Printer pooling for different printer models

Jezza8 · 6 Nov 2011 at 01:15

I am not sure which section to post this in as there are no sections specifically related to printing, so I thought this might be the closest.

On the surface a simple question, but after substantial Googling I have found no answer. I want to connect two different USB printers, (of DIFFERENT makes) to 1 PC (running either Windows 7 or Vista) and have the PC automatically send the print job to which ever printer is free (i.e. not busy printing or run out of paper). If they were both identical printers I could use the Windows inbuilt printer pooling function, but they are not. I don't mind a software or even a simple hardware solution. This is for mobile use printing pictures from a laptop to dye sublimation printers so a hardware solution needs to be small and easily portable. I know I could manually choose the relevant printer from within the application before printing but this is a high pressure situation where the extra steps to print are impractical. Any ideas please?

Philtor · 6 Nov 2011 at 02:51

You need a print server to do this.

JonnyT · 6 Nov 2011 at 08:41

Both printers need to use the same driver unfortunately. If both printers are HP printers then the HP Universal Print Driver (UPD) could work.

Jezza8 · 6 Nov 2011 at 11:21

The printers are from different manufacturers unfortunately so they need different drivers and different colour profiles.

I have considered a print server, running this on another PC is probably out of the question due to the requirement to pack it all up every day. I was wondering if any of the small dedicated print servers (the size of a small router) might do the job, but they all seem to be locked down and intended for specific uses which don't include my requirements.

I seem to be getting to the point where the only practical solution might be to sell one of the printers and buy another so I have two identical models - but this means I lose some resilience in printer supplies as well as as costing a few hundred pounds so I am not keen on this either!

PhillyDee · 6 Nov 2011 at 11:25

You could always build / buy a mini itx system. Its size would make it nice and small. Once turned on, it could easily be run headless. Even a small netbook would probably suffice.