Adding printers

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Add your printers to Control Center before you install them on your computers. You can manually add TCP/IP printers, or automatically find printers in your system and choose which printers to add.

Adding printers manually (TCP/IP)

TCP/IP printers provide a raw TCP port for your printing data. Most printer manufacturers use port 9100.

[Note] Note

We recommend using advanced port monitor and TCP/IP(RAW) printing protocol when supported by your printer.

  1. Go to Control Center > Printers > Printers and click Add.

  2. From the dropdown menu, choose Manually add TCP/IP printer. The Manually add TCP/IP printer window opens.

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  3. Type your printer information and click Add.

  4. (Optional) To add LPR printers:

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    1. Click Show advanced connection properties.

    2. For Port Monitor, choose Standard TCP/IP Port.

    3. For Printing protocol, choose LPR. The LPR queue name field appears.

    4. Type in your LPR queue name.

    5. Click Add.

Your new TCP/IP printer appears in your list of centrally managed printers. Now you can install your added printer on your computers.

Adding printers automatically with Import Printers

Find existing printers connected to computers in your system to add to Control Center.

  1. Go to Control Center > Printers > Printers and click Add.

  2. From the dropdown menu, choose Search for printers in my environment. The Import Printers window opens.

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  3. In Select Printers, from the dropdown menu, choose your computer to see printers from that computer. Use Filters (on your right) to narrow your selection and find printers to add.

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  4. Select printer(s) to add, and click Next.

  5. In Modify Printer Settings, select your printers to apply settings:

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    1. Click Set group to add your printers to an existing printer group from the drop-down menu.

      Read more about printer groups: Groups.

    2. Click Set preferred driver package to connect your printers with an uploaded driver package from the drop-down menu. Setting a preferred driver package to use this driver package to control printing preferences and future installations on other computers.

      If your preferred Loftware drivers are version or newer, you can update printing preferences directly in Control Center. If you choose to use older preferred driver versions, you may not be able to change your printing preferences directly in Control Center without DEVMODE.

      Read more about drivers: Driver Packages.

      [Note] Note

      Your selected printers must be from the same manufacturer to set shared drivers. You can't connect printer drivers with printers from different manufacturers.

  6. Click Finish to add your printers.

Importing printers from Excel

You can enter a list of your printers in a predefined Excel template and then import the Excel file in Control Center. This way you simplify entering each printer's data individually.

You can also use the Excel table if you don't have user rights to install printers in Control Center. You can send the Excel file to the Control Center administrator who can import the Excel file and install printers.

Your Excel file contains the following printer data:

  • Printer name

  • IP address

  • Port number

  • Port monitor type

  • Group

  • Manufacturer

  • Printer model

  • Driver package

To generate the Excel file and import printer data:

  1. Go to Control Center > Printers > Printers and click Add.

  2. From the drop-down menu, choose Import from Excel. The Excel Import window opens.

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  3. Click the Download button. The Excel template Printers-import.xlsx saves to your local disc. The Excel file already contains data about your existing driver packages, groups, and port monitors.

  4. Open the downloaded Printers-import.xlsx and go to Printers sheet. Enter your printers' data into green columns (Printer name, Description,...). Copy the values from other sheets in blue columns (Port Monitor, Group,...)

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    [Warning] Warning

    Printers-import.xlsx compares the data in the Printers sheet (blue columns) to data in other sheets. If data don't match, the Package check column shows an error.

    You can't insert driver packages data that is not stored in Control Center.
    [Warning] Warning

    If you later add additional printers with Excel, create a new Excel file with only new printer data. Control Center will not import an Excel file with the existing printers.

  5. Upload your Excel file to Control Center and click Next: Modify Printer Settings.

  6. In this step, you can change groups or preferred driver packages for selected printers.

    (You can also change these properties later in Control Center.)

    [Note] Note

    If you get errors, you can modify your data by clicking to the field where error occurs.

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    You can't delete the whole printer record.

  7. Click Finish to add your printers.

Your installed printers are imported and appear in your list of printers. Now you can manage printing preferences for your printer or install your printers on other computers.