Printer Installation

Overview

PTS prints to label printers to produce prescription barcodes and tickets and other documents. As PTS is web based software there are additional steps and considerations when connecting the application to a label printer.

Network Printing

Network printing is by far the most popular way of setting up label printing in PTS.

Pros of network printing

• Less interaction is required by the pharmacist for each print (compared to Browser Printing) as there is no mandatory print preview via the web browser.
• Can print to any printer from any PC.

Cons of network printing

• Network printing is setup per PC and per printer, so has to be repeated for each printer, and has to be redone if the printer is replaced.
• Requires remote admin access to the PTS application server to setup and maintain.
• Vulnerable to server and network congestion.
• Any problems or interruptions usually occur on the server, meaning the printer can go down without warning and can't be fixed without tracking down a server admin.

Installation instructions

1. Download the “Seagull Drivers for Zebra Printers” file from the Downloads & Updates section at tmsinsight.com. Run it on the PC you will connect your printer to but don’t connect the printer just yet.
2. During installation leave the install path as C:\Seagull\ and untick the “run driver wizard” and the “read installation instructions” options then click finish.
3. Connect your printer via USB. When Windows detects the printer it will begin the installation wizard which will work differently depending on your version of Windows. You should have the opportunity to specify a source directory for your drivers, set this to C:\Seagull\ and complete the installation.
4. Find the printer in Control Panel > Devices and Printers, right click it and go to Printer Properties. Verify that it can print a test page.
5. Under the General tab, click Preferences and then create a new label size for PTS (normally 76mm by 38mm). Make sure you select the new label size and click OK.
6. Go to the Advanced tab, click Printing Defaults and then choose the new label size again if it appears in the list. If not, create it anew.
7. Go to the Ports tab and untick Bidirectional Support.
8. Next go to the Sharing tab and share the printer.
9. Remote Desktop into the PTS web server and then run the Seagull Drivers on there. Again, untick the “run driver wizard” and the “read installation instructions” options then click finish.
10. 1. Windows Server 2016 and newer
       Open Print Management, expand Print Servers, then expand the server menu, right-click Printers and then choose Add a Printer. Choose Add a Local Printer, then choose Create a New Port and select Local Port. When it asks you to give it a name, enter the path to the shared printer e.g. \\ComputerName\ShareName.
    2. Windows Server 2012 and older
       Open Devices and Printers and then choose Add a Printer. Choose Add a Local Printer, then choose Create a New Port and select Local Port. When it asks you to give it a name, enter the path to the shared printer e.g. \\ComputerName\ShareName.
11. Click OK and then Next and then select the correct printer model if prompted. If your model doesn’t appear in the list, choose Have Disk and then select the drivers you unpacked to C:\Seagull. Select your printer and click Next. You will be asked to enter a name for the printer, give it a short but descriptive name with no spaces, e.g. BookingIn. Do not set it as your default printer and do not share this instance of the printer. Click Next and then click Finish. Verify you can print a test page.
12. Repeat steps 5 through 7 on this printer.
13. Log in to PTS as an administrator. Go to Setup > Printers > [open Actions Menu] > New Printer. Choose the relevant dispensary. In the Name on Server field enter the name you gave the printer in step 11.
14. Test the printer with a PTS label. Reprinting an Activity barcode is an easy way of doing this.
15. Consider installing the "Print Queue Monitor Service" from the Downloads & Updates section at tmsinsight.com. This prevents errored documents getting stuck in the spooler and prevents the printer from randomly stopping.

