Printer Setup and Configuration

Before you can print documents in Prism, make sure you have configured Prism preferences, including HAL settings in the workstation record. Here are the high-level steps:

Basic Steps for setting up printers, print designs

1. Install the necessary drivers for the printer on a Prism workstation and connect the printer.
2. Define a new Printer Type for the printer(s), if needed. The printer types you define can be assigned to individual printers. In multi-printer environments, this can help users to identify the correct printer to use.
3. Adjust the Print Actions in Hardware > Print Preferences, if needed. This enables you to customize the workflow at POS when a user clicks Print/Update. For example, you can choose whether or not to display the print dialog, email receipts, etc.
4. If you defined a Printer Type in Step 2, assign the type to an individual printer. (Edit Workstation > HAL Settings).
5. At POS, when the user clicks the Print or Print Update button, the print action specified in preferences will take place. The user can modify the settings (e.g. print design), if necessary. When the user prints a document at POS, the Print dialog displays only those document designs that are for either OPOS or standard Printers; other print designs are automatically filtered out of the display.
6. Add Printer Type
7. This step is optional; however, adding a special printer type for OPOS printers may make it easier to track and assign printers.
8. In the Prism Admin Console, navigate to the Hardware > Printer Types node.
9. Click the Printer Types button (plus sign button).
10. In the text box, type "OPOS" or whatever phrase you want to use to identify OPOS printers.
11. Click the check mark icon.
12. Save the changes.   

Adjust Print Actions

1. In the Prism Admin Console, navigate to the Hardware > Print Preferences node.
2. Select the desired document area from the menu on the left. Drill down to a sub-area, if necessary.   
3. Select the desired action to take when a user clicks the Print (or Print Update) button for the document.   Save the changes. 

Assign Printer Type to Printer in workstation's HAL
Launch Prism and log on to workstation with the Printer. Drill down to the workstation record and click the Edit button.  Click the Printer Types tab. Select a Printer and then select the checkbox for the Printer Type that identifies this printer. In this example, OPOS is selected as the Printer Type for the Adobe PDF printer.   Save the changes. 

Assigning Default Design
You can assign one of the designs as the default design to use for a printer. When a default design is assigned, the selected print design will be already selected in the Print Design dropdown. A user can change the design at print time, if desired, but assigning a default helps ensure the correct OPOS design is used. For example, if you defined an "OPOS" printer type, you can then assign one of the OPOS designs to always be selected by default for that printer. If you assign an OPOS printer to a printer type, then choosing that as your default printer type will only display appropriate print designs.

Hardware Preferences
In a typical POS setup for Prism, a workstation will have a Genius CED, cash drawer, and optionally a printer and/or line display. The settings in the Hardware Preferences area enable you to define general settings for line displays and printers. In addition, you must configure workstation preferences for each type of hardware connected to a workstation: Line Display, Print Preferences, Printer Types, Email Server Settings,

Print Preferences
Print Preferences enable you to customize the printing process, including settings for sending digital receipts. Defining these settings helps to speed up the printing process because employees can just accept the defaults rather than have to make selections from drop-downs in the Print dialog.

Use the following process to configure printing settings:

1. Set the default print action for individual document areas (Node Preferences > Hardware > Print Preferences).
2. Define Printer Types (Node Preferences > Hardware > Printer Types).
3. If you will be emailing receipts, configure Email Server Preferences.
4. In individual workstation records, assign a Printer Type to each printer used by the workstation.

Note: You can customize document designs using Prism Document Designer. See the Prism Document Designer document for details.

Assign Default Print Action for Document Areas

1. Navigate to the Administration Console.  Navigate to the desired Store and then tap or click the Set Context button.    
2. Select the Print Preferences link. 
3. Select a Print Area. 
4. Select a Default Printer Type.
5. Select a Default Print Design. Note: The available designs will vary based on the Print Area selected.
6. Select or clear Print Dialog controls as needed. The options that are selected will be included on the Print dialog UI; those that are cleared will be hidden. 
7. Save the changes.

Override Sub Areas
Some areas of Print Preferences have sub areas. When defining preferences for these areas, there is an extra option to Override Sub-Areas. If the Override Sub-Areas check box is selected, it means that the settings defined at the root level will override any sub-level settings.

Printer Types
Printers in retail are typically used for specific purposes or are used in specific locations. For example, the printer used for printing price tags is usually different from the printer used to print receipts or documents like vouchers. Likewise, there might be a dedicated backoffice printer. Printer Types enable you to group printers by purpose or location. These Printer Types are used to select the Default Printer for the Print Dialog, and for selecting active printers for the Print action. A set of default printer types is defined (Receipt, Tag), but you can define you own types in Hardware > Printer Types preferences. After defining Printer Types, you can then assign a printer and printer type to individual workstations in the HAL Settings at the workstation levels.     

Air Print
Make sure the printer can be accessed on the same WiFi network that the iOS device is using. (Contact your network administrator to accomplish this.) Open the Prism iOS Launcher and login to Prism. The Launcher registers a generic "AirPrint" resource to the Prism server upon login.  In addition, if a Bluetooth printer is paired with the device, this Bluetooth printer will also be registered.  If connecting through the Prism Proxy, Windows printers will also be registered.
Create a document to be printed from Prism.From the print menu, select "AirPrint". This opens Apple's AirPrint dialog box, which is built into iOS.  From there the user may select the printer from the WiFi network, and the number of copies to be printed. Once printing is complete, the AirPrint dialog box will close and control returns to Prism.