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Sorry for the vague nature of the question. I would like to have a service (on a server(windows)) broadcast itself as a printer, or listen for connections on a TCP port. I would then like to be able to 'add' my service as a printer to client machines. When client machines print to my service, I would like to read the data, then send an email with its contents out to myself. Then send a message back to the client saying 'print successful'.

So what advice do you have, and/or what terms would I google to get started?

thanks!

[update] here is a SO link: Writing a Virtual Printer in .NET

the answer from Douglas Anderson was intriguing, but is it really plausible?

You could simply have your app expose itself like an LPD type printer or monitor port 9100. You could then install any print driver you like, and point it a your app.

[update2]

I've setup a printer on my local machine using LDP on port 55555 with the Generic / Text Only driver provided by Windows. Lets assume I have a TCP service listening on that port running. lets assume i successfully retrieve the data package from the printer.

How do I extract normal ascii text from the data package, and then let the sending device know that the print job was successful?

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  • That sounds malicious. – OneFineDay Feb 04 '15 at 19:59
  • i know :( we have hardware that can send a print job when the operation is 'complete'. it also has the 'send email when complete' option, but it requires outlook to be installed on every machine...we can print to file, but then i have to write an application to scan and clean up the filesystems. – nograde Feb 04 '15 at 20:02
  • This project sounds like one that will involve a lot of specialized domain knowledge. That is, this isn't a general-purpose software project. Even if you were to luck out and find an experienced printer driver expert here on SO, the likelihood that he/she could communicate enough to get you going in this QA format is very low. – adv12 Feb 04 '15 at 20:02
  • @adv12: Kernel driver not required... the question already knew the better alternative of simulating a network-attached printer by accepting TCP traffic. – Ben Voigt Feb 04 '15 at 20:08
  • you are probably right about the QA format, but i feel like the question is still valuable enough to have been asked even if the conclusion is 'too complicated'.....i updated my post to reflect another SO post i found... with some notes about an idea. – nograde Feb 04 '15 at 20:08

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