Troubleshooting

1. I cannot print a test page from the client PC.
   The printer is not correctly installed. Delete the printer and try again, making sure to select the correct printer model when given the choice. If you cannot get this to work please consult with your IT department; general printer issues are outside the scope of this document.
2. During installation on the server I get a “bad username/password” or similar "access denied" error.
   The user account you’re currently logged into the server with does not have permission to install a printer on the server. Note that if you are logged in as a local admin you may need to switch to a domain admin account to activate the appropriate group policy.
3. The server cannot find the shared printer even though I’m certain I’ve typed it correctly.
   Check that Windows Explorer can find the PC via "\\PCName\" and that the shared printer is listed in there. If not, you have fundamental networking issues that need to be resolved first. You may have more success using the client PC’s IP address instead of its name, e.g. \\192.168.2.7\Name, but this won’t work with dynamic IP addresses.
4. I can print test pages from both the client and server PCs but nothing happens when I print from PTS.
   Verify that you entered the Name on Server value correctly in Setup > Printers.
5. The print spooler receives the document but it errors and doesn’t print.
   When this starts happening always bear in mind that an errored document in the spooler will prevent any further documents from printing until it is deleted. You'll need to get into the routine of deleting the document at every step while troubleshooting this problem.
   If this is happening with test pages this indicates a networking issue of some kind. Ensure the printer is still online, is still shared, the PC is turned on and that the server and the PC can see each other. Searching for the client PC in an Explorer window on the server is a good way to test the network and that the printer is accessible.
   When the problem is affecting PTS documents exclusively this is usually a permissions issue. Make sure that “Everyone” has permission to print, manage the printer and manage documents on the printer on both the server and the client (you can do this under the Security tab). Failing that, you may need to alter the “account” that the PTS application runs under. To do this open up IIS, click Application Pools, choose the application pool that PTS runs under and then choose Advanced Settings. Next find the Identity setting and change the setting from ApplicationPoolIdentity to NetworkService and click OK.
6. That didn’t help, the document still errors in the spooler.
   Again note that you must delete the previous errored document from the spooler before trying again. If there is still an issue you can configure the application pool to run under a specific account and if you set this to an administrator account this should bypass any security issues. However, be aware there may be various reasons why you cannot do this, in particular if your passwords are set to expire. Nevertheless, follow the instructions above but instead of choosing NetworkService, choose Custom Account and enter the account details.
7. The document prints but it prints off-centre or prints over several labels.
   Ensure that you completed steps 5 and 6 on both the client and the server. Note that makes a total of four places where you specify the label sizes for each printer – please understand that we don’t have any control over this odd procedure.
8. During testing the Print button doesn’t seem to respond or takes a very long time to react.
   Check that Bidirectional Support is turned off on both the server and client PCs. You do not lose anything noteworthy by disabling this setting.
9. 

   The "Disable network features" dialog. Simply click Disable.
   I’ve turned off Bidirectional Support on both the client and the server yet it still seems to print rather slowly.
   Make sure you have used the Seagull Drivers for Zebra Printers from the Downloads & Updates section at tmsinsight.com on both the client and the server, as any sort of mismatch between two drivers can result in slow printing. We do not generally recommend the first-party Zebra drivers for any reason. You could also try connecting to the shared printer by the host’s IP address as opposed to its name (see troubleshooting point 3). If you cannot resolve this to your satisfaction, consider Browser Printing.
10. While configuring the printer on the server I’m getting an extremely slow response from the property pages and then I’m eventually prompted to disable network features. What is this?
    This is an extremely common error that can have weird consequences if not dealt with properly, including being unable to access the printer properties page to finish configuring the printer. Simply click Disable, and then ensure that Bidirectional Support is turned off in Printer Properties > Ports. This is an essential step. This error is actually a good indicator that the server has found and is connected to the printer.
11. I can print a test page from the client PC but not the server, despite completing all the troubleshooting steps.
    Consider deleting the printer and ports and starting again from scratch. If you cannot get this to work please consult with your IT department; general printer issues are outside the scope of this document.

Browser Printing

Browser printing uses the web browser to produce the document, in a similar way to how a "normal" web page is printed as via File > Print.

Pros of browser printing

• Immune to performance, permissions, and myriad other configuration issues that can affect networked printing.
• Doesn't stop working if the printer is moved or replaced.
• Less maintenance.

Cons of browser printing

• Requires more user interaction with each print. The web browser will, by design, display a print preview that the user has to confirm. There is a minimum of one extra keystroke or mouse click with each print and that assumes the printer is set as the Windows default.
• Older web browsers may not render the document properly.
• The web browser will probably try to add inappropriate margins, headers and footers to the label. This can be reconfigured (described below) but is a consideration.

