Printing & Copying

Highlight Printingpresident Lisa Bickford, had the opportunity to write an article for “iiwomen” - a publication dedicated to developing resources for women entrepreneurs.

This article is an account of Lisa’s personal experience and gratefulness to her mentors:

Here is a link to the iiwomen website:  http://iiwomen.com/index.htm

Here is a link to the article about mentors: http://iiwomen.com/Mentor/index.htm#Mentors%20Everywhere%20Mentors

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The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed.  Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s.  The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution.  You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com

This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.

In my most recent project, one of the requirements of the applications, was to render reports using the SQL Report Services in a PDF format and print these PDF files to a network printer.
The PDF also contains a barcode section, as the printed reports will be processed by a sorting machine that automatically fills up envelopes with the reports, based on its barcode of course.

When looking into the options of printing a PDF file from .NET code, the only workable approaches where:
1) to use Adobe Acrobat Reader as a pipeline to open the file, and send it to the printer
2) using gsprint, a executable that comes with Ghostview (the GUI for GhostScript) and who’s able to send PS and PDF files to any printer that support printing PS/PDF files

At first, I tried the Adobe Reader way. This however, proved me quite some issues. For one, to be able to print using Adobe Reader, it needs an active window. So this result in having Adobe showing up in the foreground when printing files. Or even worse, flashing when printing multiple files in rapid succession, as Adobe keeps opening and closing every PDF file you send. So going this will not allow you the print files in a silent way.

The second drawback when using Adobe is the fact that when files need to be printed very quickly in a certain order, Adobe decides by itself the order of files it sends to the printer by creating his own queue (or so it looks like anyway). This results in a serie of files being printed in the wrong order allthough you have sent them in the right order to the Adobe process.

So, how about 3th party tools? Hmm, we weren’t exactly considering paying $1000 licenses in order to print a PDF file from .NET.
What about open-source libraries, like PDFSharp ? Well, I looked into them, and in the background all they do is approaching Adobe Reader as a process and perform the same actions as I described above, with the same disadvantages as result.

So, time to look for another solution!

After some more roaming on the internet, in search of a solution to my problem, I stumbled upon gsprint.exe, an executable under Free Public Licence, that comes with Ghostview
This is a GUI, running on GhostScript, an interpreter for the PostScript language and for PDF files.

Next, I’ll try to explain how to setup and use these tools to print from .NET.

Both programs can be download from the links provided in the section a couple of lines back. Download, and install those programs. I used the default locations in the installation procedure, so I’ll be using those locations through the rest of the post.

First thing, when using the latest versions of the applications, the documentation about the fonts has become obsolete. So adding additional fonts have to be done manually.

To be able to print our barcodes on the reports successfully, we needed the font installed and available for GhostView on the client pc.
As GhostView doesn’t automatically add any font available on the machine, we need to add it manually in its configuration.

I copied the TrueType font file to the C:\Program Files\gs\fonts directory. If the ‘fonts’ under your gs(GhostScript) folder does not exist, create it.

Then open up GhostView (you should have a GhostGum section added in Start - All Programs)

In GhostView, go to Options, and go for Advanced Configure…

Here you can configure some options GhostScript will work with.
As we want GhostScript to recognize our TrueType font, and replace it by one of its known fonts, we’ll add the location to our font:

Ok, we have GhostScript/GhostView (and thus gsprint) set up. Now it’s time to do some simple coding making this stuff work…

Beware that gsprint should be approached through the commandline and will not automatically print the file in the correct orientation (portrait or landscape). The orientation however can be adjusted by calling the -landscape / -portrait option in the commandline. However, gsprint has no support for margin control, and will not automatically fit you PDF to your used paper size. So you should be sure those are set within you PDF file correctly.

Anyway, here’s my code I use to print my PDF files correctly:


public static void UseGSPrint(string PrinterName, string FileName, bool Portrait)
{
string gsArguments;
string gsLocation;
ProcessStartInfo gsProcessInfo;
Process gsProcess;
try
{
if (Portrait)
{
gsArguments = string.Format("-noquery -portrait -printer \"{0}\" \"{1}\"", PrinterName, FileName);
gsLocation = @"C:\Program Files\Ghostgum\gsview\gsprint.exe";
}
else
{
gsArguments = string.Format("-noquery -landscape -printer \"{0}\" \"{1}\"", PrinterName, FileName);
gsLocation = @"C:\Program Files\Ghostgum\gsview\gsprint.exe";
}
gsProcessInfo = new ProcessStartInfo();
gsProcessInfo.WindowStyle = ProcessWindowStyle.Hidden;
gsProcessInfo.FileName = gsLocation;
gsProcessInfo.Arguments = gsArguments;
gsProcess = Process.Start(gsProcessInfo);
gsProcess.WaitForExit();
EventsHelper.Fire(SentToPrinter);
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
ExceptionPolicy.HandleException(ex, "Client Policy");
}
}

I hope this post has been somewhat usefull, as this was my first post covering a real .NET subject. It worked out quite well for me, as I no longer have annoying Adobe popups, and can rest asure my print order will be kept the way I send it down the pipeline…

A new poster. This quote from Eric Gill’s ‘An Essay on Typography’ has long appealed to us. It was a natural to use our Gill Sans wood letter for it. We printed it on Somerset Book Soft White 105 gsm paper, an acid-free mould-made. Soft is a description of the white but it might also refer to its silky feel. We have kept its two deckle edges and torn a third one.

