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Ask HN: API for Printers?
I'm trying to automate receiving shipping containers at our warehouse. Part of it requires printing ~3 documents so the warehouse team can inspect and label the products coming in.
I'd like to automate this process, so our non-technical warehouse staff doesn't have to mess around in our archaic ERP system just to get to the print documents.
Is there an API for printers (specifically Brother or Canon)? Or another way to trigger print jobs?
- mtmail 7y agoPrinters with IP address (wifi card, network port, network card) these days support the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Printing_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Printing_Protocol
- dhruvkar 7y agoWould that allow me to bypass the print dialog on a browser? I just want the user the hit print and it prints with preset settings. I'm assuming an API is what I'm looking for. I can't find any recent python libs that implement this protocol.
- gus_massa 7y agoWhich OS? Linux/Windows/OSX/Android? (The brand of the printer should not be important.) Most programming languages have a library to create a PDF. Put it in a temporary secret location. And the OS have an API to print a file (if the proper program is installed).
- dhruvkar 7y agoFor an Ubuntu server. My specific use case is turning out to be: 1. User hits button 2. two printers (with different kinds of paper), print out two documents. I want to hit an API to send the two documents to the printers.