SiteKiosk allows you to control all print jobs initiated on one or several network printers. You will also be able to charge your customers for each page they print on a specific printer. Please note that some printers have problems supporting printer monitoring and will calculate an incorrect number of pages (see list at the bottom of this page).

If using printers connected locally, you will only need to ensure that the local printer is set up as the default Windows printer. The applies to network printers whose print jobs you wish to monitor (e.g. in the context of paid printing).

If using network printers and SiteKiosk printer monitoring at the same time, you must complete some additional steps when setting up your printers. These steps are necessary to ensure that SiteKiosk will be able to control and monitor your printers. A comprehensive description of you to set up your printers can be found here.

Notes:
If you installed your printer after installing SiteKiosk, please refer to item no. 6 in the Tips and recommendations at the bottom of this page.
Please note that some printers have problems supporting printer monitoring and will calculate an incorrect number of pages (see the list at the bottom of this page). Some print spoolers will then often indicate the file size in kb rather than the number of pages to be printed. Example: Try printing a page in Notepad to find out whether the print spooler displays the progress of the print process in kb or in page numbers. If the driver your printer uses displays the file size in kb, you will not be able to limit and charge for the pages contained in a print job. In such cases it may prove to be helpful to test other drivers (current or older or some default driver).
 

1. SiteKiosk browser print options

The following options are available for the SiteKiosk browser ONLY! They do NOT apply to any other application!

1.1 Printing behavior

• SiteKiosk print dialog box
  The print dialog box of the SiteKiosk browser provides a large number of setting options without being as prone to manipulation as the print dialog box of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. We recommend enabling this option if you want to allow any user interaction in connection with printing Web pages.
• Show standard Windows print dialog box
  If, for some reason, the SiteKiosk print dialog box should not come up to your requirements, you can display the standard Windows print dialog box by turning on this option.
• Print web page as laid out on screen (without user interaction)
  SiteKiosk will print the currently displayed web page without showing the print dialog box. Web pages (including pages containing frames) will be printed as laid out on the screen.
• Automatically print largest frame (without user interaction) (IE only)
  SiteKiosk will print the currently displayed web page without showing the print dialog box. For pages containing frames, SiteKiosk will ONLY print the frame containing most of the content. What this means is that the page will be printed without the navigation bar (i.e. the page will usually contain the content displayed on the main page).
  For technical reasons this option is only available with the Internet Explorer browser engine.

1.2 Page setup
Use the page setup settings to personalize the header and footer of the printed page to, for example, include your company name in the page header. You can also set the page margins (inch based values, 1 inch equals 2.54 cm). SiteKiosk will use the IE margin settings by default:

1. Default entry header: &w&bPage &p of &P
2. Default entry footer: &u&b&d
3. Suitable margin values (inch): 0.75

2. Printer monitoring

Turn on printer monitoring if you want to limit, monitor, and/or charge for printing.

2.1 All installed printers
The parameters set under All installed printers will apply to ALL available printers that have NOT specifically been added by means of the ADDbutton, which is shown on the list.
Thus, if you want the SiteKiosk printer settings to apply to all printers, you will not have to add a new printer.

2.2 Add/edit/delete
If you want to define printer settings that are different from the default values (e.g. a different print charge per page), you will have to ADD or EDIT the printer for which the settings are supposed to apply. To do so, simply select the desired printer from the list of available printers.

Should your printer be missing from this list, you will have to set up the printer in Windows first (follow these instructions when using network printers).

1. Monitor printer and make printer available in SiteKiosk Object Model
   This option must be turned on to allow SiteKiosk to make use of its full printer monitoring capabilities. In addition, the SiteKiosk Object Model allows you to influence the printing process..
2. Show printer in SiteKiosk print dialog box
   This option will be irrelevant unless you selected Show SiteKiosk print dialog box. Turn off this checkbox to prevent your users from selecting this printer. You might want to do so if you connected a receipt printer for printing automatic receipts rather than Web sites.
3. User must confirm print jobs
   All submitted print jobs will be displayed in a dialog box and must be confirmed by the user. The user may, of course, also delete any open print job. You might want to enable this option if you previously selected a browser print option excluding any user interaction. This option will prevent users from clicking the print button repeatedly.
4. Charge for printouts
   Use the SiteKiosk print feature to set up a charge for printing at your terminals.
   You can also offer printing for free as long as the user is printing from a free-of-charge rate zone. Note that you need to use * for file types if the zone includes local URLs (e.g. file://C:\Program Files\SiteKiosk\html\mypage* instead of file://C:\Program Files\SiteKiosk\html\mypage.html).
   
