kprint

[garym]

I hope someone can tell me what I am doing wrong here. I have two order taking nodes on my counter. One node has 2 printers in the sandwich kitchen and one node has a printer for the pizza kitchen. Both nodes are networked and all three printers are shared over the network. I am sure that both nodes recognize the three printers as I can print any to any printer from either node from POS Pizza. I cannot get POS Pizza to print pizzas to the pizza printer and sandwiches to the sandwich printers. I downloaded kprint to both nodes and I have modified the the shortcut so I can run "kprint1" and "kprint2" from the nodes. They both appear in the task bar. I ran kprint configure and set up my printers from the list. When I boot up the machines I start POS pizza on both nodes, start up kprint 1 and kprint 2 on both nodes. When I take an order that has both pizza and sandwiches it ALL prints to whatever printer is set up on that machine. I am not sure what else to try. Do I need to change something in the management utility in POS Pizza? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you again.

[robertson.12]

Go Into the Manage portion of "POS PIZZA" program and then to "Master Items" then to each item. There you will see "Print To Console", change this number to the printer where you want the ticket to priint. This has to be done for each item that you want to print.

EXAMPLE

For Pizza items to be sent to kprint1 you must set "Print To Console" from none to 1.

For sandwiches to be sent to kprint2 you must change the "Print To Console" from none to 2.

This setting is on the first page of each master item.

HAd the same problem.

[Scott]

Kprint should only be run on 1 machine and will serve all of the others on the network. Here is an example of a setup

For the sake of this setup, console 1 will be the Pizza Line, and 2 the sandwich line...

Order Station 1:
Pizza Line Printer Attached (Not Shared!)
Receipt Printer Attached (Shared)
KPrint loads with NO command argument since this computer is servicing the Pizza Line (#1) and KPrint defaults to console 1 if no command arguments are passed.


Order Station 2:
Sandwich Line Printer Attached (Not Shared)
Receipt Printer from Station 1 added in Control Pannel through network.
KPrint loads with a space 2 added to the end of its commandline by editing its shortcut. It prints to the attached printer on this computer.

The printers used by KPrint and OCPOM *DO NOT* need to be shared via the network. They only need to have their drivers visible to KPrint or OCPOM on the local machine. These modules will in-turn read the make-line data from the POS and print it to the printer regardless of which station created the order. Sharing these printers only confuses the situation.

Also the kitchen printers should *NEVER* be referenced in the Local Config settings in the Management Utility. Printer settings in this section of the prgram refer to "Receipt" printing and not make-line printing.

If you follow the above example and also set your master items as robertson.12 said, all should work for you.

Just remember that the kitchen printing sub-system is completely different than the receipt printing system. This is an area of common confusion and can lead to frustration if you don't realize this.

Scott

[garym]

Okay, I already had the master items part done. I went through and double checked all the items and they all had the right console number assigned to them. I ran kprint 1 on console 1 and kprint 2 on console 2. I Turned off sharing for the line printers. I went to the local config and "turned off" the line printers in the printer definitions area. I ran kprint config from console 1 and set up both consoles. When I put an order in the system that had both pizza and sandwiches nothing but the receipt printer printed and that had all the items on it. The only other thing I can think of is that when I networked our new machines I moved all of the pos pizza folders and files to c:\users\admin\public folder. When I downloaded the kprint module I did target that folder for the download and all the kprint files are in that folder. Sily question. Do I need to download the kprint module to each machine? The way I have it now when I run kprint 2 from the second machine it is through may mapped network drive. I must be missing something obvious. Thanks again for the help.

[Scott]

You are correct in running it from the mapped drive. You should also run the KPrint configuration from each computer. For #2, run the config program and verify that you have the proper printer set on the #2 tab page and then save.

Run the config from #1 and do the same thing except verify the #1 tab page, and then save. You will not see #2's computer from #1 or vice-versa. You should also be able to print test pages from both of these printers via the control panel in Windows.

Scott

[garym]

Okay, I ran kprint configure from each of the two consoles from the mapped drive and set up only the printers that are physically hooked to that machine. When I did this on console 2 I could not see what I had set up from 1 and vice versa. The items are still set right. Printers are not shared except for receipt printer. The printers are turned off in local config. There are only a couple of things that I am not sure of. First I can "see" all the printers in control panel BUT I CANNOT print test pages to any printer other than the ones hooked directly to the machine I am on. Second, Scott, you posted that I should only be running kprint from one machine but in the same post when you tell me how to set up both my order taking stations you tell me that on node 1 kprint loads with no argument, eg. kprint 1, and on order station2 it should load as kprint 2. I am a little confused here. Should I be running kprints 1 and 2 from order node 1 or should I be running kprint 1 from node1 and kprint 2 from node 2. I actually tried it both ways. When I do all of the above and enter an order nothing prints at all. I just do not know what to check next. I can tell you that the kprint program is residing at c:\users\public\pospizza\pospizza. I get no error messages and it all seems to let me set it up right. No printing at all. Any other ideas?

[Scott]

You need 1 kprint running per printer. Each copy has to run from the machine that physically has the printer attached.

You will not be able to see printer 1 from station 2 since it is only local to station 1. Kprint on that station however will see it and will send print jobs to it. Print jobs are received through the POS system so as long as kprint 1 can see the main POS folder and its printer it should work fine.

If you have 2 printers you need two KPrints. 1 for each printer. These could both run on a single machine, or on different machines. Do not get the Kprint 1 confused with order station 1. These are two entirely different things. Kprint 1 will print all items assigned "Print To Console 1" in the master items editor.

Start with just printer #1 and go to the machine that has it connected and print a test page. Next run Kprint Configure on that very same station and make sure that printe #1 is assigned to that print driver. Save the settings and launch KPrint on that station. It should print.

If not, then unload KPring and run OrdCon32 from the same station. This is the order screen version, and should show any queued orders for that console. If it comes up empty, then your menu items are not configured correctly.

This should be fairly easy to get up and running.

Scott

[garym]

Thanks for the help everyone. I had to play with it a little more and talk with Scott a few times but I finally realized what was happening. For some reason when I downloaded KPrint the default destination for the download was coming up with an extra "POS Pizza" folder. After it downloaded and I looked at it it was in c:/pospizza/pospizza so the program could not "see" the other files it needed. I fixed all that and it is up and running. Scott thank you for the patience and the help with this!