Enumerating Printers and Print Capabilities

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Microsoft® Windows® 2000 Scripting Guide

Before you can determine how to best distribute and use your printing resources, you must have a detailed knowledge of those resources. For example, Department A might have only three printers compared with five printers in Department B. However, if the printers in Department A can print 20 pages per minute and the printers in Department B can print only 5 pages per minute, users in Department A actually have more printing capacity. Without knowing the detailed capabilities of these printers, you might erroneously conclude that Department A is short on printing capacity and thus purchase additional printers that end up going unused.

WMI includes two classes, Win32_Printer and Win32_PrinterConfiguration, which can be used to return detailed information about all the printers installed on a computer.

Scripting Steps

Listing 13.10 contains a script that retrieves printer information. To carry out this task, the script must perform the following steps:

  1. Create a variable to specify the computer name.

  2. Use a GetObject call to connect to the WMI namespace root\cimv2, and set the impersonation level to "impersonate."

  3. Use the ExecQuery method to query the Win32_PrinterConfiguration class.

    This query returns a collection consisting of configuration information for all the printers installed on the computer.

  4. For each printer in the collection, echo the specified properties.

    Many of these property values are returned as integers or as other values that might be difficult to interpret. Because of this, the script converts the following property values to recognizable values:

    • Orientation. If the value 1 is returned, the orientation is Portrait mode. Otherwise, the orientation is Landscape mode.

    • Paper length. Paper length is returned in tenths of a millimeter. To convert the value to inches, divide the length by 254. For example, if the value 2,794 is returned, the length is divided by 254, converting 2,794 tenths of a millimeter to 11 inches.

    • Paper width. Paper width is returned in tenths of a millimeter. To convert the value to inches, divide the width by 254. For example, if the value 2,159 is returned, width length is divided by 254, converting 2,159 tenths of a millimeter to 8.5 inches.

    • TrueType option. If the value is 1, the string "Print TrueType fonts as graphics" is echoed. If the value is 2, the string "Download TrueType fonts as soft fonts" is echoed. If the value is anything other than 1 or 2, the string "Substitute device fonts for TrueType fonts" is echoed.

Listing 13.10 Enumerating Printers and Printer Capabilities

   
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strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
 & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colInstalledPrinters = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
 ("SELECT * FROM Win32_PrinterConfiguration")
For Each objPrinter in colInstalledPrinters
 Wscript.Echo "Name: " & objPrinter.Name
 Wscript.Echo "Collate: " & objPrinter.Collate
 Wscript.Echo "Copies: " & objPrinter.Copies
 Wscript.Echo "Driver Version: " & objPrinter.DriverVersion
 Wscript.Echo "Duplex: " & objPrinter.Duplex
 Wscript.Echo "Horizontal Resolution: " & _
 objPrinter.HorizontalResolution
 If objPrinter.Orientation = 1 Then
 strOrientation = "Portrait"
 Else
 strOrientation = "Landscape"
 End If
 Wscript.Echo "Orientation : " & strOrientation
 Wscript.Echo "Paper Length: " & objPrinter.PaperLength / 254
 Wscript.Echo "Paper Width: " & objPrinter.PaperWidth / 254
 Wscript.Echo "Print Quality: " & objPrinter.PrintQuality
 Wscript.Echo "Scale: " & objPrinter.Scale
 Wscript.Echo "Specification Version: " & _
 objPrinter.SpecificationVersion
 If objPrinter.TTOption = 1 Then
 strTTOption = "Print TrueType fonts as graphics."
 ElseIf objPrinter.TTOption = 2 Then
 strTTOption = "Download TrueType fonts as soft fonts."
 Else
 strTTOption = "Substitute device fonts for TrueType fonts."
 End If
 Wscript.Echo "True Type Option: " & strTTOption
 Wscript.Echo "Vertical Resolution: " & objPrinter.VerticalResolution
Next