Technotes

Spooler Queries?

Technote PR 13 July 1987

Revised by: March 1988
Written by: Ginger Jernigan July 1987

When the LaserShare spooler is on an AppleTalk network, it acts like a LaserWriter-type device, which can be chosen and communicated with much like a real LaserWriter. Some applications, however, must communicate with a LaserWriter directly, not a spooler. If this is true for your application, you can check whether you are actually talking to a real LaserWriter by sending to the LaserWriter the following query:

	%!PS-Adobe-1.2 Query
	%%Title: Query to Spooler/Non-Spooler status
	%%?BeginSpoolerQuery
	(0) = flush
	%%?EndSpoolerQuery 1
	%%EOF

(The query has to be sent using the Printer Access Protocol (PAP). The object code for PAP is available from Licensing.) If the string returned begins with a `%%' then it is a status string and you can ignore it and wait for another string. If the LaserWriter is actually a LaserShare spooler, then the string that is returned will be `1'. If the LaserWriter is a real LaserWriter then the string returned will be `0'.

Further Reference:

* PostScript Language Reference Manual
* Adobe Systems Document Structuring Conventions

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