Printing

Printing Sytem

Convention Master prints many different types of documents and stickers, which are organized into **print job types**. Each job type is associated with one or more **printer pools**, which determine which printer(s) handle the job.

Types of print jobs

• Static Defined Types - These are print job types that are defined by the system
  • Fullpage - Things designed to be printed to a 8.5x11 sheet of paper, bid slips, fullpage aup, adn the like.
  • Receipt - This is specifically a receipt, no matter what type of printer it gets sent to, it's likely going to look like a thermal reciept.
  • BidTag - This is specifically bid tags. Stickers used to print the barcodes for bid stickers.
  • CoatCheckTag - Coat Check Tag - generated by the print system. This system currenly only supports outputting two kinds of labels, (4x1 or 3.5x1.5)
  • Underage memberships use pool - Redirect any under-age memberships to use this other pool instead (should be near or at the top)
  • Include Sub Pool - Include this sub-pool, Allows you to include any other pool inside your current pool. This kind of nesting allows you to create a sub pool for printers common across all workstations.
• Dynamic Types - These are print job types that are defined by the badge editor. The badge editor defines a string that tells us what kind of printer is needed.
  • 4x6 Label - This print type is defined as the print type for bag stuffing stickers
  • Card - This print type is defined as part of pre-defined badge types for hard cards
  • Label - This print type is defined as part of pre-defined badge types for lables. (4x1 including others)

Printer Pool Structure

Each printer pool configuration has a Priority, a printer Type, and a destination.

• Priority - This sets which order it will execute, items with the same priority will round robin load balnce
• Printer Type - This can be a printer, a sub pool inclusion, or a child pool inclusion
• Destination - This is where things will go.

MainPool
 └── [1] Redirect Rule: Underage Memberships → UnderagePool 
 |       ├── [1] LabelPrinter → Kids_Label (Zebra LP-2044)
 |       └── [2] BidTagPrinter → Kids_BidTag (Zebra TLP-2844)
 ├── [2] LabelPrinter → Label_A (Zebra GK-420t) ← Load Balance
 ├── [2] LabelPrinter → Label_B (Zebra TLP-2844) ← Load Balance
 ├── [2] LabelPrinter → Label_C (Zebra LP-2044) ← Load Balanced
 ├── Include SubPool: RegRoomPrinters
       ├── [3] ReceiptPrinter → Reg_Receipt (Epson TM88V)
       ├── [4] FullpagePrinter → Reg_Fullpage (HP LaserJet)
       └── [5] BigTagPrinter + Adult_BidTag (Dymo 1750110)

• ⚠️ Note on Redirects and Priority - Important: If you're using redirect rules (e.g., for underage membership labels), make sure those rules are placed before other things, the system will stop looking the first time it finds a printer type it wants.

Load Balancing

CM print system can load balance across multiple printers. Simply set each printer the same priority within a printer pool , and the printer will start to load balance print jobs to those printers.

Guides

• Adding a printer
• Printer Pools (Understanding how they work)