Installation instructions

1. Later versions of PTS have this step implemented out-of-the-box. Log in to PTS as an administrator. Go to Setup > Printers > [open Actions Menu] > New Printer. Choose the relevant dispensaries (selecting all of them may be appropriate). In the Name on Server field enter "LOCAL" and then click Save. In the next popup, enter "Browser Printing" as the Printer's name.
2. If the label printer you intend to use is already connected to the PC and working, skip to step 6. Otherwise, download the “Seagull Drivers for Zebra Printers” file from the Downloads & Updates section at tmsinsight.com. Run it on the PC you will connect your printer to but don’t connect the printer just yet.
3. During installation leave the install path as C:\Seagull\ and untick the “run driver wizard” and the “read installation instructions” options then click finish.
4. Connect your printer via USB. When Windows detects the printer it will begin the installation wizard which will work differently depending on your version of Windows. You should have the opportunity to specify a source directory for your drivers, set this to C:\Seagull\ and complete the installation.
5. 

   How to find page setup in Internet Explorer.
   Find the printer in Control Panel > Devices and Printers, right click it and go to Printer Properties. Verify that it can print a test page.
6. Under the General tab, click Preferences and then create a new label size for PTS (normally 76mm by 38mm). Make sure you select the new label size and click OK.
7. Go to the Advanced tab, click Printing Defaults and then choose the new label size again if it appears in the list. If not, create it anew.
8. Test the printer with a PTS label. Reprinting an Activity barcode is an easy way of doing this. If you are accustomed to Network Printing, notice that you now see an additional print preview dialog where you have to select the physical printer and click OK. This will happen with every print job and is a characteristic of browser printing. You could optionally speed this process up by designating the label printer as the default printer in Windows, and from then on use the enter key instead of the OK button.
9. If the label is printed with unwanted information (e.g. the URL, or “Page 1/1” in the footer), or an excessive margin, you should be able to modify your web browser settings so that it doesn’t do that.
   • In Internet Explorer you can find these options in Settings > Print > Page Setup. Consider setting all of the header and footer options to “empty”, and adjust the margin sizes as appropriate.
   • In Chrome, they're in File > Print. Expand "More Settings". Set margins to "None", and untick "Headers and Footers".

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use "Printers and Scanners" instead of Control Panel in Windows 10 and up?

You can, but it's often a chore to find the various necessary settings and options, plus it tries to get you to use the automatic tools first, which don't work. You will ultimately end up using the classic Control Panel controls anyway.

What’s the difference between Browser Printing and Network Printing?

Browser Printing uses the client’s web browser to send a print job to a connected printer via a print dialog box, like printing any other document from the web. Network Printing sends a print document over the network from the PTS web server to the printer eliminating the need for the print dialog. Browser Printing is easy to setup and needs less maintenance, but requires at the very least one additional keystroke to confirm the print job in the dialog box, and may not work in all web browsers. Network Printing doesn’t require a print dialog box, but can sometimes be difficult to setup and maintain and is occasionally slower depending on network and server conditions.

With Network Printing, shouldn’t it be enough to simply add the path to the printer in PTS?

Strictly speaking this is true, and PTS will indeed try to operate the printer this way if you just add the path in Lookups > Dispensaries so you are well within reason to try this out. That being said we see a very low success rate when the printer is not mapped first, and even if it works, it will more than likely print very slowly. Most importantly if printing does fail you will have little or no feedback as to why, making troubleshooting difficult.

Despite following the advice above our printer still prints very slowly.

The reason it seems only PTS may be affected by slow printing is that it’s a good bet that PTS is the only software in use that prints across your network from a web server to a label printer. If the printer will not print satisfactorily over the network, you should switch to Browser Printing.

Why must I use Print Management on Windows Server 2016 and newer?

There seems to be an issue in the new Windows 10-based Windows Server operating systems (2016+) where mapping printers in Control Panel never completes correctly and the printer remains in the Unspecified section, where it cannot be configured nor used. The Print Management app does not seem to have the same issue. You can find the Print Management app by searching for it, in administrative tools, or by running “printmanagement.msc” from a command window.