   If you set up charges for your printer that vary from the default values, you must explicitly add the printer and enter a specific page charge.
   This way, you will be able to make printing on a receipt printer free of charge (EUR 0.00) while, for instance, printing photos will be subject to a charge of EUR 1.00 per printed copy.
5. Limit number of simultaneous print jobs to X
   Each click on the Print button will send at least one print job to the printer. For Web pages containing frames, a push on the button may send a print job per frame (depending on the previous selection). By limiting the number of simultaneous print jobs you ensure that the number of print jobs can never exceed the maximum number of print jobs shown in the print spooler.
6. Limit maximum number of pages per print job to X
   When printing large web pages, the printer will print more than one page per print job. To prevent your users from printing extensive documents, you can limit the maximum number of pages per print job.
   
   Note on printing .PDF, WinWord, Open Office, etc. files:
   For third party applications, SiteKiosk will display the print dialog box used by the specific application. Your users will usually be able to set any number of pages (copies) per print job. The values you specify here in the SiteKiosk configuration file are, however, of a higher priority, SiteKiosk will not complete a print job containing too many pages and will inform the user accordingly.
7. Keep printer paused when quitting SiteKiosk
   Printer monitoring requires that all monitored printers be set to "Pause." Unless you turn this option OFF, all "Paused" printers will automatically be reset to "Ready" status when you exit SiteKiosk. However, unless printers are paused when you exit SiteKiosk, you may experience that print jobs which have already been initiated, but not yet paid for will still be printed as SiteKiosk's printer monitoring features were no longer active at the time the print jobs were submitted.

3. Print functionality in the SiteKiosk Object Model

The SiteKiosk Object Model allows you to access all print functions and lets you develop your own applications. This functionality requires that printer monitoring be turned on. Refer to the documentation of the SiteKiosk Object Model for detailed information and a code example.

 

4. Tips and recommendations

1. As long as SiteKiosk runs, printer monitoring will usually also work in conjunction with other applications.
2. Since all print dialog boxes are written in HTML, they can be modified to meet your requirements.
3. If your printer fails to indicate the correct charge, this may be due to the driver your printer uses. This can often be corrected by installing the driver included in your copy of Windows. Simply add the printer and choose the driver included in Windows. You can also use an alternative driver provided by the printer manufacturer, e.g. a more up-to-date driver or even an older one.
4. Using Acrobat Reader, SiteKiosk can display .pdf files directly inside the browser. You can also print these documents from within the Reader. However, you will then NOT be able to prevent the application from displaying the regular Acrobat Reader print dialog box. Nevertheless, you will still be able to prevent a user from printing too many pages by limiting the number of print jobs and pages. Contact our support team for a limited workaround.
5. If you want SiteKiosk to treat the same printer as two different ones (e.g. for charging different rates for color and b/w prints), you will need to set up the printer with different access methods.
   Consequently, a network printer should be configured once with its IP and once with its share name.
   When the installation is done set the SiteKiosk user to "Unprotected" before setting it back to "Protected" in order to apply the changes to the user. To do that, please use the System Security Manager of SiteKiosk.
   After you have set the System Security Manager to "Protected" again, close it and start it right again. Select "Customized -> Policies -> Restrict Printer usage" and untick the option "Disable printer settings".
6. In case you configure a printer after installing SiteKiosk, you should set the SiteKiosk user to unprotected before setting it back to protected in order to apply the changes to the user. To do that, please use the System Security Manager of SiteKiosk.
7. Enabling print preview in the SiteKiosk browser:
   In order to provide a print preview, the SiteKiosk browser simply piggybacks on the print preview feature provided by Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.
   To enable this feature, open your SiteKiosk configuration file (...\SiteKiosk\Config\YourConfiguration.skcfg) using an editor (e.g. Notepad). Proceed by looking for the following lines:
   
   

   <printtemplates>

   <enabled>false</enabled>

   <templatepath></templatepath>

   <preview>true</preview>

   </printtemplates>

   
   
   Change the entry for <enabled> from "false" to "true":
   
   

   <printtemplates>

   <true>false</enabled>

   <templatepath></templatepath>

   <preview>true</preview>

   </printtemplates>

   
   Finish by saving the file.
8. Incompatible printers as per customer information:
   
   • XEROX Phaser