Receipt Print Modification

Right Click 3.0Kevin Devine

Euclid Public Library

August 22, 2007

The Problem

• Handwritten slips for reserves

• No consistency

• Bad spelling / penmanship• 100s handwritten each day

• Even in front of patrons waiting to checkout!

The Goal

Before After

From the beginning

• Can it be done?

• How will it work?

• Can our ILS do this?

• Initially, the answer was “No”, but the question lingered… Could this be done?

TIME PASSES…

A New Problem Arises

Goal Revisited

Routing Before Routing After

Options?

• Screen capture / OCR / Print

• Utilizing Window Handles to get Textboxes

• Staff copy and paste to another application

• Change ILS to a system that works better

• Capture Spool file and modify output

Spool File

What are these?

Escape Codes

• Specific to each brand of printer

• SDK on website

• List of commands– Font height and width– Bold, Underline, Italics– Line feeds, cut paper

– Change text orientation

Example Escape Code (in code)

• ChrW(27) & ChrW(104) & ChrW(51) & ChrW(27) & ChrW(87) & ChrW(49) & ChrW(27) & ChrW(45) & ChrW(49) & ChrW(27) & ChrW(69) & sName

• ChrW(27) & ChrW(104) & ChrW(48) & ChrW(27) & ChrW(87) & ChrW(48) & ChrW(27) & ChrW(45) & ChrW(48) & ChrW(27) & ChrW(70)

• Bold, Underline, Height = 4, Width = 2 turned on• The second bullet turns those all off

Capturing a Print Job

• Small jobs enter and exit the spool quickly

• Pause/Unpause the queue?

• Create a “dummy” printer• Copy modified spool file to real printer

A Little Bit of Code

• Monitoring application– VB.net– Watches the “dummy” print queue

– Looks for keywords in spool file• HOLD FOR:• in transit to:

– Modifies the spool file with escape codes– Copies to the real printer

Results

• Circulation was ecstatic!

• Reserves have readable names

• Routing slips are easy• Patrons are not waiting for the staff to

write out slips

• Customer Service and line speed have increased

Time Comparison

Before

• Writing reserve slips– 20 seconds

• Writing routing slips– 20 seconds

• Reserves per month: 9000

• Routing per month: 4000• Total Time:

– 72 hours a month

After

• Printing reserve slips– 2 seconds

• Printing routing slips– 2 seconds

• Reserves per month: 9000• Routing per month: 4000• Total Time:

– 7 hours a month

It cut the work down to 1/10th of

before!

Any Questions?Receipt Print Modification

Right Click 3.0

Kevin Devine

Euclid Public Library

kdevine@euclidlibrary.org

August 22, 2007