer at timestreamtech dot com (2007-01-24 15:06:10)
I was able to print nice looking reports (under unix) by sending out formatted text out through 'enscript'. The various configuration options on enscript took care of fonts and headers etc. The result was a postscript file which I just sent to the server's local printer.
One could also pipe it through a PS to PDF filter and send it back to the user, I suppose.
For another job, I learned how to write postscript and just wrote directly to postscript files. Learning how to write postscript is probably only marginally harder than learning how to use this API, and is probably more portable.
arne dot briesenick at soxabo dot de (2004-09-28 07:42:08)
Printing in UN*X is possible too:
<?php
function lpr($STR,$PRN) {
$prn=(isset($PRN) && strlen($PRN))?"$PRN":C_DEFAULTPRN ;
$CMDLINE="lpr -P $prn ";
$pipe=popen("$CMDLINE" , 'w' );
if (!$pipe) {print "pipe failed."; return ""; }
fputs($pipe,$STR);
pclose($pipe);
} // lpr()
?>
You pipe the stream/string/char/sign whatever to the system. In the example shown above you have to add at least the string for printing in the function call. The second arg is a printer name which if you don't set will be set to the C_DEFAULTPRN. This is a constant definition from an ini file.
Hope this will help to save a lot of time ;-)
jason at matteson dot com (2004-03-11 15:01:08)
You can print in XP. AND, you can print to a shared printer with XP. The drivers for the printer MUST be installed on ther server as well as on the computer you wish to print with. Also, the printer must be shared on the client computer.
I am using a Zebra LP2844 Thermal Barcode Printer in my application. I am running XP Pro,Apache 1.3.27, PHP 4.3+.
Here is a function I use in our churches checkin system. I use this to print directly to our printer with out having to use any Javascript.
First, i give the function the name of the shared printer.
Second, I get the client computers host name. You could use just REMOTE_ADDR too I suppose.
Then I return a correctly formatted Windows path to the shared printer for the
function getPrinter($SharedPrinterName) {
global $REMOTE_ADDR;
$host = getHostByAddr($REMOTE_ADDR);
return "\\\\".$host."\\".$SharedPrinterName;
}
$handle = printer_open(getPrinter("Eltron"));
So, as long as you KNOW the computers are suppose to have a shared printer called "Eltron", you're all set to start sending info to the printer with the other Printer functions.
-j
macagomez at yahoo dot com (2003-07-27 14:35:39)
Please notice that what is printed is NOT measured in pixels, it is measured in pronter's dots.
Apply to fonts, coordinates and bit maps.
jwlash at acm dot org (2003-02-19 23:40:35)
I have noticed the for unix based systems you can also do this:
system("lp $filename")
:)
bertATnerdstockDOTorg (2003-01-20 16:22:11)
If you want to address the printer from your PHP-application in a Un*x environment:
This is possible if you use a different method.
In Unix it would not be logical to address your printer directly from php, but you could for instance generate a PDF-file with PDFlib (or a textfile, or a PNG/JPEG image with GD or what have you) and write it from your php-script to a directory that you use as a "printer-outbox."
Next, you write a shellscript that calls some unix tool to print all pdf or other documents in your "outbox" directory and then deletes all files in that directory.
Then you use crontab to run this script every minute or as often as you think it's neccessary.
You could of course also call the shellscript from your php-application with exec() but you'll probably want to avoid using exec() and the like for security reasons.