It’s available now from our shop for £50 plus p&p.

You provide the Artwork and ill take care of the Printing. I ship in the U.S. for FREE!

If you know me, you might know that I kind of hate printing. To me, once you get past the one hour photo style of printing, you enter a strange and foreign land. In my experience, pro-printing yields an amazing result, far beyond anything you can get done at the local corner store. However, I think getting to that point may well be the closest thing I will experience to giving birth.

That being said, I think I may be warming up to printing. I recently helped friends of mine move. Their new place is amazing, and a hell of a deal for North Vancouver. But it’s sterile, white washed walls made it feel like cold laboratory, and I started to worry that they might start experimenting on me…

One of them used to have this cheesy, stock Ikea series that they had up in their old place. I jokingly asked where they were going to hang those, and they reassured me they had given them to a homeless man. God bless them.

But this still doesn’t solve the white wall dilemma

Those white walls mocked me all day with their smug vacancy. If I were a better man I would offer to do up some prints for them, but…..

Anyway, I might not like printing, but I am growing a hatred for empty white walls. They personify the creative depravity our society is basked in. So I’m fighting back. I’ve been brushing up on my printing jargon, looking into the pro-labs at my disposal, and finding new ways to showcase my images (as shown above). I’m going to be playing around with some ideas. Stay tuned, and put stuff on your walls.

Highlight Printing, a local printer near downtown Mpls, offers these tips and tricks for marketing:

I have been so frustrated by the hype and confusion about marketing lately!  Information is everywhere and everyone’s got their opinion and advice about what a business NEEDS to do.  To help cut through the noise, listed below is a simple list of various tools in most marketer’s toolboxes and a few hints on how to design your unique plan:

TOOLS: 

• Direct Sales (OK, I know there is debate if sales is part of marketing or a separate function, but for our discussion here I am going to consider it part of marketing because it is part of the “customer-getting” process)
• Traditional Advertising (I’m talking publications, radio, TV, etc.)
• Online Marketing and Networking (A good, search-engine-optimized website, social media, etc.)
• Targeted Mailings (Always effective, but extra effective now because there’s not as much stuff landing in your prospects’ mailboxes)
• Client Events (Do you ever invite your clients to your office for special events?  It is a great way to have repeated contact with them and to thank them for their loyalty.  A great enticement is food.  My husband is a Champion BBQ Competitor, so guess what we serve at our events?  We are also in the midst of planning some training events.)
• Community Service (Do you leverage your donations by building community relationships?   Yes, it feels good to do good, and that is generally good enough.  But in these challenging times you gotta use every tool you can to promote your business.)
• Passive Marketing (Does the signage on your building get noticed?)
• Traditional Networking (Do you belong to the BBB, BNI, or your local chamber?)
• Public Relations (A good PR person knows how to spin things to get create buzz.)
• Press Releases (Simple for even the smallest of businesses.)

STEPS: 

• FIRST - BRANDING:  it’s easier than you think!  Your design doesn’t have to be complicated, but it should be memorable and stand out from the rest.  And then repeat it over and over and over…in every bit of communication you do.   We call it the “purple cow” technique.  If everything you communicate with has a purple cow on it, pretty soon anything that has a purple cow on it will make people think of you.
• SECOND - PLAN:  again, pretty easy!  From the list above and any other marketing tools you can think of, decide on YOUR unique path to getting traction the fastest way possible. 
• THIRD - IMPLEMENT:  Here’s where it starts to pay off!  Start with the top 3 things you think will be effective and just jump right in.  It won’t be long until you figure out if it is the right path or not.  From personal experience, I can tell you that “buzz” and a few sales were created right away, but it has taken about 6 months to finally get into a groove that is successful and sustainable. 
• DON’T GET MIRED DOWN IN THE DETAILS!  Attack it with the “Ready, Fire, Aim” method.  If you wait until every single detail is perfect - you’ll end up with a perfect marketing plan that no-one will ever see because you will have gone out of business in the mean-time.  There is no such thing as perfect - just let your marketing reflect who you are, what your company is about and RELAX…it’s all a work in progress.

If you’d like to brain-storm about your identity, branding, and/or marketing efforts, we would love to do so.  There is not much we find more satisfying than working with businesses on the verge of blasting out into the marketplace.

BONUS:  NO CHARGE FOR THIS CONSULTATION!

The author, Lisa Bickford, president of Highlight Printing, is a veteran of the printing industry and a lover of all things printed.  Since 1984 she has worked her way up through many areas of the industry before acquiring Highlight Printing in 1996 with her husband Don, who has also been in printing since the early 80’s.  The things she continues to find most satisfying are the wonderful business relationships that have developed with clients, vendors, & co-workers, and the energy that is created from challenge resolution.  You can email her directly at lisab@highlightprinting.com

This Printing Blog was launched in November, 2008, as a vehicle to share ideas, information, and innovationsTo see other topics within this blog, click HERE.

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