Waiting on Printer

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Tim Martin
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Waiting on Printer

Post by Tim Martin »

The problem I am having is that after I convert an R/O to invoice, then I click on the print icon and then it opens up a window for printer. Again, I press print and wait till the papers come out. Most times it takes 30 seconds or more till the printer prints the invoices, sometimes up to 3 minutes or longer till I get printed invoices.

Is there a setting I can change to speed this process or is that the best it can do? We are using version 8.03 and a Samsung Xpress M3065FW printer.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by ricmorin »

Hmmm. Many things can affect print speed. According to your printer specs, first copy out speed is 9 seconds, so 30 seconds sounds a little long. 3 minutes would seem like an eternity. Is this printer connected directly to the computer that is printing? Does a word document print any faster? Are you using the wireless connection? Go to the Printer Properties and click on the Advanced tab. Are you spooling the jobs or printing direct?
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Tim Martin »

Sometime today I'll get a chance to check on ur suggestions.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Tim Martin »

ricmorin wrote:Hmmm. Many things can affect print speed. According to your printer specs, first copy out speed is 9 seconds, so 30 seconds sounds a little long. 3 minutes would seem like an eternity. Is this printer connected directly to the computer that is printing? Does a word document print any faster? Are you using the wireless connection? Go to the Printer Properties and click on the Advanced tab. Are you spooling the jobs or printing direct?
Ok. A word document prints instantly. The printer is hardwired directly from the host computer. And, currently the advanced setting is for it to spool the jobs (whatever that means). I tried switching it to doing it direct and that made it much much worse so I set it back to spooling.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Silky7 »

Tim,

Did this printer ever work at a decent speed? If so, you might want to re-install the drivers for it. You might consider that option either way - sometimes Windows puts on outdated or generic printer drivers. It looks like you can get this here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/drivers/se ... p-194179-1

Also, based on the prevalence in which HP is displaying the message, it appears they have some devices having issues after Windows updates. You might look at some of the general suggestions here too. https://support.hp.com/us-en/topic/wind ... lobalalert
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Tim Martin »

Ok. This afternoon I wanted to print an invoice. So, I went through the normal proceedure and then 2 hours later itt still hadnt printed. So, I did some digging. The default setting in the menu is for it to go through Report Pro. Well, I didnt have time to wait for this thing so I told it to pring directly to the printer icon and immediately it spit out an invoice.

This evening, several hours later, I tried it again. I told it to print directly to the printer icon and immediately it printed an invoice. Then I set it to print through Report Pro where we usually go through and here I sit, some 5 minutes later and it still hasnt printed although the printer icon showed up on the taskbar and if I click on it and open it, it says that the papers are being printed. It appears that there is a conflict that is getting worse in the software. Maybe Im wrong but something is amiss there. I would not be so concerned about it except that the invoice that prints out when I go directly to the printer icon is not the same as we usually have with shop logo etc. It is a rather generic paper to say the least.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Tim Martin »

Just found out something that is interesting. So, half an hour after I told it to print, it still hadnt done it. So, I backed out of the printer menu and proceeded to shut the system down and when I closed out Manager, then all a sudden the printer came alive and I got the 2 invoices I wanted.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by ricmorin »

Report Pro is a virtual printer that needs some set up. I've had trouble with it even after proper set up. It allows you to print a Report Pro invoice without the need to go into the ProPack software. I assume by this you are using one of the ProPack invoices? If you want to retain that convenience, I suggest you contact Bolt-On support and have them remote in and see what they can do. The other option is to print directly from the Report Pro program. That is what we do. It's only a few extra clicks when the rare occasion occurs that we actually *print* an invoice. Most of the time we text or email the final copy.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Pauls Automotive »

Tim, I have Report Pro and have noticed the same slow printing issue but not quite as severe as you are seeing. I also notice the same while using the key tag print through Report Pro.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by ricmorin »

I just tried it here using the virtual printer. It took about a minute but my printer is on the network and controlled by a server. When we were printing every invoice we preferred to preview it in Report Pro first so we gave up on the slow virtual printer thing completely.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Tim Martin »

So, today, everytime I needed invoices printed, I simply shut down Manager and instantly I got my invoices. Then I restarted Manager, however, I dont want to keep doing this. Somewhere in the system there is something allowing it to be so slow. I could do faster if I did it by my slow hand writing my invoices.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Silky7 »

Hi All,

Everyone appears to agree this is an issue with Report Pro printing. Has anyone contacted Bolt-On support? Perhaps they have a fix for this issue. If not, they certainly should be made aware of it.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Tim Martin »

Silky7 wrote:Hi All,

Everyone appears to agree this is an issue with Report Pro printing. Has anyone contacted Bolt-On support? Perhaps they have a fix for this issue. If not, they certainly should be made aware of it.
No, I have not taken the time to contact Bolt-On yet. But I do agree that they should be made aware of this issue. Thanks for the reminder. It quitting time on this Friday afternoon. Monday is another day.
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Re: Waiting on Printer

Post by Tim Martin »

Here is an update on my printing problem. I contacted Bolt On about mid morning and spoke with a gentleman there that, even tough it took almost 2 hours, we got it improved substantially, although it still is not as instant as I was accustomed to when I was using QuickBooks.

So, for those of you out there with this printing issue, contact Bolt On. Im going to use it as it is for now.
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