Overview

This article goes over some general printer setup advice for use with BarTender and Seagull Scientific printer drivers in order to achieve best performance

Applicable to

Printers used with BarTender and Seagull Scientific drivers

Information

Hardware Recommendations

Apart from our general technical specifications, it is best to use at least the following hardware specifications for performance reasons:

• 8GB of RAM at minimum(the more RAM the better; 16GB is recommended for Highly Available deployment)
• Quad Core CPU minimum
• 1Gbps or 10Gbps network cards

Software Recommendation

• Make sure that Seagull Scientific printer drivers are up to date. Check here for the latest version. 

Setup Recommendations

When installing printers locally

Generally speaking installing the printer drivers locally on the same server that BarTender is installed on offers the best performance. Print jobs will be spooled and rendered locally and go directly from the server to the printer. It also reduces overall network traffic for network based printers.

When using a print server

The advantage of a separate print server is to centrally manage printers on the network across multiple computers or systems. However, by using a print server print jobs will require more time and causes increased network traffic. In turn, large print job traffic potentially could cause congestion and impact other communication on the network.

• Disable bidirectional communication on the print server via devices/printers->driver properties->ports tab for the particular printer. Keep in mind that, when bidirectional communication is disabled, the functionality of sharing driver settings from the print server to the client is lost.
• Make sure that the option “Render Print jobs on client computers” is disabled. This is set on the print server in the printer properties-> sharing tab for the particular printer. 
• Install local printer drivers on the client and connect it to a shared printer on the print server.
  1. Start the "DriverWizard" tool that comes as part of our Seagull printer driver's installer(this tool is normally located under the "c:\Seagull" Windows folder or directly on a "Seagull" folder on your Desktop since driver version 2017.1). Run this tool and choose the option "Install printer drivers".
  2. At the next dialog choose "Other" as the connection method. Click "Next".
  3. Choose the model and make of your printer. Click "Next".
  4. When prompted for the port to use, click the "Create Port" button.
  5. Choose a "Local Port" as the Port, then click the "New Port..." button.
  6. Now, as the "Port Name" enter the UNC path of the printer share on the print server, specifying either the short or full name of the computer that is sharing the printer:

Additional resources

• Print Spooler service saves the NetBIOS name of the print server in Windows 7 or in Windows Server 2008 R2