Managing print jobs efficiently is crucial for organizations that rely on printing important documents, labels, and barcodes. Businesses in healthcare, logistics, and manufacturing often require intelligent print job filtering and redirection to ensure that specific documents are routed to the correct printers based on predefined criteria.
VeryPDF offers a comprehensive print job management solution that enables organizations to capture, analyze, and redirect print jobs automatically. This solution ensures better workflow automation, increased efficiency, and reduced manual intervention in handling print tasks.
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Common Use Cases
- Healthcare Industry: Hospitals and pharmacies can filter and redirect print jobs based on patient details, medication names, or prescription information.
- Logistics and Shipping: Automated label printing based on shipment types, customer locations, or courier requirements.
- Manufacturing Industry: Printing specific product labels depending on item categories or production batch details.
Solution Overview
Solution 1: Print Job Capture via Hook Printer SDK
One approach to achieving automated print job filtering and redirection is through VeryPDF HookPrinter SDK, which intercepts print jobs at the spooler level before they reach the printer.
How It Works
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Capture Print Jobs – The VeryPDF HookPrinter SDK intercepts all print jobs sent to a designated Zebra or other printers.
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Extract Text Content – The captured print jobs (SPL files) are converted into text using VeryPDF SPL to PDF Converter Command Line.
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Analyze Print Job Data – Extracted text is searched for specific keywords or patterns.
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Redirect the Print Job – Based on detected content, the print job is either forwarded to its original destination or redirected to another printer.
Limitations of Solution 1
While Hook Printer-based print job capture is a viable method, it comes with certain drawbacks:
❌ Operating System Dependency – Hook-based methods rely on specific OS versions and may require elevated user permissions.
❌ Printer Model Restrictions – Some printer drivers or spoolers may not fully support print job interception.
❌ Limited Control Over Print Job Format – Since this method captures print jobs after they have been spooled, formatting adjustments are difficult.
Solution 2: Virtual Printer-Based Print Job Redirection (Recommended)
To provide a more robust and flexible solution, VeryPDF offers a Virtual Printer-based approach, which allows for seamless print job interception and redirection without relying on OS-level hooks.
How It Works
- Deploy a Virtual Printer – The system installs a custom-built VeryPDF-Printer as a virtual printer.
- Capture Print Job Content – When users print documents to VeryPDF-Printer, the virtual printer extracts the full text in real-time.
- Analyze Print Job Data – The extracted content is scanned for keywords or specific patterns.
- Smart Print Job Routing –
- If the document does not match the filtering criteria, it is sent to the originally designated printer.
- If the document meets specific criteria, it is redirected to an alternative printer based on predefined rules.
Advantages of Solution 2 (Virtual Printer-Based Approach)
✅ Better Compatibility & Stability – Unlike Hook Printer-based solutions, virtual printers do not rely on OS-specific hooks, making them stable across various Windows versions.
✅ Full Control Over Print Job Format – The virtual printer generates print jobs in a standardized format, ensuring uniform output.
✅ Greater Expandability – This approach allows for future enhancements such as logging, encryption, watermarking, or advanced automation workflows.
Why Choose VeryPDF’s Print Job Filtering and Redirection Solution?
✔ Seamless Print Job Capture – Capture all print jobs from designated Zebra or thermal label printers.
✔ Flexible Print Job Analysis – Extract text and analyze content based on custom keyword filtering.
✔ Automated Print Job Routing – Redirect print jobs dynamically based on pre-set rules.
✔ No Manual Intervention Needed – Fully automated process ensures error-free and efficient printing.
✔ Compatible with Windows & Multiple Printers – Works with various Zebra printers and other thermal label printers.
Recommended Solution
Considering stability, compatibility, and flexibility, we strongly recommend Solution 2 (Virtual Printer-Based Approach). This solution eliminates OS compatibility issues, offers better control over print job formatting, and provides future expansion capabilities.
If you are interested in implementing this intelligent print job redirection solution, contact us today for a custom-built implementation tailored to your environment.
Below is the customer's email regarding this requirement.
Hello,
We are looking for a solution to capture all the print jobs sent to a certain group of printers, inspect the content of the print job (they are Zebra printers, so the job is plain text), THEN:
(1) if criteria are NOT met, send the job to its originally designated printer
(2) if certain criteria ARE met, send it to a different printer according to the specific criteria
The criteria are mostly the presence/absence of specific strings of text within the print job. Do you have a recommended product to accomplish that?
Thank you in advance,
Customer,
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Dear Customer,
Thank you for reaching out. We have two possible solutions that can accomplish your requirements of capturing, analyzing, and redirecting print jobs based on specific text content.
--- Solution 1: Print Job Capture via Hook Printer SDK
1. Use our VeryPDF HookPrinter SDK to capture all print jobs from your designated Zebra printers.
Product Details: https://www.verypdf.com/app/hookprinter/
2. Convert captured SPL print job files to plain text using VeryPDF SPL to PDF Converter Command Line software.
Product Details: https://www.verypdf.com/app/hookprinter/spool-spl-to-pdf-converter.html
3. Analyze the extracted text for specific keywords and redirect the job to its original or alternative printer accordingly.
Limitations of Solution 1:
- Dependency on OS and User Permissions: Hook Printer technology relies on specific operating system versions and user privilege settings, which may affect compatibility.
- Printer Model Limitations: The method may not work with all printer models due to driver or spooler variations.
- Less Control Over Print Job Formatting: Since we are intercepting jobs at the spooler level, we have limited control over how print jobs are structured.
--- Solution 2: Virtual Printer for Print Job Processing (Recommended for Stability & Compatibility)
1. Deploy a Custom-built Virtual Printer on your system, e.g., the printer name is "VeryPDF-Printer",
2. When a document is printed to "VeryPDF-Printer", the Virtual Printer captures the text content in real-time.
3. Based on the detected keywords, the print job is automatically forwarded to the original or an alternate printer.
Advantages of Solution 2:
Better Compatibility & Stability: Unlike Hook Printer technology, our virtual printer does not rely on OS-specific hooks, making it more stable across different systems.
Full Control Over Print Job Format: Since we generate the print job within our virtual printer, we can standardize its format before sending it to the target printer.
Greater Expandability: This approach allows for additional processing features in the future, such as logging, encryption, or automated workflows.
Recommendation:
We strongly recommend Solution 2 for its stability, better compatibility across various operating systems and printers, and greater flexibility.
If you are interested, we can discuss the implementation details and provide a custom-built solution tailored to your environment. Please let us know how you would like to proceed.
Best regards,
VeryPDF